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DEPARTMENT of RELIGION NEWSLETTER a Note from the Chair Professor Kevin Trainor NEW MESSAGE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT Spring, 2011 DEPARTMENT OF RELIGION NEWSLETTER A Note from the Chair Professor Kevin Trainor Greetings from 481 Main Street, and welcome to our annual newsletter. As you will see in the pages that follow, Religion faculty and students have had another very busy year. Department faculty traveled to Canada, Nigeria, India, Sri Lanka, Singapore, the UK, Germany, France, the Czech Republic, South Africa, and Egypt, as well as numerous locations throughout the U.S., while pursuing their diverse research interests. And our senior majors this year undertook an ambitious set of research topics in the context of the department’s Senior Seminar (REL201), many of them focused on aspects of American religion. The department also sponsored several campus lectures, including talks by international scholars from Nigeria and Japan. For this year’s newsletter we have significantly expanded our outreach to department alums, and Department of Religion have included brief reports from ten Religion majors 481 Main St. Burlington, VT 05405 who graduated from UVM over the past forty years, http://www.uvm.edu/~religion beginning with two 1971 graduates. Their stories [email protected] provide a fascinating set of answers to that eternal question, frequently on the lips of the parents of our majors, “What can you do with a Religion major?” While it comes as no surprise that our graduates have gone on to do fulfilling and valuable work, it is nevertheless quite informative and inspiring to know some of the particulars, and to learn IN THIS ISSUE how Religion courses and faculty mentoring have Faculty News…………………..2 contributed to that work. The department continues to explore ways to further the dialogue between Events & Lectures……………..5 current Religion students and our graduates, and we Student News………………......6 welcome your suggestions for how we might go about Alumni News…………….…….8 this more effectively. In the meantime, we’re always happy to hear from our graduates, whether by e-mail or in person, and we encourage any of you who are in the neighborhood of 481 Main to drop by and say hello. 12 UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT Spring, 2011 Faculty News Erica Andrus entitled “Monastic Labor: Thinking about the Work of Monks in Contemporary Theravada Communities” In August 2010 Professor Andrus presented a paper appeared in March 2011 in the Journal of the American entitled “Battlestar Galactica: Monotheism and the Academy of Religion. The Debunking of the Clash of second article, “The Civilizations in American Abbot’s New House: Popular Culture” at the Professors at Work Thinking about how International Association Religion Works among for the History of Buddhists and Minorities Religions Congress in in Contemporary China,” Toronto, Ontario. During appeared in the Journal of the Spring 2011 semester Church and State. Professor she taught a course Borchert organized an entitled “Religion, Film, international conference on and Television in the US.” Theravada Buddhism She is also developing a under Colonialism while in service-learning outreach Singapore, which included program for local participants from eight educators who are different countries. During interested in learning the Spring 2011 semester about how to talk about he taught a new seminar religion in public schools on religion and This will be part of her Top: Prof. Brennan with Nigerian gospel musician nationalism. He has also “Religion in America” Yinka Ayefele. Bottom: Yinka Ayefele performs with his been busy assisting his course during Fall band at a burial party in Iseyin, Nigeria. kids with their semester 2011. Students preparations to attend the will collaborate on Odyssey of the Mind providing elementary and world competition over secondary school teachers Memorial Day Weekend with a variety of 2011. resources for teaching about religion, and also Vicki Brennan organize workshops for educators about how to During the summer of 2010 facilitate classroom Professor Brennan spent discussions about six weeks in Nigeria religious pluralism in conducting research with America. She and her gospel musicians and husband Erik continue gospel music fans for her operations of Boundbrook new research project on Farm and are currently gospel music and Christian researching two new initiatives: the viability of publics in Nigeria. She also completed interviews with growing rice in Vermont as well as the possibility of church musicians, choir members, and songwriters to producing sugar from beets on the farm for sale. supplement her research for her book project, Singing the Same Song: Music, Religion and Civil Society in Thomas Borchert Nigeria. In May 2010 she presented a paper entitled “To Professor Borchert published two articles related to God be the Glory: Gospel Music and Public his research on Theravada Buddhism. The first, Christianity in Lagos” at the University of Birmingham 2 43 UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT Spring, 2011 examine the magnificent 13th-century manuscript of the Faculty News Liber Divinorum Operum. In November, she also (continued) presented a conference paper in Germany on the usefulness of the category of “attraction” for the (UK) Centre of West African Studies’ Cadbury analysis of religion. This paper, “Connecting Conference. In April 2011 she was invited to speak at Transcendent Attraction and Attractive Objects: The the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Case of Elisabeth of Schönau,” analyzed the role of Virginia as part of their 30th Anniversary Symposium. monastic musical ritual in constructing attraction to Professor Brennan God. Last summer, she continues to teach her spent five weeks in Sri popular course on “Sacred Professors at Work Lanka and south India Sounds” and during the with Kevin and their son Spring 2011 semester she Andrew. Since she had taught the Religion just revised her Department’s Senior Christianity survey course Seminar for the first time. to include the early development of Anne Clark Christianity in India, her travel in Kerala was Professor Clark has been especially exciting. She on sabbatical for this also ended the summer as academic year. Most of a participant in a three-day her research time has been faculty seminar on devoted to her new work neuroscience sponsored by on Dante, which began as the UVM Honors College, a result of her Top: Prof. Martin presents his research at the which was a great participation in a summer Bibliotheca Alexandrina. Bottom: Exterior view of the opportunity for non- seminar on Dante in Bibliotheca. scientists to learn about Tuscany in 2009. This recent developments in new direction in her neuroscience and consider research bore fruit in a how these perspectives conference paper might enable new insights comparing the visionary in their own fields. prophecy of Dante and Hildegard of Bingen, a Cuong Mai twelfth-century nun whose visionary Professor Mai received a experience was the basis grant from the American for her wide-ranging Academy of Religion to religious, scientific, and conduct archival research artistic works. Since this at the Han Nom Institute conference, Anne has in Hanoi, Vietnam in expanded and revised the paper, “Teaching Dante as summer 2011. He will focus on medieval Chinese and Visionary Prophet,” and it has been accepted for Vietnamese manuscripts related to the worship of the publication in the journal Pedagogy. Another strand of Vietnamese Buddhist goddess Quan Am (Guanyin, or her multi-threaded project is focused on the 13th- Avalokiteshvara). Related to this, he will be offering a century reception of Hildegard’s works, particularly new upper-level course in fall 2011 entitled, "Women in the fate of Hildegard’s last visionary work, the Liber Chinese Religions," which will focus on women's Divinorum Operum (Book of the Ways of God). She has religious experiences, practices, and literary written a brief article on this text, and she will be expressions that pertain especially to the worship of returning to the Tuscan city of Lucca in June to 3 65 UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT Spring, 2011 Faculty News, the new Library of Alexandria, Egypt—where he (continued) continued his interest in Mithraism with a paper on “The (Surprising Absence of a) Mithras Cult in goddesses, spiritual cultivation traditions, and the Roman Egypt.” In September, he will give two practice of domestic rites in the Confucian, Daoist, presentations in Budapest at the annual meeting of Buddhist, and popular religious traditions of the European Association for the Study of ancient and medieval China. Professor Mai will Religion—but only *one* of these will deal with also present research papers at the Pure Land Mithraism! In the meantime, he is anxiously Studies Conference at awaiting the oft- Otani University in postponed publication of Kyoto, Japan in summer Professors at Work his volume Past Minds: 2011, and the American Studies in Cognitive Academy of Religion Historiography, which he conference in San co-edited with Jesper Francisco in fall 2011. In Sørensen, now scheduled recognition of his for June. excellence in the classroom, Professor Richard Sugarman Mai was awarded the 2011 Kroepsch-Maurice In 2010 Professor Teaching Award. Sugarman gave a talk entitled "The Scandal of Luther Martin Heidegger and Levinas' Rehabilitation of After returning to Continental Philosophy" Vermont in late for the David Blitzer Top: Prof. Trainor & Prof. Clark outside of a temple in December after a Memorial series at the semester teaching at Colombo, Sri Lanka. Bottom: At the “Cave of the Midday Rest” Buddhist pilgrimage site. Institute for Jewish Masaryk University, Heritage at SUNY Czech Republic, Buffalo. He also traveled Professor Martin to Toulouse, France to accepted an invitation to give the plenary lecture participate in a entitled "The End of workshop in January on Theodicy: The Thought “The Ecology of Threat of Levinas in the Detection”, sponsored Aftermath of the by the University of Holocaust" at the South Africa and held at Conference on the Jewish Tilodi game park (north Thought of Emmanuel of Johannesburg).
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