Comments
from the Chair
By Stephanie Mitchem
“What kind of major research
university would not have a
strong department of religious
studies in the 21st century?”
This sarcastic comment came from
one of the noted scholars in the field
of religious studies, one who has
also been a dean and a president,
even as she currently leads into new
arenas of research. During the annual American Academy of Religion,
held in November 2011, I have
many opportunities to discuss with
colleagues and mentors the challenges that I face as chair of this
department. Right now, this department has four (4!) full time faculty
members in addition to myself.
Thanks to the Provost’s faculty replenishment initiative, we are able
to hire one new faculty member in
Buddhism who will begin in 2012.
But this remains the only depart-
Sailing the Aegean Sea
By Kate Morrison
“Happy is the man, I thought, who, before
dying, has the good fortune to sail the
Aegean Sea.”
– Nikos Kazantakis, Zorba the Greek
Happy is the man, or woman, indeed. Growing up, I always wanted to visit Greece. I
remember marveling at pictures of the country’s pristine blue waters, and of all of the
various ruins that have made Greece one of the most popular tourist destinations in
the world. Such a beautiful and marvelous
place filled to brimming with thousands of
years of history. That is why I simply could
not resist the offer to travel abroad with Dr.
Hal French’s Maymester course entitled The
Cultural and Spiritual History of Greece.
As a Religious Studies major, being
able to visit such renowned religious sites as
the Parthenon and the ancient city of Delphi
was a mind-boggling experience. Both of
these sites were religious hubs of the anKate at the temple of Apollo at Delphi
cient world, once teeming with pilgrims
searching for answers and wishing to offer gifts to the gods and goddesses of
Continued on pg. 2
Arts & Humanities Grant
By Kevin Lewis
Thanks to the Provost (his Humanities grants for faculty development), to my Chair
and our Dean (for release time), I’ll be back at Wolfson College, Cambridge, UK, for
the Spring 2012 semester, called by research and writing, again a visiting fellow.
Becky and I find a warm welcome there
and convenient rooms in college – we
love the place. (I’ll miss the Department.)
The writing project is an adventuring
proposal in “experimental hermeneutics.” Diverse previous projects and
training I hope have prepared me sufficiently to carry it off.
But it remains alarmingly interdisciplContinued on pg. 5
Continued on pg. 4
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
2
Sailing the Aegean Sea
continued from page 1
the ancient world. Now modern day pilgrims flock to these sites to marvel at the architecture that has
lasted for over 2,000 years. Our group was also permitted to enter into a number of Greek Orthodox
churches and monasteries where we learned about the various frescos that cover the walls of the
church as well as the icons.
However, as a Christian, I thoroughly enjoyed visiting the many places where the Apostle Paul
stopped along his journeys throughout Greece and Asia Minor. Our first full day in Athens, we visited
Mars Hill, which is located directly next to the Parthenon, and offers quite a lovely view of the city.
Many of us channeled our inner Paul and gave all the glory to God when
we did not slip and fall off of the hill or crack our skulls open (the marble
Icon of Archangel Michael
rock is extremely slippery and a lot of us did not have proper footwear).
Near the end of our venture abroad we were also fortunate enough to be able to visit the ancient
city of Ephesus, which is located outside of the Turkish city of Kusadasi. While many of the sites we
had visited before were crowded, they were nothing in comparison to droves of people we encountered
at Ephesus. It seems that everyone was interested in experiencing all that the ruins had to offer. However, what I found most fascinating about Ephesus is that only 25% of the city has actually been unearthed by archeologists. You could see rubble from collapsed marble structures lying on the ground,
covered in grass and dirt simply waiting to be dug up. Ephesus was truly a site to behold.
Although my travel abroad has come to a close and I am about to embark on a new journey of
my own life (hopefully to seminary), I will never forget the trip that I took with Dr. French to Greece.
Ruins at Corinth
Not only did I meet and make new friends, I was able to witness some of the most spectacular sites that
this world (ancient or modern) has ever had to offer. I only hope that before my time on this world comes to a close, that I will once
again have the chance to sail the Wine Dark Sea.
Religious
Studies
offices are
located in
Rutledge
College,
the oldest building on the
USC campus.
RELIGIOUS STUDIES
is published for colleagues,
alumni, and friends by the
Department of Religious
Studies, College of Arts and
Sciences, University of South
Carolina, Columbia, SC
29208.
Web site:
www.cas.sc.edu/relg
Stephanie Mitchem, Chair
Kevin Lewis,
Managing Editor
Mardi McCabe, Issue Editor
Cathi Snyder, Reporter
Kate Morrison, Reporter
Editor’s Note
By Kevin Lewis
I write this as editor of many earlier print
newsletters for the Department, and this
time from across the Atlantic on ambitious resarch
leave at Cambridge. The long-standing English
Protestant Faculty of “Divinity” here at Cambridge
has been slowly, determinedly evolving into its own
local, but more worldly, religious studies variant
enterprise – a notable change from the nineteensixties, when I “read” for a Cantabridgean degree in
Theology “proper.”
Kevin in Newcastle
Religious Studies as a field discipline evolves in
manifold ways regionally, nationally, and internationally. While no pre-set pattern governs the enterprise, our mission, like that of so many similar
departments is seriously committed to interdisciplinary methods and to exploration of the
world’s great faith traditions increasingly brought into confrontation on the world stage.
We are a Department in robust transition following the capable and intrepid leadership of our
newish Chair, Prof. Stephanie Mitchem, pursuing our mission with only five full-timers but a
diversity of course offerings by talented affiliated colleagues.
Watch as we add a sixth full-timer: a needed appointment in Buddhist studies to be filled for the
fall in coming weeks.
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
3
Guest Lecturers Extended the Department’s Reach
By Katja Vehlow
Our guest lectures seek to link the classroom with the wider world of scholarship. The work of our visiting scholars builds on the
class-room teaching of our faculty and draws in colleagues from other disciplines into dialogue and collaboration with our Religious
Studies faculty and students.
“Peddlers: A New World Jewish History”
“In Her Father's Eyes”
On Thursday, March 3, Professor Hasia Diner from New
York University visited the USC.
An engaging speaker, she told us
about a new project she is perusing
that looks at Jewish history through
peddling, in many areas the first
way by which Jews settled in a new
environment. Her talk, “Peddlers:
A New World Jewish History,”
explored how this very particular
mundane occupation transformed
and shaped Jewish history and the
histories of all the places in which
they settled. Jews, she reminded us,
were "on
the road"
for centuries, selling goods from
packs on their backs and from wagons. Starting at the end of the eighteenth century, peddling provided the
occupational engine which drove
Jewish migrations out of Europe and
the Ottoman Empire and to a series of
"new worlds," from the British Isles
to Australia, America and, of course,
South Carolina.
Professor Diner is a prominent
historian who has written widely
about Jewish and especially American Jewish history. She
recently published a path-breaking work on the memory of the
Holocaust, arguing that Jews began to commemorate the Shoa
(Holocaust) immediately after WWII and even before the end
of the war.
In October, we hosted an exhibition, In Her Father's Eyes: A
Czech Childhood in the Shadow
of the Holocaust that depicts a
moving tale about Jewish life and
a father’s profound love for his
only child. The exhibition is based
on a diary in which Béla Weichherz documented the life of his
only daughter, Katharina
(“Kitty”), in prewar Czechoslovakia. Started as a baby book before her birth in 1929, the journal contains frequent entries
about the ups and downs of Kitty’s childhood, often written
in vivid detail. Weichherz included photographs, developmental charts, and Kitty’s own drawings to enhance the text.
The journal entries stop in early spring 1942, just days before
the family’s deportation to a Nazi death camp. In its final
pages, a recognizable tale of one anonymous life becomes a
heartbreaking story about how anti-Semitism and nationalism in Slovakia shattered this normalcy.
On October 4, Professor Daniel Magilow from the University of Tennessee—Knoxville, who edited
Kitty’s diary and curated this exhibition,
spoke to us about Kitty and compared
her, or rather her father’s diary, with the
far more famous diary of Anne Frank, a
comparison that yielded insight into the
protocols that govern the representation
of children and atrocity and also the
roles family photographs play in constructing memories of traumatic pasts.
He noted how both Anne and now Kitty
lost their distinctive Jewish identity and were universalized
in order to facilitate identification with victims of the Holocaust. The talk was well attended and followed by a small yet
lively reception.
Some of her more recent books are:
We Remember with Reverence and Love: American Jews and the Myth of
Silence after the Holocaust, 1945-1962 (NY: NYU Press, 2009)
The Jews of the United States, 1654 to 2000 (Berkeley, CA:University of
California Press, 2004)
Hungering for America: Italian, Irish and Jewish Foodways in the Age of
Migration (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002)
Her Works Praise Her: A History of Jewish Women in America from Colonial Times to the Present (with Beryl Lieff Benderly) (New York: Basic
Books, 2002)
The Lower East Side Memories: The Jewish Place in America. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press
He is the author, editor, and translator of several books, including
The Photography of Crisis: The Photo Essays of Weimar Germany (The
Pennylvania State University Press, 2012)
Nazisploitation!: The Nazi Image in Low-Brow Culture and Cinema (coedited with Elizabeth Bridges and Kristin T. Vander Lugt, Continuum Books, 2011)
In Her Father's Eyes: A Childhood Extinguished by the Holocaust
(Rutgers University Press, 2008).
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
4
Comments from the Chair
continued from page 1
ment in our college without a graduate program. And of course,
we have fewer faculty than any other. The lack of faculty is not
really the reason for no graduate program here: after all, the
school from which I graduated, Northwestern University, has a
very small religion department faculty, but several strong
strands of graduate programs. Faculty and their departments
everywhere across the country are doing more with less, the
times and the citizens demand greater accountability. But that
same accountability returns the question asked at the conference: “What kind of major research university would not have
a strong department of religious studies in the 21 st century?”
That question has played repeatedly in my head since returning,
perhaps indicating why this woman has been such a leader.
The challenges facing all of us in the future are great, both at
home and abroad. All of the institutions of our lives—from families to education to religion—are being reshaped. There are new
questions being asked about human rights, interfaith dialogues,
religious movements, politics, nationalism, international developments, race, gender, education, the military, spirituality, to
name just a few.
And then there is the old split between religion and science, one
that dates back to the 17th and 18th centuries. Thinkers such as
Spinoza, Locke, and Kant led the West away from religion as a
metaphysical study into a nearly exclusive focus on reason. For
a long time, “real” academic institutions did not talk about religion and spent time talking about science. This approach is inherently flawed, because human beings continued to be religious. In the South, we are
grounded in our religious
lives and the various religious
institutions become bases for
decisions and actions. The
questions from the religion
and science connection as
well as the old split between
reason and religion are too
long to list here, but have
begun with religion and science thinking through the
very question of being human. “What kind of major
research university would not
have a strong department of religious studies in the 21 st century?” Why any university, especially a flagship university for the
state, would not have a strong department is indeed a question
that must be asked.
The members of
this department
are working to
build, in spite of
our small number.
The members of this department are working to build, in spite of
our small number. This year alone, we have accomplished a
great deal. Three of the department members (including one
who accepted a position elsewhere) received research grants
from the Provost’s office. One has received the highest teaching
award—the Mungo—from the University of South Carolina.
The Bernadin lecture was held and a noted speaker filled the
room to capacity, and
thereby connecting community, students, and
faculty. All
the department’s faculty attended
American
Academy of
Religion and
most of us
gave papers,
taking a
prominent
role in our disciplines. Most of us are internationally known
scholars. We bring all our gifts to our students and to our work
in the state of South Carolina. This year, we re-wrote our Mission Statement to reflect who we are: The Department of Religious Studies at University of South Carolina offers interdisciplinary approaches to the academic study of religious beliefs
and practices, through a variety of theories and methods
There are new questions
being asked about human
rights, interfaith dialogues,
religious movements, politics, nationalism, international developments, race,
gender, education, the military, spirituality . . .
In 2010, the founder of the Department of Religious Studies, Dr.
Lawrence Brubaker, passed. From 1949 to 1980 when he retired, he led the University in the development of studying religion as an academic critical area. But the current department is
not the department of the past nor should it be. After all, our
students are not the same, more likely to listen to Lady Antebellum and Lady Gaga than the Kinks and Deep Purple. Like the
rest of society, religion and its study have changed. The faculty
and our areas of study have changed, most of us did not know
Dr. Brubaker. But his and other scholars’ influence continues as
we remain grounded in religion as an academic discipline.
“What kind of major research university would not have a
strong department of religious studies in the 21st century?”
The Department of Religious Studies looks forward to becoming
all that the state and the University of South Carolina expect of
us.
Our students deserve no less.
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
5
Arts & Humanities Grant
continued from page 1
nary. I must guard against over-reaching my limitations as I press
forward critcally and creatively.
I want to suggest the usefulness of a seriously “playful” approach
to interpreting not only passages from Scripture but the
“confessional” language of creed, prayer, and liturgy, as well –
taking into account recent postmodern theories of all written language as fundamentally problematic, in effect, mischievous. Can
you say Derrida? -- “undecidable.”
Historical criticism of the Bible has shown how difficult it can be
to discern precisely the original (let alone the Divine) meaning of
biblical texts. Confessional language
founded upon scripture can be regarded, consequently, I suggest, as
problematic in different but related
ways. The “linguistic turn” in theoretical linguistics, if we heed its consequences, would seem to draw a
useful new kind of attention to this
property of historical religious language generally.
Add this. Theologically, as a former
student of Paul Tillich, and critically,
as a student of the demonic-engaging
poetries of William Blake and W.H. Auden respectively, I will
factor into my hermeneutic (my theory of interpretation) a reworked sense of the demonic, expressed traditionally, of course,
in the figure of our “Adversary,” the “deceiving” Devil, structurally (as Tillich would put it) at play against the divine.
Misused religious language/rhetoric does make mischief. The
reflective “believer” who makes needful use of it might find profit in a hermeneutic urging him or her conscientiously (and by the
assuring “grace of God”) to “game” that language. And to do so
for the sake of the divine, in awareness of threat from the demonic gaming us from within it, ever putting at risk our creaturely
access to the transcendent divine.
Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein, even Richard Rorty may well help
this project along. Reader, play me a prayer of support.
Interfaith Collaborative
Agreement Initiated
By Cathi Snyder
In June of 2011, the Department of Religious Studies signed
a Memorandum of Agreement with Interfaith Partners of
South Carolina (IPSC) to form a working relationship in
order to promote and advance religious literacy, interfaith
dialogue, and mutual respect among communities of diverse
religious and cultural perspectives.
Carl Evans, retired professor of Old Testament studies and
former Chair of our department, has continued, in his retirement, to pursue one of his deepest passions, interfaith dialogue. He is one of the founding
members of IPSC, along with a
number of long time friends and
colleagues in the extended interfaith
community.
Interfaith Partners of South Carolina
is a broad organization of religious
groups across the state focused on
fostering understanding and cooperation among communities of different religious traditions.
Their purpose is to promote greater understanding of the
commonalities that are shared by all and advocate for respect
and appreciation of the distinctions between them.
IPSC is working to develop a
relationship of
trust and interreligious dialogue among
different groups
of faith across
the state. Ten religious groups are represented in the partnership: Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Paganism, Sikhism,
Unitarian Universalist, Christianity, Islam, Native Americans, and the Baha’i. Religious Studies departments at Furman and Claflin are also involved with IPSC, and the organization has also established a working relationship with the
Interfaith Youth Core at the
Transition Center.
A recent event was “A Gathering of Faiths” where representatives from the ten sponsoring
religious groups each set up a
tent in a miniature “village.”
Ethnic traditions and foods,
education, history, and other
cultural offerings were shared
with the many families and individuals who attended the
event.
To learn more about IPSC you can contact Dr. Carl Evans or
one of the other members or advisors listed on their website:
www.interfaithpartnersofsc.org .
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
6
Bernardin Lecture Brought E.J.Dionne to USC Campus
By Mardi McCabe
The Joseph Cardinal Bernardin lecture in moral, ethical and
religious studies was held November 1, 2011. The guest
speaker was noted international
journalist, E.J.Dionne, Senior
fellow at the Brookings Institution and syndicated columnist
for the Washington Post.
E.J. knew the Cardinal personally and shaped his talk, "Reweaving the Seamless Garment:
Cardinal Bernardin's Living Legacy to American Public
Life," around significant lessons drawn from the life story of
Cardinal Bernardin. The Cardinal, he said,
was a giant to many of us who are Catholic and
have lived through the turbulent times in the
Church and in our country when he did his important work. He is a proud son of South Carolina, and it is so good of this university to embrace
him. Catholics were a small minority in this state
when Joseph Bernardin was young, and one suspects this helped shape his lifelong efforts to
seek Common Ground, both in the church and in
our country. Growing up as part of a minority
can do two things simultaneously, I think. It can
lead to a fierce loyalty toward your brothers and
sisters within your sometimes beleaguered band.
And it can teach the value of tolerance and open-
ness toward those who are left out. No one appreciates the rights of minorities more than those
who, in one way or another, found themselves in
the minority. It can teach the importance of
reaching out to those who are excluded and marginalized and powerless.
The audience, which filled the Capstone Campus
Room on the USC campus, seemed to thoroughly
enjoy Dionne’s engaging style and his thoughtful
discussion of the Cardinal’s deep spirituality, which
would meet people in the real places in which they
lived their lives.
The following helped to co-sponsor this event:
College of Mass Communications and Information Studies
President Pastides' Civil Discourse Initiative Samuel Tenenbaum and the Tenenbaum Lectureship Fund
To see photos and text of Dionne’s talk, go to the website:
http://www.cas.sc.edu/relg/department/specialevents/bernardinarchives/
bernardin2011.html .
Re-visioning the Mission
This year, as we worked to re-build the department, the Chair and faculty got together in a series of workshops to re-imagine and re-construct
the department’s mission statement. Religious Studies is a very diverse field with a wide-ranging spectrum of scholarship. The mission statement needed to be broad enough to encompass the variety while succinct enough to clearly state the department’s shared goal.
The mission statement that came out of these discussions stresses the focus of the department on the interdisciplinary and academic study of
religion. It provides scope for the scholarship of each of the faculty to fit comfortably within it, expressing the mission in the context of their
own areas of study and research. Dr. Mitchem says, “As a scholar, I work across disciplines in order to study how religion works in people’s
lives.”
Kevin Lewis commented that
From the perspective of my sub-field, Arts, Literature, and Religion, I would strongly affirm the use of the term
“interdisciplinary.” I would apply it not only to the Department as a whole – we each are trained in related but different
ways to offer the courses we contribute to the Department – but to myself. My own professional training, pointedly interdisciplinary, has boldly encouraged personal freedom to teach and write combining methods of traditionally separated disciplines, where appropriate, on my own.
Katja Vehlow’s work intersects with women’s and gender studies and history; Erin Roberts’ areas of research have connections with the disciplines of philosophy and classics. James Cutsinger’s research, like Kevin Lewis’s work, engages a strong interactive relationship to the academic study of literature and cultures.
Together with the new faculty who will join us in the coming years we will pursue excellence in our shared mission.
Mission Statement
The Department of Religious Studies at the University of South Carolina offers interdisciplinary approaches to the academic study of religious beliefs and practices, through a variety of theories and methods
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
7
Faculty Shorts
James Cutsinger
In May Dr. Cutsinger once again took a
class to St. Anthony’s Orthodox Monastery in Arizona as part of his Maymester
course, “Mysteries of the Christian East”.
In August, as the Mungo Professor, he
gave the keynote address at USC’s New
Student Convocation, and in October he
delivered the Frederick Sheffer Memorial
Lecture at Colorado College on the topic
“Worded Light, Illumined Word: Patterns
of the Glory”. The lecture marked the
opening of an exhibit of prints from The
Saint John’s Bible, the first fully handwritten, illuminated, monumental Bible
to be commissioned since the invention
of the printing press.
Dr. Cutsinger recently completed his
most ambitious Schuon project to date:
Splendor of the True: A Frithjof Schuon
Reader. With chapters culled from Schuon’s twenty-three books and representing
the full range of his work, this new anthology features a fresh translation and
extensive editor’s notes, samples of
Schuon’s poetry and artwork, and letters
and other previously unpublished materials. Splendor of the True is currently in
production with SUNY Press.
Kevin Lewis
Kevin Lewis is frequently asked
by various news
outlets for commentary on current
societal issues. This
spring a local Columbia station interviewed him
about his
perceptions of the
impact that the murder of Osama Bin
Laden would have on world cultures and
Americans in particular.
Kevin has had a number of interviews and talks on the topic of his latest
book: “Lonesome: The Spiritual Meaning
of American Solitude.” Jack Kuenzie,
with WIS TV, did a video interview with
him, and he was invited to participate in a
panel discussion of his book and of the
work of Edward Hopper at the South
Carolina Book Fair, held in May of 2011.
Kevin was on a Talkback panel at
the NIckelodean art film theater in June
2011 for the film "I Am." This nonfiction film poses two practical and provocative questions: What’s wrong with
our world, and what can we do to make it
better? Featuring an array of interviews
with a variety of thinkers and doers, the
film challenges preconceptions about
human behavior while simultaneously
celebrating the indomitable human spirit.
Kevin was a responder to the film along
with Jemme Stewart, of the Carolina Psychotherapy Center and City Yoga, and
Agnes Norfleet from Shandon Presbyterian Church.
Stephanie Mitchem
Stephanie’s work as Chair has consumed
a great deal of her time, especially as we
work to rebuild the department. However, she still
managed to
submit four
essays for publication and is
working on her
next book. She
is serving as co
-chair of the Religion, Medicine, and
Healing section of the American Academy of Religion, and was invited to present a paper , “Religious Intimacies,” in
June 2011 at the Conference on Gender,
Religion, and Human Rights in
Linkoping, Sweden. She is preparing
her most recent essay, on American politics and religion, for submission; and the
essay, “Black American Women and the
Gift of Embodied Spirituality” has been
accepted for publication. Her articles,
“To Make the World Home: Rosemary
Radford Ruether and Ecofeminist Theology” and “Pluralism in African American
Religious Life” have been accepted for
inclusion in forthcoming volumes from
Oxford University Press.
Erin Roberts
Erin Roberts worked with the history
department in November developing a
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
conference on “Constructing Christianity,” and has been working with other
religious studies faculty developing the
first annual Religious Studies department
lectureship and workshop seminar, which
will be held in February
of 2012.
At the annual conference of the Society of
Biblical literature she
was invited by the Redescribing Christian
Origins work group to give a talk. The
paper was called: “Cognitive Aspects of
Social Practice in Matthew’s Gospel.”
She has also been invited for a lecture at
Columbia University’s Center for the
Ancient Mediterranean at the end of January where she will present a paper:
“Constructing a Christian Concept of
Sin.”
In May of 2011, Dr. Roberts advised
an honors student who won 1st place in
the Humanities division at Discovery
Day for her thesis presentation. Roberts
is currently teaching a newly developed
religious studies course called
“Imagining Jesus from Antiquity to the
Present,” and is also teaching a course for
USC’s philosophy department on Hellenistic Philosophy.
Katja Vehlow
Katja Vehlow had quite a busy 2011. In
April, she attended a conference in Pheonix, Arizona for the Medieval Academy.
A few months later, in June, shevisited
the Jewish Theological Seminary in New
York for research purposes. The following month she was in Israel, continuing
her research at the
National Library in
Jerusalem.
Her book
Dorot Olam
[Generations of the
Ages: Critical Edition and Translation of Abraham Ibn
Daud World Chronical] has been completed and is currently awaiting publication. Dr. Vehlow has begun research for
her new book which will be explore hermaphrodites in Medieval Hebrew Texts.
8
James Cutsinger: Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor of the Year
By Mardi McCabe
Excerpts From Talk at Award Ceremony
You have to admit: There’s something a little ridiculous about getting an award
just for enjoying yourself, but that’s precisely the situation when someone loves
his profession as much as I do. I’m sure the other honorees in the room understand what I’m saying. . . .
It’s impossible for me to speak on an occasion like this without mentioning the
greatest of my own undergraduate mentors, a classicist by the name of John M.
Crossett. As many of my students know, whenever the subject of good teaching
arises, I’m quick to pay homage to Crossett. . . .
James Cutsinger has received the Michael J. Mungo Undergraduate Teaching
Award a number of times in his teaching
career. But in 2011 he was named the
Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor of the Year, USC’s most prestigious
award.
This award is given annually to an outstanding teacher for excellence in teaching in undergraduate courses. A selection committee composed of undergraduates and former winners of the award
evaluates the nominations and determines the list of finalists. Members of
the selection committee visit the finalists' classes, interview the finalists and
the finalists' colleagues, and poll the
students in the finalists' classes.
Dr. Cutsinger was joined by family, students, and colleagues to receive the
award at the faculty awards ceremony,
April 27, 2011 in the Program Room of
the Hollings Library on the Columbia
campus.
As the Michael J. Mungo Distinguished
Professor of the Year, Dr. Cutsinger was
invited to give the Convocation address
to incoming students in August 2011.
This spring the Center for Teaching Excellence asked him to be the speaker at a
Power Lunch for teaching faculty, where
he will lead an interactive lecture on
“The Socratic Method and Critical
Thinking.”
I’m no Crossett, let alone a Socrates, but I do try to follow their examples by
approaching my own classes Socratically. If any of you have ever tried your
hand at this pedagogy, you know perfectly well that success, if and when it
comes, is due just as much to the students as it is to the professor. Dialectic is
an intellectual dance, after all, and it takes two—or I should say at least two—
to tango. With that fact in mind, I’m obliged, and more than obliged I’m delighted, to be able to express my heartfelt thanks to the young people who have
been showing up in my classes over the last three decades, several of whom are
with us this afternoon. Thank you very much for your friendship and encouragement, but above all for your insights and your passion for truth.
Excerpts From Talk at Convocation
emollit mores nec sinit esse feros
As you’ve no doubt guessed, these words are the University’s motto, and they
can be rendered into English in a variety of ways: “It refines the manners and
corrects their harshness.” “It improves our character and keeps us from cruelty.”
Or (my personal favorite): “It softens the heart and curbs the wild desires.” I
realize the motto on its own, at least in these translations, may not sound too
inspiring. Someone has quipped that a lobotomy might also improve your character and keep you from cruelty! While it’s difficult not to smile at such satire,
the images on the seal are proof something rather different is at stake.
What we see are two human figures: Wisdom, represented by the goddess Minerva on the right, and Liberty, the figure on the left. And they’re holding hands,
indicating some sort of union between them. Meanwhile Liberty’s other hand is
raised toward the sky, and there’s an eagle soaring overhead. Together these are
indisputable clues that the liberating education here depicted is meant to lift us
above, not lower us beneath, our previous capacities, assumptions, and expectations. In light of this symbolism, a less literal but more telling paraphrase of the
motto might be: “It gives us the inward freedom and strength not to be distracted or discouraged by the inevitable struggles and challenges of life”; or perhaps:
“It focuses our otherwise volatile and scattered thoughts, giving us wings to rise
above ourselves, and helping us realize the full potential of the human mind and
heart”. This, in short, is the promise of a Carolina education. . . .
I realize we often talk about “receiving” an education, but that’s actually a very
misleading expression. On the contrary, a good education is something you must
reach out and grasp, go out and confront, and seize for yourselves
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
9
Professor Roberts invited to Columbia
University Workshop and lecture
By Erin Roberts
Erin Roberts attended a residential research workshop at
Columbia University from May 23rd to June 10th, 2011. The
workshop, “Psychology for Ancient and Medieval Historians”
was for historians specializing in any field from archaic Greece to
approximately 1400 CE. The workshop was funded by the
Mellon Foundation and organized by W.V. Harris and the History Department at Columbia. The small research group included
14 participants, representing Canada, Japan, Germany, Poland,
Italy, The UK, and the US.
The workshop was timely, given that ancient and medieval historians, like many others, have been turning in recent years
to topics that involve emotions and psychological predispositions.
The workshop was targeted toward young scholars working on
such matters as crowd behavior, the nature of the self, mental
health, depression, revenge, friendship, shame, criminality, religious conversion, or any emotion.
Midnight viewing of city.
The group convened each morning
to discuss various topics related to
psychology and history, including
ancient theory of the mind and emotions, mental illness, depictions of
the passions in art, literature, religion, and theology. Participants
spent the afternoons doing library
research or collaborating together
on research topics of mutual interest.
During the time there, Erin was able
to discuss aspects of her dissertation, Anger, Emotion and Desire in
the Gospel of Matthew, with the team and received valuable feedback about revising it for publication as a book.
Donut Plant donuts
Erin speaking at the Workshop.
Of course three weeks in New York also included several fun outings. Some of the highlights were being atop the Empire
State Building at night, scrutinizing every item on display at the
Pierpoint Morgan Library, taking a double-decker bus tour in the
rain, eating Ethiopian food several times a week, seeing the New
York Public Library reading room, drinking freshly brewed espresso, and visiting the world-famous Donut Plant.
Erin has been invited to give a talk at Columbia’s Center
for the Ancient Mediterranean on January 27, 2012. Her presentation, “Constructing a Christian Concept of Sin," showcases her
most recent research concerning the peculiar translation practices
of New Testament scholars.
The double decker bus tour, just before rain begins.
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
10
100 Hours of Interfaith
Service Project
By Kate Morrison
International Association for Religious
Freedom
By Cathi Snyder
On October 7th, 2010, Eboo Patel, executive director of the Interfaith Youth Core (IYC) and member of President Obama’s Advisory Council of the White House Office of Faith-based and
Neighborhood Partnerships visited and lectured at USC on the
importance of interfaith relationships. Patel’s visit sparked an
interest in interfaith work that sophomore student, Axton Crolley,
has been working to promote across
the entire USC campus.
Throughout 2011 and now into 2012,
Axton has been working with the University exploring opportunities for
interfaith service at both the university
and throughout the greater Columbia
area. The drive towards a service oriented program stems from President
Barack Obama’s 100 Hours of Interfaith Service Challenge.
The goal of the service challenge is
for each person involved in the group
to complete 100 hours of service in the
community, usually completed in a
larger group that includes numerous
religious traditions. At USC, the InAxton Crolley at the
terfaith Service Group has been particColumbia Leadership
ipating in the university sponsored
Service Saturdays and other days of service, as well as with the
local food provided Food Not Bombs. Crolley is currently looking to build relationships with the local Habitat for Humanity and
Harvest Hope organizations in order to provide more service opportunities.
Overall, Crolley wants to make interfaith dialogue a much larger
discussion and hopes to create an environment where religion can
be talked about in a non-confrontational way. If you would like
to learn more about USC’s chapter of the 100 Hours of Interfaith
Service Challenge or get involved, please contact Axton Crolley
at [email protected]. You may also find more information
at the chapter Facebook page.
Hal French, who still teaches for the department as well
as for USC’s South Carolina
Honors College, is the current
Chair of the U.S. Chapter of the
International Association for
Religious Freedom (IARF).
The IARF was founded in 1900
and focuses on promoting social
justice and interfaith dialogue. The organization was the
first international inter-religious association in the world.
There are more than 75 affiliated member groups across
25 countries. The participating groups include: Buddhists,
Christians, Hindi, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, and Sikh.
The purpose of the IARF is to work for freedom of religion and belief, as well as the broader goals of social justice, freedom
from oppression and discrimination on
the basis of
religion or
beliefs by local, state, federal, and international agencies and governments. The IARF also works to foster mutual understanding and respect between communities and individuals from diverse beliefs and backgrounds. Finally, the
organization strives to have each participating group hold
itself accountable for upholding the fundamental dignity
of its own and other IARF members.
The IARF hosts a conference for members every two
years. The next will be in Hilton Head, South Carolina
February 3-5, 2012. The theme for this conference is,
“Faith, Interfaith, and Freedom: Hearing the Voices.”
USC students with
the 100 hours of
interfaith service
project participate
in a day of feeding
the homeless in
Columbia.
US Chapter
group and
Canadian IARF
members.
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012
11
First Annual Religious Studies Lecture and Workshop
By Mardi McCabe
Erin Roberts, along with Katja Vehlow, began organizing a new lecture this year. The first annual Religious Studies Lecture and Workshop was inaugurated as a forum for presenting the many
aspects of this diverse discipline. This year Erin arranged for William V. Harris, the William R.
Shepherd Professor of History at Columbia University to be the guest speaker. Author of such
books as: Dreams and Experience in Classical Antiquity (2009) and The Spread of Christianity in
the First Four Centuries (2005), Dr. Harris will be speaking on the topic of "Greek and Roman
Hallucinations Between Religion and Literature."
The lecture, which will be held February 9, 2012, will be followed the next day with a workshop
intended to provide a second opportunity for dialogue in a seminar-style discussion with the
guest speaker. This session aims to provide students with the opportunity for discussion of other
topics related to the previous evening’s lecture. The topic of the workshop will be: "Madness in
Greco-Roman Antiquity.”
Information on the lecture and workshop can be found on our website at:
http://www.cas.sc.edu/relg/department/specialevents/rslecture.html
Working in the Trenches at the Department of Religious Studies
By Catherine Snyder
I entered into the realm of the Department
of Religious Studies in a most fortuitous
fashion. As a non-traditional student coming back to school to finish my PhD, I had
little knowledge of how to secure financial
support through a University assistantship.
So, I started in what I thought was the
most obvious place, the Graduate School. I
contacted staff at the Graduate School to
inquire about how to secure an assistantship since the degree program I was
pursuing did not have any support opportunities available. Fate or “Karma” presented
itself in response to this inquiry. As I began jotting down a list of assistantship
application procedures, the staff member
on the other end of the phone started with
an aside. “Well you know, I just received a
call from the Department of Religious
Studies today. They are looking for a graduate assistant for this spring semester. Why
don’t you contact them to find out more?”
Well that was over a year ago,
and oh what I have learned! Coming into
the Department as a PhD candidate in Educational Research and Measurement
(i.e., statistics) definitely presented some
challenges. Thankfully, the staff and faculty were very understanding and eager to
teach me everything I would possibly need
to know in order to serve as an indispensible aide. I learned how to scan documents
to create PDF files and make copies on a
high tech machine that baffled even seasoned staff
members. I
proctored classes for tests and
helped with
audio-visual
equipment and
presentations on
numerous occasions. I’ve served as a substitute lecturer when the need arose, graded
a number of homework assignments, and
spent countless hours shredding documents
and running errands all over campus.
Odds are if you ask me where any building
is, I will be able to tell you by the end of
this semester! I have also had the distinct
pleasure of meeting staff and faculty from
all different colleges, centers, and departments. I have really enjoyed these opportunities!
Then I guess it was that I found
my niche. I became the resident “guru”
with Blackboard. I took all the training I
could find so I could learn how to do just
about everything through this online learning/classroom management system. I posted course documents and readings, and
managed the grade book and
discussion board postings. I created quizzes and exams for numerous classes and posted them
for on-line administration. Then
I served as the eternal troubleshooter both for students and for
faculty. It would get pretty heated when students were thrown
off-line in the middle of an exam, but I was quickly able to
assist and get them through to the bitter
end.
As I look forward, I can only
wonder at the vast diversity of experiences
awaiting me in the Department of Religious Studies. Being the only graduate
assistant for this department is always full
of exciting adventures. But I don’t have
time to sit and ponder about what each
new day might bring; someone needs me
somewhere doing something right now!
Department of Religious Studies Newsletter Spring 2012