Penn State Religious Studies

NEWS – Penn State Abington’s Assistant Professor, Aarti Patel

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Religious Studies is proud to share this new addition to our Commonwealth faculty!

Penn State Abington is pleased to welcome Aarti Patel as assistant professor in Fall 2023. She is currently finishing her Ph.D. at Syracuse University, focusing on modes of Hindu worship in the North American diaspora through the lenses of space and place, immigration, and politics. She will be teaching courses to support Abington’s minors in Religious Studies and Asian Studies, as well as the newly created major in Race and Ethnic Studies. Her current research focuses on domestic worship. Aarti has studied Sanskrit, Hindi, and Gujarati.

To learn more about her, please take a look at her bio!

NEWS – The Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum Summer Research Institute

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Religious Studies would like to share this exciting research opportunity happening this summer!

The Digital Islamic Studies Curriculum is offering a 7-day fully funded academic program hosted on the University of Michigan’s campus that offers undergraduate students at the Big Ten Academic Alliance a unique opportunity to develop and advance their knowledge and research skills in the field of Islamic Studies.
To learn more, read the flyer below! We strongly encourage you to apply if you are interested; the link to apply is here: DISC Summer Research Institution Application

April 7 – “Phoenician Religious Iconography and Its Adaptations: Resilience and Innovation in Ancient Mediterranean Religions”

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Religious Studies would like to invite you to the next talk in the Penn State Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies department lecture series, “Material Religion,” which we are co-sponsoring!

Dr. Carolina López-Ruiz of the University of Chicago will give a public lecture titled, “Phoenician Religious Iconography and Its Adaptations: Resilience and Innovation in Ancient Mediterranean Religions,” to be held on April 7 at 4-5:15 pm in 102 Weaver Building.

Please see the attached flyer for more information. Light refreshments will be provided!

This talk may also be attended remotely via Zoom. To register in advance, please follow this link:
https://psu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUrceyuqDouE9LJxART-AI0rT7KtbSrRXeC

We hope to see you there!

The lecture is also co-sponsored by the Department of Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies, the Department of Anthropology, and the Department of Art History.

We hope to see you there!

March 30-31: Byzantine Scholar Roland Betancourt’s visit to Penn State

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Religious Studies is excited to co-sponsor the renowned Byzantine scholar Roland Betancourt’s visit to Penn State next week!

Dr. Betancourt will present his talk, “Byzantine Camp Aesthetics and Queer Approaches to Antiquity in Byzantium,” on Thursday, March 30 at 6:00 pm in Animal, Veterinary, and Biomedical Sciences Building Room 102.

Dr. Betancourt will also be offering a graduate student workshop, “Publishing Premodern Research: An Academic and Editorial Perspective” on Friday, March 31 at 1:00 pm in Willard 335. This workshop is open to all graduate students in the College of Liberal Arts. 

We hope you are able to make it!

Beginning March 16 – Seminar Series on Russia’s War in Ukraine

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Religious Studies is proud to promote the Seminar Series on Russia’s War in Ukraine!

The first talk will be held on Thursday, March 16, 2023. 4:30 pm in 157 Burrowes Building. Dr. Kizenko and Dr. Bremer will be presenting, “Ukrainian Orthodoxy Updated: Challenges and Promises Ahead.”

Based on the findings of their new book, Orthodoxy in Two Manifestations?: The Conflict in Ukraine as Expression of a Fault Line in World Orthodoxy, the authors detail what lies ahead in the religious proxy war in this strategically important part of the world.

Nadia Kizenko, Professor of History, University of Albany
Thomas Bremer, Professor of Theology, Universität Münster

*  *  * 

Please put these upcoming talks on your calendars!

“Reflections on Religion and Practices of Peacebuilding during War in Ukraine”  

Tetiana Kalenychenko, European Center for Strategic Analytics, Kyiv, Ukraine

Thursday, April 13 1:30pm EDT

Zoom:  https://psu.zoom.us/j/3257831800

*  *  * 

“How atheist propaganda contradicted patriotic upbringing: Orthodox churches in late-Soviet Kyiv” 

Andriy Fert, Kyiv Mohyla Academy

Friday, April 20, 2023 1pm EDT

Zoom: https://psu.zoom.us/j/3257831800

March 17 – “The Medinet Madi Library of Manichaean Codices: New Sources for the Global History of Religions”

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The Religious Studies minor is co-sponsoring a talk within the CAMS lecture series, “Material Religion.” To learn more, read below!

We’re pleased to invite you to the next talk in the Penn State Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies department lecture series, “Material Religion.”

Dr. Paul Dilley of the University of Iowa will give a public lecture titled, “The Medinet Madi Library of Manichaean Codices: New Sources for the Global History of Religions,” on Friday, March 17, 4-5:15 pm in 121 Borland Building. Please see the attached flyer for more information.

Light refreshments will be provided.

This talk may also be attended remotely via Zoom. To register in
advance, please follow this link:

https://psu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIpf-muqDIuHtDmygxU7k595xwqbY3xZicR

We hope to see you there!

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies and the Religious Studies Minor at Penn State.

March 16 – “Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in 18th Century South Asia”

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Religious Studies is proud to be co-sponsoring SASSS’s upcoming event!

Join us this Thursday, March 16th, 3:30-5 pm in 124 Sparks for Dr. Divya Cherian on “Merchants of Virtue: Hindus, Muslims, and Untouchables in 18th Century South Asia.” Chai and samosas will be served. All students, faculty, staff, and community members are welcome!

February 28 – 2023 Harshbarger Lecture!

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Please join us in giving a warm welcome to Dr. Melissa Wilde, our Harshbarger Lecturer for 2023!

Dr. Wilde will be visiting Happy Valley on February 28, 2023, to take part in a book club discussion at 10 a.m. before delivering her lecture at 4 p.m. Both events are in 102 Weaver and on Zoom (https://psu.zoom.us/j/93958270363). This event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Wilde is the author of the Society for the Study of Religion’s bi-annual Book Club book, Birth Control Battles: How Race and Class Divided American Religion. To learn more about Dr. Wilde, check out her website here.

About the talk: Conservative and progressive religious groups fiercely disagree about issues of sex and gender. But how did we get here? This book talk shows how today’s modern divisions began in the 1930s in the public battles over birth control and not for the reasons we might expect. Using census and archival materials Wilde demonstrates that the push to liberalize positions on contraception was tied to complex views of race, immigration, and manifest destiny among America’s most prominent religious groups. Taking us from the Depression era, when support for the eugenics movement saw birth control as an act of duty for less desirable groups, to the 1960s, by which time most groups had forgotten the reasons behind their stances on contraception (but not the concerns driving them), Birth Control Battles explains how reproductive politics divided American religion.
We hope to see you at both events!

The Harshbarger Lecture in Religious Studies is an annual lectureship made possible by a generous donation in honor of Luther H. Harshbarger, former professor and head of the Religious Studies Department at Penn State.

February 24 – “Making Space for the Gods: Religious Spaces in the Ancient Greek House”

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Dr. Hannah Smagh of Penn State will give a public lecture titled, “Making Space for the Gods: Religious Spaces in the Ancient Greek House,” on Friday, Feb. 24, 4-5:15 pm in Weaver 102. Please see the attached flyer for more information.

This talk may also be attended remotely via Zoom. To register in advance, please follow this link (including the final hyphen):

https://psu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYocOyrrT8sH9NfbbDmwMvWYXGuTI9ADog-

The lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Classics & Ancient Mediterranean Studies, the Department of Art History, the Department of Anthropology, and the Religious Studies Minor at Penn State.

We hope to see you there!

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