Center for Religion & the Human

Experimental Pedagogy by Teaching Religion in Public (TRiP) Grad Lab

Explore the teaching tables

Teaching Religion in Public (TRiP) wrapped up the 2024-2025 academic year with a Teaching Tables Showcase. Organized by TRiP postdoc Dr. Hannah Garvey, the event showcased teaching experiments designed by the TRiP grad lab cohort.

You can now explore their projects online!

Winnipalooza!

Saturday, October 11

We held an all-day symposium honoring Provost Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies and founding director of the Center for Religion and the Human Winnifred Fallers Sullivan!

Including guests Spencer Dew (Ohio State), Heather Miller Rubens (Institute for Islamic, Christian, & Jewish Studies), Méadhbh McIvor (Arizona State), Dana Lloyd (Villanova), Joseph Winters (Duke), and Lucia Hulsether (Skidmore). 

The verdict of the trial will be announced at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) annual conference in Boston. 

“Medieval Canonization and the First Millennial Saint”

Thursday, September 11

Carlo Acutis, a teen web designer and online chronicler of eucharistic miracles, died in 2006 at the age of 15. His canonization by Pope Leo XIV on September 7 of this year will see him become what many call “the first millennial saint.” Professor Elizabeth Hebbard gave an overview and discussion of the Canonization rite as it blends old and new, sanctifying this work of the digital age as part of a much older story.

Illustration by Phil Galloway for Wired Magazine. 

Events with Dr. Rosemary R. Corbett

APRIL 8, 2024

We hosted two events with Dr. Rosemary R. Corbett!

“Teaching Humanities Beyond the University” a graduate student lunch discussion sponsored by the Islamic Studies Program. 

“ ‘Scientific Statesmen’ and the 20th Century Erasure of Palestine” a talk with refreshments provided. No registration necessary.  

These events were supported by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation and co-sponsored by the Islamic Studies Program and the Center for the Study of the Middle East.

Now Open Access!

American Religion Journal

American Religion is delighted to announce that our journal is now open access! All of our past and future issues are now freely accessible through our website and Project Muse!

Many thanks to the Henry Luce Foundation and the IU Center for Religion and the Human for helping us bring our journal to all those who do not have institutional access. If you publish with us, you will now have an even broader reach!

Book Talk with Janine Giordano Drake

The Gospel of Church

On September 19, 2024 IU History Professor Janine Giordano Drake joined IU Religious Studies Professor Constance Furey at the Center for Religion and the Human for a book talk on Drake's recent monograph The Gospel of Church: How Mainline Protestants Vilified Christian Socialism and Fractured the Labor Movement (Oxford University Press, 2023).

Community Conversation at Bethel AME Church

Solidarity in Everydayness

In anticipation of Professor Emilie Townes' Charles H. Long Memorial Lecture, IU Religious Studies PhD candidates Mihee Kim-Kort and Amber Lowe, alongside IU Professor Randall Jelks, initiated a discussion around evil and community solidarity at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Bloomington, Indiana on September 11, 2024.

IU faculty and students, as well as Bloomington residents and community members participated in this public conversation.

Emilie M. Townes gave the Charles H. Long Memorial Lecture

shadowboxing the ridiculous

On September 12, 2024 at the Cook Center in Maxwell Hall Dr. Emilie M. Townes gave the Charles H. Long Memorial Lecture: "Shadowboxing the Ridiculous."

Townes is Martin Luther King, Jr. Professor of Religion and Black Studies at Boston University School of Theology. An American Baptist clergywoman, she is a native of Durham, North Carolina. She tolds a Degree of Ministry from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a PhD in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University.

The Charles H. Long Memorial Lecture is a biennial lecture series on Black religion, honoring the life and work of Professor Charles H. Long.

Knausgaard Reading and Writing Collective featured in The Immanent Frame

Forum on Experimental Books

The Abyss or Life Is Simple: Reading Knausgaard Writing Religion (University of Chicago Press, 2022) by the Knausgaard Reading and Writing Collective was featured in The Immanent Frame's forum on experimental books.

"Refusing the choice: Neither academic nor novelist, an experiment in writing," by Jeffrey Kosky

"Us being changed," by Kathryn Reklis

"Writing living," by Scott Korb

"Experiments in collective labor," by Kyle Wagner

"The future of us," by the Knausgaard Reading and Writing Collective

Center for Religion and the Human receives $750,000

from the Henry Luce Foundation

June 28, 2024

Constance Furey, Cooper Harriss, Sarah Imhoff, and Winnifred Fallers Sullivan, co-PIs on the grant, expressed gratitude for the Henry Luce Foundation’s generous support and called it deeply affirming of the work they've done so far.

“This is a collective project,” Sullivan said. “Together with IU students and faculty participants from other universities, we’re excited to continue the Center’s research, creative activity, pedagogical innovation, and programming, building off of what we’ve developed in the first five years of our existence.”