Scholarly Works, Department of Religion and Culture
Browse by
Research articles, presentations, and other scholarship
Recent Submissions
-
Building Interdisciplinary Partnerships for Community-Engaged Environmental Health Research in Appalachian Virginia
(MDPI, 2020-03-05)This article describes a collaboration among a group of university faculty, undergraduate students, local governments, local residents, and U.S. Army staff to address long-standing concerns about the environmental health ... -
Xiuzhen (Immortality Cultivation) Fantasy: Science, Religion, and the Novels of Magic/Superstition in Contemporary China
(MDPI, 2020-01-02)In early twenty-first-century China, online fantasy is one of the most popular literary genres. This article studies a subgenre of Chinese fantasy named xiuzhen 修真 (immortality cultivation), which draws on Daoist ... -
Models of Clientelism and Policy Change: The Case of Conditional Cash Transfer Programmes in Mexico and Brazil
(2011-07)Clientelist systems vary, and this variation influences the adoption and evolution of conditional cash transfer (CCT) programmes. We find that vertically integrated, corporatist clientelism in Mexico and more locally ... -
Auctioning Patronage in Northeast Brazil: The Political Value of Money in a Ritual Market
(2010-06)Fundraising auctions help people in a small rural town in Northeast Brazil reckon with the effects that currency stabilization and democratization have had on municipal politics. These simultaneous processes have made ... -
Clientelism, Elections, and the Dialectic of Numerical People in Northeast Brazil
(University of Chicago Press, 2018-04-01)This paper explores rural Brazilians’ interpretations of and ethical reflections on political clientelism. Brazilian elites often regard the people of the dry hinterland (sertanejos) as lazy, politically apathetic, and ... -
Environmental health disparities in the Central Appalachian region of the United States
(De Gruyter, 2017-09-26)Health disparities that cannot be fully explained by socio-behavioral factors persist in the Central Appalachian region of the United States. A review of available studies of environmental impacts on Appalachian health and ... -
Review: Don't Go Up Kettle Creek: Verbal Legacy of the Upper Cumberland
(Journal of American Folklore, 1984)In Don't Go Up Kettle Creek, Montell reconstructs the history of the Upper Cumberland River region "as it is perceived from the vernacular point of view, relying on personal reminiscences, oral traditions, balladry and ... -
Imagining Home, Nation, World: Appalachia on the Mall
(Journal of American Folklore, 2008)This article reads the Smithsonian's annual folklife festival as a cultural product buffeted by changing material conditions and funding constraints as the United States transitioned from a Fordist industrial economy to a ... -
In Defense of Literary Dialect: A Response to Dennis R. Preston
(Journal of American Folklore, 1983)If folklorists were to accept Dennis R. Preston's (1982) charges against their attempts to record dialect in print, they might feel embarrassed that their textmaking of the 1970s was so bad. Few folklorists would like to ... -
Review: Traditional American Indian Literatures: Texts and Interpretations
(Journal of American Folklore, 1983)This book is a welcome addition to studies of American Indian folklore and ethnopoetics. Karl Kroeber has compiled five essays by himself, Jarold Ramsey, Dennis Tedlock, Barre Toelken and Tacheeni Scott, and Dell Hymes to ... -
Snapshots of Tradition: Apparitions of the Virgin Mary in Georgia
(University of California Press, 1998-10)On the thirteenth of each month, from October 1990 until May 1994, Nancy Fowler appeared on the porch of a farmhouse in Conyers, Georgia, to deliver the message she had received from an apparition of the Virgin Mary. On ... -
Psalm Recitation and Post-Secular Time: Augustine, the iPod, and Psalm 90
(The Whitestone Foundation, 2012)Psalm 90 accommodates multiple understandings and experiences of time, but its compositional coherence balances this diversity with unity. Practices of recitation, reading, and reflection on the Psalms accommodate this ... -
The Schmittian Messiah in Agamben's The Time That Remains
(The University of Chicago Press, 2010)For Giorgio Agamben, Alain Badiou, and Slavoj Zitek the New Testament writings attributed to Paul have much to say on contemporary debates over politics and religious tradition. Taking the measure of this new intellectual ... -
Secularism and the Question of the ‘Judeo-Christian'
(Relegere, 2012)This essay comments on the papers in this special issue, paying special attention to "Judaism," "Christianity," and "Judeo-Christian" in relation to discussions of secularism and civil religion. It attempts an explanation ... -
Death, Social Conflict, and the Barley Harvest in the Hebrew Bible
(Journal of Hebrew Scriptures , 2005)Some recent scholarship characterizes violent biblical narratives, such as the killing of Saul’s descendents in 2 Sam. 21, as evidence of ancient ritual sacrifice. Yet 2 Sam. 21 has more in common with Ruth 1 and Judith ... -
Syllabus - REL/JUD/HUM 3704 (Spring 2013)
(2012-12-14)Syllabus for REL/JUD/HUM 3704: Christians, Jews, & the Idea of Judeo-Christianity (Spring 2013). -
Syllabus - REL 5984 (Spring 2013)
(2012-12-06) -
Biblical curses and the displacement of tradition
(Virginia Tech. University Libraries, 2011-12)Brian Britt discusses his book: Biblical Curses and the Displacement of Tradition. Brian Britt offers an intriguing perspective on curses as the focus of debates over the power, pleasure, and danger of words. Biblical ...
RSS 1.0