Columbia University Religion Graduate Students Association

Participants

Speakers

Penny Edgell
Professor of sociology, University of Minnesota
Penny Edgell's research has focused on the relationship between conflict and commitment (Congregations in Conflict, 1999), religious ideals of "the good family" (Religion and Family in a Changing Society, 2005; Sociological Forum), and the relationship between religious culture and social exclusion (American Sociological Review, Social Problems).

Michael Taussig
Professor of Anthropology, Columbia University
I began fieldwork in 1969. I have returned every year. My writing has spanned different things in roughly the following order; two books in Spanish for local people on the history of slavery and its aftermath, and books and articles in academic journals on the: 1) commercialization of peasant agriculture, 2) slavery, 3) hunger, 4) the popular manifestations of the working of commodity fetishism, 5) the impact of colonialism (historical and contemporary) on "shamanism" and folk healing, 6) the relevance of modernism and post-modernist aesthetics for the understanding of ritual, 7) the making, talking, and writing of terror, 8) mimesis in relation to sympathetic magic, state fetishism, and secrecy, 9) defacement (meaning iconoclasm), 10) a two week diary detailing paramilitary violence, 11)a study of exciting substance loaded with seduction and evil, gold and cocaine, in a montage-ethnography of the Pacific Coast of Colombia, 11) currently writing a book entitled "What Color is the Sacred?".

Respondents

Courtney Bender
Associate Professor of Religion, Columbia University
Courtney Bender is an Associate Professor in the Department of Religion, Columbia University. She is the author of Heaven's Kitchen: Living Religion at God's Love We Deliver (2003) and a forthcoming volume, Worlds of Experience: Contemporary Spirituality and the American Religious Imagination, both published with the University of Chicago Press.

Joshua Dubler
Postdoctoral Fellow, Columbia University
Joshua Dubler's research and teaching focus on American religion and theory of religion. Along with Andrea Sun-Mee Jones, he is the author of Bang! Thud: World Spirit from a Texas School Book Depository. Bang! Thud turns to the figure of the assassin to provide an account of agency in history, one it executes in dialogue with Hegel, Tolstoy, Walter Benjamin and Saba Mahmood among others. Joshua is currently working on developing his dissertation into a book. The manuscript, entitled Seven Weeks of Penitentiary Life, is an ethnographic study of the chapel at Pennsylvania's State Correctional Institutional at Graterford.

Zareena Grewal
Assistant Professor, Departments of American Studies and Religious Studies, Yale University
Zareena Grewal, Assistant Professor in the departments of American Studies and Religious Studies at Yale, is a historical anthropologist whose research focuses on Islam in the US.  Her research interests include race, trans-nationalism, experimental ethnography, film, religion, and identity politics across the wide spectrum of Muslim American communities.  She was a Fulbright Fellow in Egypt (2002-3) and received the Fulbright's prestigious Islamic Civilization Grant.  She is currently developing a book manuscript based on her dissertation research, tentatively titled Destination, Tradition:  The Crisis of Islam in the US, which explores the transnational dimensions of the authority crisis in American mosques.  She recently published an article in Ethnic and Racial Studies titled "Marriage in Color:  Race, Religion, and Spouse Selection in Four American Mosques" which examines the generational differences in racial and gender ideologies among Arab and South Asian immigrants.  She is also co-editor of a forthcoming volume titled Treating Muslims:  An Interdisciplinary Primer on Health which brings together the perspectives of anthropologists, historians, ethicists, and health practitioners on cultural encounters in healthcare settings.  She also directed and produced the documentary By the Dawn's Early Light:  Chris Jackson's Journey to Islam which examines the scrutiny of Muslim American patriotism. (The film was recently featured on the Documentary Channel).  She is also the director of the Center of American Muslim Studies at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.  At Yale, she teaches courses on Islam in America, US policy in the Middle East, ethnographic film, and religion and media. 

Wayne Proudfoot
Professor of Religion, Columbia University
Wayne Proudfoot is Professor of Religion at Columbia University, specializing in the philosophy of religion. His publications include God and the Self (Bucknell University Press, 1976) and Religious Experience (University of California Press, 1987). His current research is on pragmatism and American religious thought. He has published articles on Charles Peirce and William James, and he is working on a book on that topic.

Mark Taylor
Professor of Religion and Chair of Religion Department, Columbia University
Mark C. Taylor is the Chair of the Department of Religion, Columbia University. His many books include: The Moment of Complexity: Emerging Network Culture (2001), Confidence Games: Money and Markets in a World Without Redemption (2006), Mystic Bones (2007), and After God (2007). In addition to his writing, Taylor has produced a CD-ROM, Motel Real: Las Vegas, Nevada, and has had an exhibition of the artwork accompanying his book, Grave Matters, at the Mass MOCA. Beyond his scholarly work, he contributes to The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and other periodicals.

Panelists

Jon Argaman
PhD candidate, Political Science, University of Pennsylvania
Jon Argaman is a PhD candidate at the University of Pennsylvania's department of Political Science. His research interests lie at the intersection of Political Theory and Comparative Politics, and include the formation of identities in historical context, religion and the public sphere, theories of citizenship, and the construction and management of public space. He specializes in the politics of the Middle East and North Africa.

Patrick Arnold
Graduate Student, Department of Philosophy, University of Michigan
Patrick is currently a graduate student (MA) in philosophy at the University of Michigan. He hopes to go on to a PhD in philosophy, and fit in a degree in historical theology somewhere along the way. Although his areas of interest span philosophy, theology, and world religions, he focuses primarily on epistemology, philosophy of religion, and metaethics, and the intersection of theology and philosophy.

Kevin Buckelew
Graduate Student, Department of Religion, Columbia University
Kevin Buckelew is an MA student in religion at Columbia University, focusing on Chinese Buddhism and the Chan tradition in particular. He is continuing on to a second MA program in East Asian studies at Columbia in Fall 2009, and plans to subsequently go on to a PhD. He received his BA from Sarah Lawrence College in 2007.

Joe Blankholm
PhD student, Religion, Columbia University
Joseph Blankholm is a first-year PhD student in the Religion department at Columbia University. He holds a Master’s degree in Cultural Anthropology from the University of California-Irvine and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota in Cultural Studies and Comparative Literature. In the past, his research interests have included the intersection of Evangelical Christianity and neoliberalism in sub-Saharan Africa. He is currently researching the intersection of Christianity and marketing in the United States.

Jason Blum
PhD Candidate, Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania
Jason Blum is a graduate student in the religious studies department at the University of Pennsylvania.  His primary area of research is theory and methodology in religious studies.  His dissertation, a critique of hermeneutics in the contemporary study of mysticism and mystical experience, is one aspect of this focus.  He has also taught on religion and Enlightenment philosophy, magic, science and religion, and other topics related to modern religious thought. 

Mara Brecht
Doctoral Candidate, Department of Theology, Fordham University

Deepa Das
Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago
Nitya Deepa Das is a graduate student in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, with interests in the Indian judicial system and particularly the development of a Hindu legal identity. Her master's thesis examines five instances of widow immolation in northern India between the years 1999-2006.

Abby Day
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex (UK)
Abby Day completed an MA in Religion, Culture and Society at Lancaster University in 2002 and a PhD in Religious Studies at Lancaster University in 2006. She is currently an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in Anthropology. She is also a member of the Academic Advisory Group for the 2011 Census Questionnaire Development, Office for National Statistics and a Trustee of the British Sociological Association.

John-Charles Duffy
Doctoral candidate, Religious Studies, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
John-Charles Duffy is a William N. Reynolds Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, completing a doctorate in American religious history. His dissertation examines evangelical-Mormon relations during the era of the Religious Right. John-Charles’s published scholarship appears in Journal of Ritual Studies, American Transcendental Quarterly, Victorian Literature and Culture, Journal of Mormon History, Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought (which recognized his work with its Best Article of the Year Award for 2008), Greenwood Press’s Homosexuality and Religion: An Encyclopedia, and the ABC-CLIO encyclopedia Hispanic American Religious Cultures (forthcoming). He contributed a historiographical chapter to The William E. McLellin Papers, 1854-1880 (Signature Books, 2007) and has a chapter in a forthcoming anthology on Mormons and media to be produced by Utah State University Press.

Adam Eitel
PhD candidate, Princeton Theological Seminary
Adam Eitel is a first-year Ph.D. candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary and a Lecturer in Religion at Princeton University. He has published scholarly articles on the relationship between the theology of Karl Barth and the philosophy of G.W.F Hegel, the problem of history in nineteenth century Protestant thought, and the possibility of God-talk in the theology of Thomas Aquinas (forthcoming). His current areas of concentration include Christian and Jewish theology and ethics, philosophy of religion, and theory of religion.

Hannah Farber
PhD student, History, University of California-Berkeley
Hannah Farber is a first year graduate student in history at the University of California – Berkeley. She received a bachelor’s degree in history from Yale University in 2005.

Garner Gollatz
PhD Candidate, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University
Garner Gollatz is a Ph.D. student in anthropology at Harvard University. His dissertation research focuses on the present-day formation of healing at Lourdes, France, in the context of French Catholicism and evolving conceptions of the body in advanced technical society. He also has an extensive background in Middle Eastern studies. His broader interests include the relationship between science and religion in the contemporary world.

James Hare
PhD Candidate, Religion, Columbia University
James Hare is a PhD candidate at Columbia University. He is a graduate of Emory University and Harvard Divinity School. His dissertation considers the role of Nabhadas's Bhaktamal and its subsequent tradition in shaping modern Hinduism.

Shane H. Hockin
PhD student, Florida State University
Shane H. Hockin is a Margaret Ausley Fellowship doctoral student and World History instructor at Florida State University. His area of studies is early modern and eighteenth-century Europe and Britain with an emphasis on religion and society. This paper represents early findings in a longer-term dissertation project.

Eamonn McGrattan
Doctoral student, Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge (UK)
Eamonn McGrattan is currently on research leave from a doctoral degree in history at Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge University, UK. He completed his BA and MA degrees at University College Dublin in Ireland and in 2004 his research work won the National Universities of Ireland Prize for Research in the History of International Relations. In 2006 he was awarded a Fox International Fellowship to Yale University. His doctoral thesis focuses on draft resistance during the years of the Vietnam War and the ending of conscription in the United States.

Fareen Parvez
PhD Candidate, Sociology, University of California at Berkeley
Fareen Parvez is a PhD candidate in Sociology at UC Berkeley. Her dissertation is a comparative ethnographic study of the politics of Islam in France and India. It focuses particularly on the influence of class relations within Muslim communities on religious practice and political engagement.

Anthony Shenoda
PhD candidate, Social Anthropology and Middle East Studies, Harvard University
Anthony Shenoda is a PhD candidate in the Social Anthropology and Middle East Studies joint program at Harvard University. His research is on Coptic Orthodox Christian encounters with the miraculous in Egypt. He is currently writing his dissertation, tentatively tiled, “Cultivating Mystery: Miracles and the Coptic Moral Imaginaire.”

Michelle Smirnova
PhD Candidate, University of Maryland-College Park
Michelle Smirnova is currently PhD candidate in the Sociology Department at the University of Maryland, College Park where she received her Master’s in the Spring of 2008. Her Master's thesis focused on the aesthetic component to the life-extension project (the biomedical ideology which equates longer life with a better life, subsequently advocating any and all means by which to promote health and extend one's life). Her current work focuses on Soviet and post-Soviet identities and the civil sphere. She has also served as the managing editor of the Journal of Consumer Culture during her graduate studies.

Jennifer Swanson
PhD student, Department of Sociology, Syracuse University

Fatma Tutuncu
Visiting scholar in Women and Gender, Harvard University
Currently Dr. Fatma Tütüncü is a visiting scholar at Harvard University, in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her academic inquiry includes secularism, Islamism, and feminism. Particularly she dwells on popular advice literature in the construction of secular as well as Islamist morality in daily life. Her publications have appeared in Parliamentary Affairs and British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies.

Josh Vaillancourt
PhD Student, Religion and Critical Thought, Department of Religious Studies, Brown University
Josh's interests and research are in philosophy and theory of religion, including scientific approaches, religion and science, and philosophy of ethics. He is currently completing examinations on: the Cognitive Science of Religion; a comparison of Schleiermacher and Kierkegaard on their ideas of religion; and Rationality, as it pertains to religion and its study. When not researching religion (too often? too seldom?) he is a husband and father of two, cooks, gardens, and continues to write a fantasy novel.

Erica Weiss
Graduate Student, Department of Anthropology, Princeton University
Erica Weiss is a fifth year PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Princeton University.  Her research topic is conscientious objection in the Israeli military.  Her advisers are Abdellah Hammoudi and Carol Greenhouse.  Her did my undergraduate degree at Johns Hopkins University, and she originally is from upstate New York. She has lived in Baltimore, Israel, and she currently resides in New York City.

Erin Yerby
PhD student, Cultural Anthropology, Columbia University
I am in the doctoral program in socio-cultural anthropology at Columbia University. In the past my work has cut across various disciplines including literature, philosophy and religion. I have an M.T.S degree in Religion/Theological Studies from Duke University and an M.A. degree in Comparative Literature/Cultural Studies from the University of Minnesota.

Grace Yukich
Ph.D. student, Sociology Department, New York University
Grace Yukich is a Ph.D. candidate at New York University’s Department of Sociology. Her research focuses on the shifting boundaries of religion, in meaning and practice, for both religious communities and individuals. She is currently working on her dissertation, a qualitative study of the New Sanctuary Movement, an immigrant rights movement based primarily in religious communities. In conjunction with her interests in the overlap between “religious” and “secular” realms of life, she worked from 2006 to 2007 as a research assistant at the Social Science Research Council on their programs on Religion & Public Life and Religion, Secularism & International Affairs.

 

Coordinators

Patton Burchett
Ph.D. student, Religion Department, Columbia University
Patton Burchett is a Ph.D. student in South Asian religious history and culture. His work focuses primarily on traditions of Hindu bhakti and tantra in north India during the early modern period. Patton also studies theoretical and topical issues related to the category of “magic” (and its relation to “religion,” “science,” etc.) and holds strong research interests in the field of international human rights, particularly in the Dalit movement in contemporary India. He has published articles in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion (“The ‘Magical’ Language of Mantra,” 76:4 [2008]) and the International Journal of Hindu Studies (“Bhakti Rhetoric in the Hagiography of ‘Untouchable’ Saints: Discerning Bhakti’s Ambivalence on Caste and Brahminhood” [forthcoming]). Patton came to Columbia after receiving degrees in religion from the Davidson College and Indiana University.

Daniel Vaca
Ph.D. student, Religion Department, Columbia University
Daniel Vaca is a Ph.D. student at Columbia University in American religious history and culture. His work focuses primarily on the histories and practices of Protestant Christians in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and particularly on issues relating to evangelical Christianity, commercial culture, print history, and institutionally-situated practice and discourse. Daniel's dissertation focuses on the history of the evangelical book publishing industry in the twentieth century. Other research projects have situated late-nineteenth century Protestant social reform within emerging business culture, have traced out nineteenth-century evangelical media networks, and have contextualized the development of the category of "religion" within Unitarian denominational infighting. A research assistant for the Social Science Research Council, Daniel helps edit and develop The Immanent Frame and contributes regularly to here & there. Daniel came to Columbia after receiving degrees in religion from the College of William and Mary and Cambridge University.