Study of Religion as an Analytical Discipline Workshop

great thread on how we got here

i'll add that a lot of this was primed by the rise and mainstreaming of pentecostalism in the interwar period—they were jonesing for another world war in the 1930s, and were awfully disappointed when WWII failed to deliver armageddon and the second coming

I wrote about this in the "Forward" today: forward.com/opinion/8096...

"al-Sanūsī" by Khaled El-Rouayheb (Series "Great Medieval Thinkers") Enriches our understanding of Islamic theology and intellectual traditions of African Islam Corrects previous interpretations of al-Sanūsī and of Islamic theology in the later Middle Ages Written accessibly for non-specialist readers who are interested in Islamic history, the history of religious thought, and comparative theology

Great news!
Coming in March 2026.

t.co/kIM5MUbGg3

Art.

Rethinking Islamic Modernism Over the course of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Muslim modernist thinkers and writers in South Asia demanded a reconciliation between Islam and European thought in response to a ...

A new, terrific looking study, from @parhaku.bsky.social!

Pew Research Center finds 100% approval for laser gun sounds

Body, History, Myth: Early Modern Murals in South India by Anna Lise Seastrand

Anna Lise Seastrand

Congrats to Anna Lise Seastrand, whose book Body, History, Myth is an honorable mention for @asianstudies.org's Bernard S. Cohn Prize! This honors outstanding scholarship in a first book on South Asia.

Read her exploration of the mural tradition in early modern South India here: hubs.ly/Q045gxzn0

What Charlie Kirk did for me was create an org whose watchlist targeted mostly Black & Brown jr professors who named white supremacy & other oppressions. For years, I got rape threats & death threats. Thanks Dept of Ed for featuring Kirk & reminding the rest of us how much you hate us.

A LATE-BREAKING TT JOB.....

Assistant Professor, Near Eastern Archaeology, University of Toronto

Archaeology of the Levant (from south-central Türkiye to northwestern Saudi Arabia) during the Bronze and Iron Ages (3,000 to 500 BCE),

universityaffairs.ca/search-jobs/...

I wish more of the public understood that Premillennialism has driven GOP support for Israel over decades. Bibi/Israel's' Right Wing has used this to maintain US support across party lines.
Conservative Protestants through white Christian Nationalists support a Israel to bring on the end times ⬇️

Military Commander Tells Troops Bombing Iran Is ‘Part Of God’s Divine Plan’ One commander had a “big grin” on his face while saying Donald Trump “has been anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran," a service member said.

Some U.S. military commanders have reportedly been accused of telling their troops the Iran war is part of a biblical plan to trigger the end times

I have seen a lot of cursed stuff in my time in academia but this is among the *most* cursed.
Grammarly is generating miniature LLMs based on academic work so that users can have their writing ‘reviewed’ by experts like David Abulafia, who died less than two months ago.

“The United States must therefore prepare for the likelihood of Iran’s full implosion, fragmentation, and the spread of a chaos that would make the aftermath of our misadventures in Iraq and Libya look like a picnic.”

👀

Religion in the U.S.

Available now 📣

From my interview with @cnn.com 's Pamela Brown:

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/t...

A primer on this worldview: www.straightwhiteamericanjesus.com/episodes/eva...

We didn’t start the fire. It was always burning, Hegseth said, wiping sweat from his brow, since the world’s been turning. In other words we didn’t light it but we tried to fight it.

This is a treasure trove of relevant content.

Rather than deal with institutional racism and instructor bias, just make POC students ask questions to the robot while white students get human teachers.

This feels like a Monty Python sketch.
"What's your god called?"
"The prince of peace"
"Oh thats lovely. What does he ask of you"
"To kill all non-believers in righteous unprovoked combat"
"Righty-oh, then. Carry on!"
"Now if you don't mind, this won't hurt but a second"

Given the growth of Bluesky, I plan going forward to also document here Trump's ongoing amplification of QAnon-promoting accounts on Truth Social. My original thread/documenting, which began in 2022, can be found here.

Religion in the U.S.

A successful, many decades in the making, end run around the Establishment Clause.

U.S. Troops Were Told Iran War Is for “Armageddon,” Return of Jesus Advocacy group reports commanders giving similar messages at more than 30 installations in every branch of the military

EXCLUSIVE: At more than 30 installations, U.S. commanders told troops the war on Iran is a Christian war.

The Military Religious Freedom Foundation has been “inundated” with more than 110 complaints.

One NCO said they were told the U.S. war is to bring about Armageddon and the return of Jesus…

Religion in the U.S.

Good thing some US colleges are closing their Religious Studies departments—definitively not “useful” at all or an area of expertise that might be relevant for understanding our present…

Here's a mini-thread on how Reign of Error episodes can help you understand how different parts of the MAGA Christian nationalist base are driving and understanding Trump's war in Iran: 🧵

002: Pete Hegseth, Doug Wilson, and the God of War Listen to Reign of Error with Sarah Posner on RedCircle

On Hegseth's religion, with @julieingersoll.bsky.social:

redcircle.com/shows/fbed71...