I’m proud to have helped restructure the graduate (and undergraduate) program in the Department of Religion.
The department has re-organized itself around three clearly articulated methodological models with which to pursue study of traditional religious and regional cultures like American Christian, Buddhist, Christian, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Indigenous American religions, and South Asian.
The three methodological clusters provide to that study the theoretical dimension which has always been the signature of the Department of Religion at Syracuse. Those clusters are “Communities & Identities,” Culture, Image, & Politics,” “Texts & Contexts.”
Rather than trap themselves, students and faculty are expected to move across the nodes.
Zak, it just occurred to me that my teacher and old friend Huston Smith taught at Syracuse for many years. Is his influence still felt, or does this restructuring move in a very different direction?
It’s sensed if not actually felt. He’s a part of the Department’s cultural DNA. I’ll post something you’ll like later this evening.
that’s interesting was wondering if now that the academy (in no small part because of the rise of the public role of religious organization in presidential politics, than abortion, gay rights, and terrorism) had found religion again if depts (anthro, political-science, etc) would lay claim to their pieces of the field and the related faculty, I can see how the theoretical focus (in some sense as a replacement for theology?) might offer an alternative not covered elsewhere, would be a shame tho if the trajectory of folks like Winquist got too far away from theology.