(Part of an experimental thread to share poems or poetry-adjacent writing, as discussed here.) My favorite aunt who was like a second mom...

I wrote this history of transformations in the academic study of religion at the University of Tennessee: both macro changes in the...

“Ah, America. We saw it. We tipped it over, and then we sold it.” One of many unforgettable lines burned into my soul by this Laurie...

In the first and second sections of this three-part post—introduced here and expanded from an article in the Encyclopedia of American...

In the first section of this three-part post—introduced here and based on my article in the Encyclopedia of American Religion—I broached...

I am so old that I can remember when people used hard copies of encyclopedias! I read the World Book Encyclopedia as a kid, and later I...

My previous post explained why “refereed” publications—those vetted by expert academic gatekeepers—do not reliably signal scholarly...

I should not be writing this! I absolutely have better things to do by almost any measure. Yet I have been asked to clarify which of my...

This is day 40 or more (depending on how one counts) of a major strike in British universities, which has been nearly ignored by the...

This essay is lightly revised from a talk I gave in 2009 on the occasion of my teacher, David Noble, retiring from the University of...

I hope I was clear in my last post, and in any case it bears repeating, that the logic of “assessment” is not tied narrowly to “student...

Yesterday I read this piece in the New York Times by Molly Worthen. Then I made the mistake of reading the comments thread, which...

Recently I visited a UT class that was discussing Judith Butler. It provoked the perennial complaints about Butler’s prose—leading toward...

Before I began my previous post, I imagined an introduction to set up a lightly edited version of some notes I prepared for a reporter....

A reporter for the University of Tennessee student newspaper interviewed me for a special issue on religion. In this resulting article I...

You who philosophize disgrace, and criticize all fear Bury the rag deep in your face, now's the time for your tears. In the strange world...

NOTE: I've tagged this for "oldies but goodies," partly because it's a follow-up to my piece on Chris Hedges referenced below, and...