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Thursday, November 13, 2008

4:30 pm - 212 MacMillan Hall

Constructing the Cosmos, Creating Communities: Hindu Temples from Angkor to Atlanta

Although constructed in very different socio-political contexts, the temples built in SE Asia around 1000 CE and the large temples in the United States of the 21st century share and expound notions of piety and power. On the one hand, the architecture and rituals are exercises in reconstructing and harnessing the forces of the cosmos for the welfare of the community. On the other hand, the temples connect the Hindu heritage and past with the economic clout and political power of a promised future. My talk will explore how Hindu temples in America showcase the emerging social presence of new immigrant and religious groups; negotiate internal diversity, and construct "authentic" ways of transmitting traditions while adapting to the new cultural milieux

 

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NEW FACULTY PUBLICATION                                                                                    

Comparing Religions:  Possibilities and Perils? (Leiden Netherlands, Brill Academic Publishers, 2006), ISBN-10: 90-04-15267-0

 

Given the fact that today's university students are far more culturally sophisticated than ever before, Comparing Religions: Possibilities and Perils brings together a distinguished group of professors of religion whit years of teaching experience to address the central question of how comparison of religions should be pursued in today's classroom. Covering topics such as recent theoretical approaches to comparison, caste studies of comparing religions in the classroom, and the impact of postcolonialism and postmodernism on the modernist assumptions of comparativism, the volume seeks to problematize and interrogate the field, especially as it relates to emerging models of pedagogy at the university level. Comparing Religions will be of especial interest to those who teach in religious studies departments, or who teach courses on religion in departments of anthropology, sociology, and history.

To buy, Comparing Religions, click here.

 

Also from Dr. Hanges:

Christ, the Image of the Church: The Construction of a New Cosmology and the Rise of Christianity (Aurora Colorado, The Davies Group Publishers, 2006), ISBN-10: 1-888570-95-4

 

Initial Reviews by Leading Scholars in the Field

“Christ, the Image of the Church is a fresh, original study that is sure to make a significant impact on the field of New Testament studies, as well as on religious studies in general. One of its major theses, that religious experience, socially construed, is crucial to the understanding and interpretation of the emergence of new religions, is well argued and persuasively demonstrated. It rightly challenges and corrects interpretations of these phenomena that attempt to explain it solely in terms of the history of ideas and theological propositions. It is a mature work of scholarship and will surely make its mark on the field.”

Adela Yarbro Collins, Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation, Yale Divinity School .

“Hanges is not the first to look to Pauline circles for the earliest instances of something different enough from Judaism that it could be called ‘Christianity’…but what Hanges brings to the table is a fresh theoretical argument for this assertion. Moreover, he mounts this argument within a larger context of contemporary Pauline scholarship that over the last several decades has seemed to be swinging in the opposite direction. I find Hanges’ contribution attractive and most helpful. He has offered as succinct a solution as I have seen to handling some important issues that have preoccupied Pauline studies for a long while, and I would anticipate that his book is going to be very well-received…I wish I had had Hanges’ book as one of the studies for analysis by my students.

Michael A. Williams, Professor and Chair of the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Civilization, University of Washington .

“Christ, the Image of the Church…is creative, closely argued, thoroughly researched, and often fascinating. [Hanges] establishes his reading of Paul and Gentiles by sensitive interpretations of well-known texts and by demolishing the arguments of some of the most prominent contemporary Pauline interpreters. This argument, especially concerning Galatians…is a welcome corrective to much nonsense about Paul in contemporary scholarship.”

Dennis R. MacDonald, Professor of Religion and Director of the Institute for Antiquity and Christianity at Claremont Graduate University .

To buy, Christ, the Image of the Church, click here.

 

 

Beckie Supiano presented her research for the Poster portion of the Undergraduate Research Symposium in the Mulit-purpose Room of the Shriver Center.  Her research topic was the history of the understanding of the figure of Mary Magdalene.  Bekie also delivered an oral presentation of her research for Departmental Honors on April 25th.

          

She’s A Rebel: Mary Magdalene through History