Webinar: More Than Just Mosaics, The Ancient Synagogue at Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee

Webinar: More Than Just Mosaics, The Ancient Synagogue at Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee
 

Webinar by Professor Jodi Magness Hosted by Prof. Bart D. Ehrman (This event will not be recorded)

Time: Mar 1, 2023 06:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)

Since 2011, Professor Jodi Magness has been directing excavations in the ancient village of Huqoq in Israel’s Galilee. The excavations have brought to light the remains of a monumental Late Roman (fifth century) synagogue building paved with stunning and unique mosaics, including biblical scenes and the first non-biblical story ever discovered decorating an ancient synagogue. In this slide-illustrated lecture, Professor Magness describes these exciting finds, including the discoveries made in last summer’s season. For more information visit www.huqoq.org.

About the Lecturer: Jodi Magness (www.JodiMagness.org) is the Kenan Distinguished Professor for Teaching Excellence in the Department of Religious Studies at UNC-Chapel Hill. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Past President of the Archaeological Institute of America. Magness’ research interests, which focus on Palestine in the Roman, Byzantine, and early Islamic periods, and Diaspora Judaism in the Roman world, include ancient pottery, ancient synagogues, Jerusalem, Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the Roman army in the East.

FUNDRAISER FOR THE ROBERT MILLER GRADUATE STUDENT EXCELLENCE FUND

The person who makes the largest gift will receive a free signed copy of Jodi Magness’ 2019 book, Masada: From Jewish Revolt to Modern Myth (Princeton: Princeton University Press).

To make a gift to the Robert Miller Graduate Student Excellence Fund, please go to: https://give.unc.edu/donate?f=105550&p=asrs
The Robert Miller Graduate Student Excellence Fund honors an exceptional academic editor and provides support for our graduate students to present their research in scholarly venues and conferences across the country and around the world.

Posted in Events, News & Events on February 23, 2023. Bookmark the permalink.

Bart Ehrman Webinar

Bart Ehrman Webinar
 

In this webinar, Professor Bart Ehrman discussed his new project on the book of Revelation and expectations of Armageddon. Professor Ehrman talked about historical misrepresentations of the Book of Revelation, especially by evangelical Christian communities in the United States over the last one hundred years. His talk focused on evangelical accounts of the impending end of the world, Armageddon, and the wrath of a vengeful God. He asked, how do New Testament themes of tolerance and forgiveness fare in these accounts?

Professor Ehrman publishes extensively in the fields of New Testament and Early Christianity. He was written or edited thirty-three books, six of them New York Times best sellers, numerous scholarly articles, and dozens of book reviews.
Professor Ehrman’s webinar helped to raise funds for graduate students in the UNC – Chapel Hill Department of Religious Studies. 100% of all donations benefit the William Peck Fund for Graduate Student Excellence, devoted to supporting and recognizing teaching among graduate students.
Posted in Events, Faculty News, News & Events on September 12, 2021. Bookmark the permalink.

McLester Colloquium with Dr. Jon Bialecki

McLester Colloquium with Dr. Jon Bialecki
 

Dr. Jon Bialecki

Dr. Jon Bialecki

event-poster

The event poster

On Wednesday, September 25, we were pleased to hear from Dr. Jon Bialecki, an Honorary Fellow of The University of Edinburgh, for our first McLester Colloquium of the academic year. He lectured on “‘All Mormons are Transhumanists’: hybridity, double captures, double slits, and arrays”. We are grateful for the opportunity to host Dr. Bialecki for this event and for the discussion that his presentation generated!

Posted in Events, Graduate Student News on September 26, 2019. Bookmark the permalink.

McLester Colloquium with Dr. Rebecca Anne Goetz

McLester Colloquium with Dr. Rebecca Anne Goetz
 

On Wednesday, April 24, our department held its last McLester Colloquium of the academic year. The speaker was Dr. Rebecca Anne Goetz, Associate Professor of History at NYU and a current fellow at the National Humanities Center, who lectured on “‘The Unbridled Greed of the Conquistadors’: Native Enslavement in the Southern Caribbean, 1498-1545.” The meeting capped off a wonderful series of McLester lectures in 2018-19, and we are already looking forward to next year!

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Rebecca Anne Goetz

audience

The audience in the Anne Queen Lounge

Posted in Events, Graduate Student News on May 6, 2019. Bookmark the permalink.

Departmental Honors Event and Awards Ceremony

Departmental Honors Event and Awards Ceremony
 

On Wednesday, April 17, our department held two events celebrating the achievements of our students and faculty.

The first was an Honors Event that recognized the undergraduate students who completed a Senior Honors Thesis this year as well as those seniors whose academic excellence was sufficient to earn membership into Theta Alpha Kappa, the National Honors Society for students in the fields of religious studies and theology. The Honors Thesis writers each gave a description of their research, while the Theta Alpha Kappa inductees received certificates, pins, and cords to mark their achievement.

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Students describing their honors theses: Kristen Roehrig, Brodie Heginbotham, and Ashley Cantu

presentation

The presentation of certificates, pins, and cords

The second was our annual Awards Ceremony, in which we acknowledged the various achievements of our undergraduates, graduate students, as well as faculty. This year we had a number of honored guests, including former faculty members in our department, who joined to add special meaning to the ceremony. A great time was had by all.

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Our department chair, Barbara Ambros, welcoming everyone

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Display table with memorabilia

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Time of refreshments afterwards

Posted in Events, Faculty News, Graduate Student News, Undergraduate Accomplishments on April 30, 2019. Bookmark the permalink.

Zara: A show by Andrew Aghapour (PhD 2017)

Zara: A show by Andrew Aghapour (PhD 2017)
 

Andrew Aghapour, a graduate of our department (PhD 2017) with a creative background in comedy, improv, and storytelling in addition to his academic work, has developed a one person show called Zara that he will be performing at a series of events in Chapel Hill this spring. From the show’s website:

Zara is a one person show about race, religion, and identity in the American South. Andrew Aghapour was raised by immigrant parents in a multi-racial and multi-religious household. Zara is a comedic account of an anxious, asthmatic Muslim kid’s search for meaning and the chance encounters that impacted him, including a friendship with the man who mugged him and a love affair with marijuana. Drawing on personal stories, philosophy, and the history of monotheism, Zara is a story about how identity is inherited and remade in 21st-century America.

For a detailed schedule of the events at UNC, including both performances and workshops, see here.

 

Posted in Alumni News, Events on March 5, 2019. Bookmark the permalink.

McLester Colloquium with Dr. Jeffrey Stout

McLester Colloquium with Dr. Jeffrey Stout
 

On Wednesday, February 20, we were pleased to welcome Dr. Jeffrey Stout, Professor Emeritus of Religion at Princeton University, for a meeting of our McLester Colloquium. His lecture was titled “Goodness beyond Melodrama: Compassionate Awareness in Ozu’s Tokyo Story,” and explored a film by Ozu Yasuji that is regularly ranked among the greatest films of all time. In addition to being co-sponsored by the Institute for Arts and Humanities, the Carolina Asia Center, and the Departments of Asian Studies and English & Comparative Literature, this talk also served as the second lecture in the American Academy of Religion’s 2019 American Lectures in the History of Religion, in which Dr. Stout explores–through a series of five lectures in North Carolina Triangle/Triad Region–the theme of “The Cinematic Sacred.” We are grateful for the opportunity to host Dr. Stout for this event and for the discussion that his presentation generated!

Stout-poster

The event poster

audience

The audience in Hyde Hall

Posted in Events, Graduate Student News on February 25, 2019. Bookmark the permalink.

McLester Colloquium with Dr. Elizabeth Pérez

McLester Colloquium with Dr. Elizabeth Pérez
 

On Wednesday, January 30, our department was pleased to welcome Dr. Elizabeth Pérez as the speaker for our first McLester Colloquium of the Spring semester. Dr. Pérez, who is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara, is a specialist in Afro-Diasporic and Latin American religions. Her first book, titled Religion in the Kitchen: Cooking, Talking, and the Making of Black Atlantic Traditions (New York University Press, 2016), which was based on years of ethnographic research within a Lucumí community on the South Side of Chicago, examined practices surrounding the preparation of food for the gods and spirits within these traditions, arguing that they deserve analysis as religious rituals in their own right. This book was widely acclaimed, having won both the 2017 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion and the 2018 Women’s Spirituality Book Award, as well as being a finalist for the 2017 Albert J. Raboteau Prize for the Best Book in Africana Religions.

Her presentation at the McLester seminar was based on the research from this first book, and was richly illustrated with slides drawn from her ethnographic work. The lecture generated a lively and intellectually stimulating conversation afterwards. We look forward to the next McLester Colloquium!

 

Posted in Events, Graduate Student News on February 7, 2019. Bookmark the permalink.

Dr. Joel Baden on Bible Nation: the United States of Hobby Lobby

Dr. Joel Baden on Bible Nation: the United States of Hobby Lobby
 
On Wednesday, October 24th, Dr. Joel Baden of Yale Divinity School joined us for our second McLester Seminar. He spoke about his latest book, Bible Nation: the United States of Hobby Lobby, co-authored with Dr. Candida Moss, Professor at the University of Birmingham. His talk focused on the rise of the millionaires behind Hobby Lobby, their unparalleled acquisition of biblical antiquities for their Museum of the Bible, and the role and responsibility of academics in approaching this as a subject of study. As usual, the lecture was followed by casual conversation over refreshments.

Looking forward to the next McLester Colloquium!

 

Posted in Events, Graduate Student News, News & Events on October 31, 2018. Bookmark the permalink.

Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer: From Muslim Cool to Umi’s Archive

Dr. Su’ad Abdul Khabeer: From Muslim Cool to Umi’s Archive
 

Professor Su’ad Abdul Khabeer joined us for the the first of our McLester Colloquia for the Fall semester. Dr. Abdul Khabeer is Associate Professor of American Culture and Arab and Muslim American Studies at the University of Michigan and received her PhD in cultural anthropology from Princeton University. She is a scholar-artist-activist who uses anthropology and performance to explore the intersections of race and popular culture.

Dr. Abdul Khabeer’s  talk included both prose and performance. She explored what the Black Muslim experience – belief, cultural practice, and intellectual thought – offers theoretically, methodologically and for political praxis within and outside the academy. The talk, directed towards graduate students, focused on the evolution of her research from Muslim Cool to umisarchive.com, and illustrated how personal family history can inform the approach to the history of Islam in America.

The lecture was thought-provoking and generated questions and responses from the faculty and graduate students present. As usual, the lecture was followed by a time of casual conversation over refreshments.

Looking forward to the next McLester Colloquium!

   

 

Posted in Events, Graduate Student News, News & Events on September 25, 2018. Bookmark the permalink.