News 2018
Paula Arai was chosen for the Urmila Gopal Singhal Professorship in Religions of India. Her book Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra—the Buddhist Art of Iwasaki Tsuneo was accepted for publication by Shambhala Press. Arai’s primary activities revolved around the science-inflected Buddhist art that she wrote about in this book. She curated an art exhibit of the original paintings and gave a public lecture entitled “Painting Enlightenment” at Zentner Gallery in Emeryville, CA. She was also invited to give six other presentations regarding the art. A special presentation of ekphrastic poetry Arai composed to illuminate the art was delivered in front of each of the original paintings at an exclusive meeting of the Society for Asian Art Board of Directors. The other venues include Reed College and University of Richmond, as well as two Zen Centers, Heart of Wisdom Zen Buddhist Temple in Portland, OR and Ocean Gate Zen Center in Capitola, CA. Another presentation was given in conjunction with a significant donation to the Brown University Dance Program, for which she served as a consultant for the choreography of a 45-minute-long dance based on the art. The dance was performed during Brown’s annual Dance Festival. Arai also began editing the Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, under contract).
Delbert Burkett saw several works come to fruition that he completed during his sabbatical in 2016-17. Two were published: the monograph The Case for Proto-Mark: A Study in the Synoptic Problem (Mohr Siebeck) and the journal article “The Parable of the Unrighteous Steward (Luke 16.1–9): A Prudent Use of Mammon” (New Testament Studies). Two other journal articles were accepted for publication: “Did Jews Rinse Their Hands ‘with a Fist” (Mark 7.3)?” (New Testament Studies) and “The Transfiguration of Jesus (Mark 9:2-8): Epiphany or Apotheosis?” (Journal of Biblical Literature). Burkett also completed a revised and updated second edition of his textbook, An Introduction to the New Testament and the Origins of Christianity, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Stephen Finley co-authored the article “‘Affirming Our Values’: African American Scholars, White Virtual Mobs, and the Complicity of White University Administrators,” Journal of Academic Freedom 9 (2018). His article “Signification and Subjectivity: Reflections on Racism, Colonialism, and (Re)Authentication in Religion and Religious Studies” was accepted for publication in the International Journal of Africana Studies. He received a notice to revise and resubmit the article “Significations of Dark Empirical Others: A Philosophical and Theoretical (Re)Reading of Embodiment, Blackness, and Objectification in the Study of Religion” for the journal History of Religions. For his sabbatical in 2017-18, Finley received an ATLAS grant from the LSU Board of Regents to work on the monograph In and Out of This World: Material and Extraterrestrial Bodies in the Nation of Islam. He completed the book and submitted it to an academic press for review. Finley made presentations at Amherst College, the Esalen Institute in California, and the meeting of the American Association of Blacks in Higher Education. He agreed to be the Interim Executive Director of the Society for the Study of Black Religion until the end of the academic year. He was also elected unanimously to a second term as Director of the African & African American Studies Program at LSU to begin in fall 2019.
Stuart Irvine authored the article “Fulfillment of Promise and Threat in Genesis 18-19,” which was published in the Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 42.3 (2018). His article “The ‘Rock’ of the King’s Sword? A Note on tsur in Psalm 89:44," was accepted for publication in Vetus Testamentum, forthcoming in 2019/20. He received notice to revise and resubmit the article “The Duration of the King: Translation and Meaning in Psalm 89:48-49,” for The Journal of Hebrew Scriptures. He was also invited to write the essay on the “Book of Hosea” for The Oxford Handbook of the Minor Prophets.
Charles Isbell continued work on two books: one tentatively titled A Jewish Approach to New Testament Interpretation and the other tentatively titled Anti-Semitism and the Holocaust. He taught a short course on the “Fundamentals of Judaism” at the University Presbyterian Church of Baton Rouge and was scheduled to teach a short course on the “History of Anti-Semitism” there in 2019.
Michael Pasquier authored “Catholicism and Race,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018). He produced and directed Coastal Voices: Stories about People, Land, and Water in Louisiana (Audio-Documentary Series and Multimedia Website, 2018). He had two articles accepted for publication: “Flooded Catholicism: Disaster and Prayer in Coastal Louisiana,” Exchange: Journal of Contemporary Christianities in Context, and “Missionaries, Martyrdom, and Warfare in French Colonial Louisiana, 1699-1764,” Catholic Historical Review. He began work on the book Catholicism in America: An Introduction, under contract with Routledge. Pasquier received a Public Engagement Fellowship for the project “Coastal Voices” from the Whiting Foundation, 2017-2018. At various conferences, he presented three lectures and was a panelist on four roundtables.
Maria Rethelyi had two articles published in academic journals: “A Place of Pretense and Escapism: The Coffeehouse in Early 20th Century Budapest Jewish Literature,” Religions 9/10 (2018) and “Good Writers, Bad Jews: The ‘Jewish Question’ among Hungarian Jewish Literati of the Interwar Period,” Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 17/2 (2018). She also contributed a chapter to an edited volume: “Rabbinical Understanding of Marital Rape in the Talmud,” in Rape Culture, Gender Violence and Religion: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. C. Blyth, E. Colgan, and K. Edwards (Palgrave McMillan Press, 2018).
Kenny Smith completed Emory’s doctoral program in American Religious Cultures and served his nineteenth year as a college instructor. In the spring semester of 2018. he created and taught the new course Harry Potter, Magic and Religion, which was well received by majors and minors in Religious Studies. It has now been added to the University catalog. He developed and implemented the first Religious Studies dual-credit course (REL 1000 Religions of the World) at a Baton Rouge high school. Plans are in place to grow the Religious Studies dual-credit course offerings to other high schools in Louisiana. Smith also won a Tiger Athletic Foundation award for undergraduate teaching. At the presentation on May 3, 2018, Dean Haynie read excerpts from his student and peer evaluations from the past several years.
Brad Storin had his monograph—Self-Portrait in Three Colors: Gregory of Nazianzus’s Epistolary Autobiography—accepted for publication by the University of California Press. It will appear in September 2019. The same press has also accepted Storin’s translation of Gregory of Nazianzus’s entire letter collection: Gregory of Nazianzus’s Letter Collection: The Complete Translation. This is the first English translation of these letters; it will appear as a separate book in November 2019. Storin also contributed a chapter to an edited volume: “Kirchenvater: Briefeschreiber im 4./5/, Jh. Golden age of letter-writing: Gregory von Nazianz,” in Handbuch: Brief. Bd. 1: Antike, ed. Eve-Marie Becker, Ulrike Egelhaaf-Gaiser, and Alfons Furst (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, forthcoming 2019).
Student Awards and Activities
LSU’s Undergraduate Society for the Study of Religion (USSR) hosted several events and talks in 2018, including the “Graduate School Information Panel” with faculty members Paula Arai, Stephen Finley, Maria Rethelyi, and Bradley K. Storin; and a presentation by Barry Schoedel (associate director of the Catholic Diocese of Baton Rouge) entitled “Meditation across Religious Borders.” The USSR also enjoyed its annual outing to Tam Bao Buddhist Temple on Monterrey Blvd. Faculty members Charles Isbell, Kenny Smith, and Paula Arai joined the USSR for its regular discussion series “Religion and Roasts.” Finally, the USSR had fun at less formal events, such as “Yoga on the Quad” and “Dead Week Pizza For All!” The USSR looks forward to an exciting 2019.
Mikaela Allen graduated from LSU in 2017 with a major in Religious Studies. She received a grant from the Harvard Asia Center to study Chinese at the National Taiwan University. She will graduate with a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School in 2019.
Sam Politz won the John Whittaker Philosophy and Religious Studies Scholarship for 2017-2018. Politz graduated from LSU in 2018 with a major in Religious Studies and began attending the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA.
Sam Politz and Rainey Landry shared the Lange-Button-King Scholarship in Religious Studies for 2017-2018.