UNC Charlotte Department of Religious Studies

A great opportunity today in Dr. K’s classes with guest Bhikkhu Mahāpañño, a Cambodian-American Buddhist monk who is currently in residence in Charlotte’s Cambodian Buddhist monastery! Pictured here with Edgar Cruz Rodriguez and Aidan Keefe, he came to visit Dr. K’s Retreat course, which is a CTCM 2530 class. In that class, he talked about his personal experiences of renunciation and connected them to discussions the class has been having about people who retreat from society. He also came to Dr. K’s Buddhism in the Modern World class (RELS 3260) and spoke about the challenges and opportunities facing a Buddhist monk in 2024.

Were you there to see Bhikkhu Mahāpañño?

Please join us for the RSSO end of year celebration! 🍕 kick back with some treats and celebrate your accomplishments from this semester.

Congratulations to RELS major Jared Spears for his presentation today at the Undergraduate Research Conference! His paper was titled “Exploring Kamen Rider Fan Altars: Religious Expressions of Superhuman Power and Community Values.” In addition to a carefully crafted and informative PowerPoint, Jared brought examples of Kamen Rider fan material culture to share. Congratulations to Jared on achieving this academic milestone!

RELS students Olivia and Libbie joined Dr K. at UNCC Open House for admitted students last week! 📚

Today we are spotlighting Dr. Barbara Thiede!

Dr. Thiede has had quite the experience in academia, having attended the University of Illinois-Urbana (B.A), University of Missouri-Columbia (M.A., PhD in history), University of North Carolina Charlotte (2nd MA in Religious Studies), and the University of Bonn, Germany. 🎓

She has had two academic careers. The first was in modern European history. Dr. Thiede says, “I wrote my first MA on the American Jewish response to the Holocaust and my PhD on liberal peace movements of the late 1950’s and early 1960’s in Germany and the United States. In those days, I published in Peace Studies.”

“I left academia for a little over a decade and when I returned, I decided to pursue a second MA degree in Religious Studies. I was trained as a historian of the twentieth century. It might, therefore, be fairer to say that Religious Studies chose me. There is something magical about the questions that arise in Religious Studies – they can address the meaning of life in ways I find endlessly compelling.”

Her research deals largely with the depiction of masculinity in biblical texts. Her first two books, Male Friendship, Homosociality and Women in the Hebrew Bible: Malignant Fraternities and R**e Culture in the House of David: A Company of Men, both reflect this interest. Her third book, Yhwh’s Emotional and S*xual Life in the Books of Samuel: How the Deity Acts the Man, continues that work, though there is much more focus on male-on-male sexualized violence in biblical literature than in the first two books. Her fourth book, Texts of Trauma: Scholars’ Reflections on R**e, R**e Culture, and the Bible, will contextualize the work of prominent scholars of sexual violence in biblical texts. Dr. Thiede currently teaches God and S*x in the Hebrew Scriptures/Old Testament and Religion and Magic.

She is currently reading: a classic in my field, God’s Phallus, by Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, as well as A Fine and Private Place, by Peter Beagle.

A fun fact about Dr. Thiede: her favorite food is an Ethiopian dish, misir wat. She also grows her own vegetables and composts everything she can! 🥕🥬

Who would you like us to spotlight next?

The book reviews from last semester just won’t stop coming! 📚Johnny Flynn shares his thoughts on our own David Clausen’s book “Meet Paul Again for the First Time: Jewish Apostle of Pagan Redemption.”

Thank you so much to everyone who joined us last week for the Witherspoon lecture with Dr. Thomas! We are so grateful to have events like these which invite us to further inquiry 🧠

Please join us for the annual Loy H. Witherspoon Lecture on Feb 15! Our lecturer this year is Dr. Jolyon Thomas. Free to the public with refreshments preceding the event. Check the link in bio to register!

Reminder that Dr. Thiede’s Personally Speaking event is happening tomorrow! This event is FREE and takes place at our City Center campus, so come out and support!

Join us for our next Religious Studies reset on November 13! Donuts, coffee, and the usual quality conversation will be waiting for you 😊 🍩 ☕️

Dr. Kaloyanides attended the opening of this exhibit at the British Museum in London on Tuesday, October 31, as one of the principal scholars involved in researching for this exhibit and writing a related book!

The event was an invitation "to discover the history behind the headlines of [Myanmar] and find out about its dramatic fluctuations in fortune over the past 1,500 years."

The exhibition marks the 75th anniversary of Myanmar's independence from Britain and presents more than 100 objects, some of which are on public display for the first time. Experiencing decades of civil war and now ruled again by a military dictatorship, Myanmar is an isolated figure on the world stage today, and its story is relatively little known in the West. However, the extraordinary artistic output of its people, over more than a millennium of cultural and polittical change, attests to its pivotal role at the crossroads of Asia.

Stop by Dr. K's office to see a copy of the chapter she contributed to this book!