We've Got Some Great News...

The Department of Religious Studies is very happy to announce that, pending final approval, Dr. Steven Ramey has been hired as a tenure-track, Assistant Professor in Asian religions, to begin work at the University of Alabama in August of 2006.

Dr. Ramey, who has worked for the past two years as an Assistant Professor at the Pembroke campus of the University of North Carolina, is a graduate of Emory University and UNC-Chapel Hill's nationally-known Department of Religious Studies, where he obtained his Ph.D. in 2004. His doctoral dissertation--entitled, "Defying Borders: Contemporary Sindhi Hindu Constructions of Practices and Identifications"--was based on his fieldwork in India and examined a modern community, the Sindhis, whose ritual practices and sense of social identity challenge scholars' usual ways of distinguishing those they call Hindu from Sikh and Muslim.

Although fully conversant with teaching on the traditions of South Asia--notably, Hinduism and Islam--Dr. Ramey's own work uses his descriptive/ethnographic account of the features and movement of Sindhi culture (which could be called a worldwide diaspora) in developing a theory capable of understanding how this and other complex social identities are generated and how they change/persist over time.

In the Fall 2006 semester he will be teaching our survey of Asian Religions (REL 220), which carries a Core Curriculum "Humanities" designation, as well as an upper level seminar in Asian religions, REL 373, entitled "Religion, Social Boundaries, and Identity in South Asia." Upper level majors and minors in the Department are encouraged to consider enrolling in it.

The Department wishes to thank all of its students for their help with this semester's search--both those REL majors who participated in various aspects of the interview process and those who are in the two sections of REL 100, where our job candidates each taught a class. We would also like to the the College of Arts & Sciences for allowing the Department to fill the vacancy left by Prof. Kurtis Schaeffer's departure.

And, as was first announced earlier this semester, the Department is also pleased that that Maha Marouan has been hired as an Assistant Professor (tenure-track), to begin work as of August 2006.

and, on March 17, 2006, she successfully defended her dissertation at the University of Nottingham, earning for her the degree of Ph.D. Congratulations, Maya!

Professor Marouan, who has worked in the Department as an Instructor for the 2005-6 academic year, is about to defend her Ph.D. at the University of Nottingham, UK. Her work is devoted to African American religion, history, and literature. Originally from Morocco, in northwest Africa, Professor Marouan holds a Masters of Arts degree in Post-Colonial Studies from the University of Kent at Canterbury, UK, and a B.A. from Zohr University in Morocco. Her current research examines the role played by religion and alternative histories in recent literature, and the manner in which racial identity is constructed and articulated through texts.

Maha orignally came to the University of Alabama as part of an April 2005 conference on the spread of African cultures. The Department was so impressed that it invited her back for a year and, now, possibly a career.

Among the courses she regularly teaches are: REL 100 Introduction to the Study of Religion, REL 226 Black Religious Experience, and REL 237 African American Religion in History and Fiction.

The Department is grateful to Dean Robert Olin, of the College of Arts & Sciences, and Provost Judy Bonner for their assistance in establishing this new position in the Department.