What follows is Alondra Arriaga-Rosales’s address as delivered at the School of Liberal Arts Commencement, May 10th, 2024 Welcome students. My name is Alondra Arriaga-Rosales, and I am one amongst many 2024 School of Liberal Arts graduates. Can you all believe that we have made it right celebrating our academic success?! Today marks the end …
Read MoreWhat can a religious studies major or minor offer you? How does it benefit? Read what some students have to say about their time in religious studies. “Religious studies is very eye opening. We get to learn and talk about so many topics that most people don’t talk about often in an academic way.” – …
Read MorePrepare your Spring 2024 schedule with courses in Religious Studies! Here are the upcoming semester course offerings: REL-R 101 Religion and Culture (3 cr.) An introduction to the diversity of human cultures from the perspective of religious studies. The course uses a case study approach to understand how religion shapes, and is shaped by, culture and …
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While I was still writing Muslims of the Heartland: How Syrian Immigrants Made a Home in the American Midwest (NYU Press, 2022), I became determined to take the book back to the places where its stories unfolded from the 1890s to the 1940s. At first, I thought that perhaps I should do one big road trip and …
Read MorePeter J. Thuesen In the fall of 1989, I arrived as a freshman at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with dreams of an eventual career in journalism or the foreign service. I was particularly fascinated by Russia—Mikhail Gorbachev was then pursing the reforms that would end in the Soviet Union’s collapse—but the …
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Dr. Kelly Hayes and Religious Studies major Alondra Arriaga-Rosales are working together on a project to strengthen the Religious Studies department’s ties with religious communities in central Indiana. With funding from IUPUI’s Community Engagement Program, this year-long project explores how the department can institutionalize our relationships with local religious communities in more intentional, enduring, and …
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Since 2018, Religious Studies professor David Craig has partnered with local congregations serving in neighborhoods across the near northside of Indianapolis. As the COVID-19 pandemic began in spring 2020, he co-led a team with Rev. Shonda Nicole Gladden, CEO, Good to the SOUL, to design and facilitate a virtual #HealthyMe learning community for historically-Black and …
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In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Indianapolis was home to a thriving, Arabic-speaking community whose legacy, though not well-known by many Hoosiers, has made a lasting impact on Indiana’s history. IU’s Edward Curtis, IV has spent the last few years working with IUPUI students to document the history of Arab Americans in Indianapolis. Through …
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