First of all, welcome to the new blog subscribers from the annual Emerging Scholars Network member survey! Thank you for completing the survey and letting us know how ESN can improve. If you haven't been reading the blog regularly, you might want to review our new Top Posts page to get a feel for what we cover. Tom Grosh and I view the blog as an online community of ESN members, so I look forward to reading your comments and contributions. A couple of friends tipped me off to this intriguing story in the New York … [Read more...] about Would you major in Secularism?
secularism
Does Theology Advance Knowledge?
What is the place of theology in the secular academy? I don't have hard data for this, but I think almost no secular colleges and universities still have "theology" departments. Rather, they have "religious studies" departments, of which theology may be a part. Even those universities that have well-respected schools of theology - Harvard, Yale, Duke - keep those schools in a separate line, and offer religious studies courses to undergraduates. We are all aware that religious beliefs have to be carefully articulated and … [Read more...] about Does Theology Advance Knowledge?
Book Review: The Decline of the Secular University
C. John Sommerville is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Florida. In 2006, Oxford University Press published a little book of his called The Decline of the Secular University, a selection from which was featured in the Chronicle of Higher Education. He will also be the featured speaker at this summer's Midwest Faculty Conference, so I thought I should read his book before spending a week with him in the cabins along Lake Huron. Sommerville summarizes his book as follows: My thesis in what follows … [Read more...] about Book Review: The Decline of the Secular University