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Isaiah Ellis, who in 2024 completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the DSR, was awarded the 2024 Claremont Prize for the Study of Religion for his work, Apostles of Asphalt: Race, Empire, and the Religious Politics of Infrastructure in the American South, which will be published by Columbia University Press. Isaiah was also the subject of the AAR’s Member Spotlight feature, which is devoted to profiling AAR members making waves in their institutions and communities.
Michael Ium, who recently wrapped up two years as a DSR postdoctoral fellow, secured a postdoctoral position on the European Research Council-funded project, “The dawn of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism (11th-13th c.).” He will be based at the Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia within the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, a city that Michael describes as a “real hotbed for Buddhological and Tibetological activity.”
Recent DSR postdoctoral fellow Seyfeddin Kara’s book, The Integrity of the Qur'an: Sunni and Shi‘i Historical Narratives, was published in July 2024 and is the focus of this video from Sképsislamica that examines the topic of the Qur’an’s preservation, a subject of intense debate. On social media platform X, Seyfeddin expressed his gratitude for the time spent at the DSR, commenting that “the faculty, staff, and students at DSR have been incredibly supportive, and this book could not have been written without their help. @UofTReligion is one of the best places in the world to study religion. Thank you!” Thank you, Seyfeddin, for singing our praises!
We noted in the Books & Articles section Pamela Klassen’s chapter in the recent book Museums as Ritual Sites: Civilizing Rituals Reconsidered (Routledge). We're delighted to note that also featured in the book are chapters by two DSR alumni, “Living with Others: Fashioning a Post-Secular Citizen in the British Museum” (Yaniv Feller, PhD, 2016) and “Scenes of Ritual Intimacy: Museums and the Display of Magical Practice” (Marisa Karyl Franz, PhD, 2019).
PhD alumnus Tony Scott (2023) recently wrapped up a postdoctoral fellowship in U of T’s Department of Political Science and will be starting a new postdoc opportunity in Japan in January 2025 as the Japan Foundation-Global Japan Studies Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies on Asia, University of Tokyo. His project is titled “The Promise of a Postcolonial Future: Transnational Buddhist Solidarities and the Deimperialization of Cold War Asia.” Nominated by Christoph Emmrich for his work in the Buddhist Literatures class (RLG 374), Tony also received the 2023-2024 Historical Studies Teaching Award–Sessional, granted by the Department of Historical Studies at UTM.
Alumna Margaret Slaughter (BA Religion Specialist, 2015) has completed her PhD in Religious Studies with a minor in Art History at Indiana University Bloomington. She specialized in the study of material culture in medieval and early modern Christianity in Northern Europe. Her dissertation, "Clefts in the Rock: The Theology of Sheela-na-gigs in Medieval Ireland," explored the radicality of flesh in Irish Christian sculpture and writing during the thirteenth through sixteenth centuries. She was supported by the Forrest and Francis Ellis Fellowship in Early Modern History and the College of Arts and Sciences Dissertation Completion Fellowship.