Lisa Bitel to deliver the Boston University Department of Religion Annual Lecture

By AbhishekJanuary 23rd, 2023in Announcements

portrait image of Lisa Bitel The Department of Religion of Boston University is delighted to welcome Professor Lisa Bitel of the University of Southern California to give our annual Religion lecture. Her talk Converting the Religious Supernatural: A Fairy Tale will take place on Monday, February 6 th , 2023, at 6pm.

Professor Lisa Bitel will address the persistence of the Otherworld in ancient literature and modern folklore as well as in graphic and digital media. In Ireland and elsewhere believers continue to encounter the aos síthe (folk of the Otherworld) and similar "small gods" and to exploit them for both tourism and religion. These small gods, by way of Wales, also became French fairies (Fée); while the faeries of post-Norman England eventually became a lucrative modern business in fantasy literature, garden decor, and other popular media. Bitel examines this co-evolution of story and Otherworld over the long haul, asking: Why do some forms of the supernatural and their veneration survive major religious shifts while others disappear?

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ASM Eastern Fellowship Meeting: Report

By AbhishekDecember 14th, 2022in Conference, Missiology
a group of people standing or sitting for a group picture
The Eastern Fellowship of the American Society of Missiologists met at Stony Point Retreat Center, New York from November 4-5, 2022. The 38 participants included well-known missiologists, theologians, and scholars and researchers of missiology and World Christianity. On the first day of the meeting, participants spent time discussing the findings of the recently released monumental work World Christian Encyclopedia. The next day, the following authors presented their newly published books - Michele Sigg ('18) presented her book Birthing Revival: Women and Mission in Nineteenth-Century France, James Jinhong Kim presented Global Christianity and the Early Letters of Horace G. Underwood, Kyama M. Mugambi presented A Spirit of Revitalization: Urban Pentecostalism in Kenya, and Thomas John Hastings presented Worshiping, Witnessing, and Wondering.
More details here.