Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture University of Virginia
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Save the Date

Adam Seligman

The Institute will be sponsoring a lecture by Adam Seligman, Professor of Religion at Boston University, on Wednesday, November 18, 2009. The title of the talk will be, “Ritual and Sincerity: Certitude and the Other.” Save the date, and look for further information in the October eNewsletter.

News

Slavica JakelićSlavica Jakelić, Institute Faculty Fellow and Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Culture, and Democracy, was awarded a Senior Fellowship at the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago. During her fellowship, Professor Jakelić will be focusing on two projects. The first is her book, Collectivistic Religions: Religion, Choice, and Identity in Late Modernity, recently under contract with Ashgate. The second is a conference and book project on “Secularism in the Late Modern Age: Between New Atheisms and Religious Fundamentalisms,” for which she recently received a grant from the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science. Hear Slavica talk about her work in a recent interview.

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Research Fellow Matthew Crawford’s book Shop Class as Soulcraft has received enormous attention. Hear Matt’s interview on NPR’s All Things Considered and read reviews of his book in the New York Times and Financial Times.

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The Institute helped to support a conference in May, co-led by Faculty Fellow Brian Balogh, on the therapeutic origins of policy. Keep an eye out for an excerpt from former fellow Stephanie Muravchik’s paper in the upcoming issue of Culture. If you don’t yet receive Culture, sign up here; it’s free.

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More former fellow placements: Ann Duncan is now Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Goucher College and Adam Kadlac is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Tennessee. Also, Hilde Restad, a current Associate Fellow, has been awarded fellowships from the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies and from the American-Scandinavian Foundation.

Publications

The Hedgehog Review: Politics and the Media

The Hedgehog Review (Order here)

What role do corporations play in the public sphere? The Hedgehog Review’s Summer 2009 issue on “The Moral Life of Corporations” seeks to answer this question through essays, reviews, and interviews. Read the introduction, then order a subscription or a single copy of this issue.

Announcing our READER SURVEY: If you subscribe to The Hedgehog Review, or you are a former subscriber, please take five minutes to complete our reader survey—and receive a free gift subscription! If you don’t have time now, a link will be available on the Hedgehog Review homepage for the next few weeks.
Culture

Culture (Order here)

The final issue of our free magazine, Culture, is now at the press. Don’t miss essays by Institute fellows as well as news on what’s next for the publications of the Institute. Sign up now; it’s free!

The hard thinking that goes on here—about really big questions that often are glossed over—has enlivened my work.

—Scott Nesbit
Doctoral Fellow

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Culture Notes

This section contains essays from a variety of online sources that we think you might find interesting.

Johann N. Neem: Massachusetts and Our Nation of Joiners

Interview by Samuel P. Jacobs

The Boston Globe—June 28, 2009

Former fellow Johann Neem discusses his new book and explains why freedom of association was not a founding principle of the United States.

LinkedIn v. Freemasons: Joining the Club

The Economist—June 25, 2009

Online business networking sites, like LinkedIn and Viadeo, may be gaining traction, but traditional networks and clubs still have significant influence.

A Faith for the Nones

Michael Gerson

The Washington Post—May 8, 2009

Robert Putnam and David Campbell are gathering research on the social engagement of religious Americans, including the least religious group of all—those in their twenties.

Keeping Books Safe

Elizabeth Mullaney Nicol

The New Atlantis—Spring 2009

The consequences of a new law governing lead in children’s products has resulted in the mass destruction of children’s books printed before 1985.