Edmund Gilday

The end of another school year (finally!) inspires me to recall all that’s gone on since last August. Tim Dobe, our new South Asianist, survived his rookie season intact, even finding time to organize a number of extracurricular events like the visit by a group of Sufi musicians from Pakistan (see Tim’s note on the next page).

Tyler Roberts was elected chair of the Humanities Division for this year and next, and he’s been very active leading several curricular development groups, including one on “Religion and Politics” and one to enhance the humanities core curriculum.

Henry Rietz and Kathleen Skerrett have had sabbaticals this year and have both been very busily productive. Kathleen also won a fellowship from the Louisville Institute, and was appointed a non-residential Visiting Scholar to the Center for Religion and Media at New York University. In her spare time this spring, she also made presentations at Villanova University and the U. of Chicago Divinity School.

Henry meanwhile has co-edited another volume for the Princeton Theological Seminary Dead Sea Scrolls Project, and in April attended the 29th Annual Pilgrimage to the Manzanar Internment Camp, where he gathered resources for a new unit he is developing for “Mapping the Realm of Religion.” We have all been very grateful for the contributions of Jonathan Moore to our department and our curriculum during Kathleen and Henry’s sabbatical leaves (see his note below).

Our Gates Lecturer this year was Catherine Bell, whose work on ritual and on Chinese religion many of you have read. Jolyon Thomas ’01 appeared from Japan to hear her!

Finally, let me again thank all those alumni who have donated gifts dedicated to our department. We hope to have a report in the fall on a new study space that these funds will help establish. Thanks!


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Timothy Dobe

Visit of Sufi Musicians from Pakistan

In late February the department was honored to co-sponsor and organize, along with several other centers and departments on campus, the visit of a group of eight Sufi musicians from Pakistan. The group, the Farid Ayaz Qawwal Ensemble, is one of the foremost performers of the ancient Islamic tradition of ‘qawwali,’ a musical genre born in and unique to South Asia and recently made popular in the West by Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

At its heart, qawwali is an Islamic mystical tradition, developed in the context of shrines to Sufi ‘saints,’ that aims at inducing an experience of ecstacy and divine love in the audience through music. The lecture, demonstration and concert given by the group were a great success, with the concert beginning by overflowing the Sebring-Lewis concert hall and ending with an intimate but increasingly spirited exchange between performers and audience.

In particular, the group’s visit was a welcome addition to Prof. Dobe’s teaching of Traditions of Islam and Religious Traditions of India; students were of course required (and privileged) to attend the show. At a time when negative images of Islam are bandied about in the media, the intensity, power, virtuosity and aesthetic appeal of this spiritual, musical tradition were a welcome addition to what “Islam” can mean.

Jonathan Moore

B.A. from Illinois Wesleyan University; M.A., Ph.D. from the University of Chicago

Colleagues and students alike have made this past year at Grinnell exhilarating and rewarding. I’m eternally grateful for the opportunity to have taught in such an intellectually rigorous, warm-spirited institution.

The conversations I’ve had with students in my courses, especially “The Christian Right in American Culture”, and “Religious Diversity and American Identity”, have already begun to inform my own work.

During the next academic year, I will be finishing my second book, an examination of what happened when a pagan circle moved into a small, mostly Christian town in central Illinois. Entitled “The Devil Went Down to Hoopeston: Pagans, Christians, and American Identity,” this case study allows us to observe just how, amid increasingly religious diversity, communities decide who belongs—and who does not.

In the meantime, I’ll be defining my own identity in other ways. When I’m not reading, writing, and searching for a more permanent academic position, you may see Allison (age 4) and Zoe (almost 3) dragging me to the park (with a mandatory stop at Saints Rest along the way). I look forward to chance meetings with many of you in the coming months.

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Jason Rathod `06
From St. Paul, Minnesota to Suva, Fiji, a Religious Studies major can carry you a long way.

Thanks to the assistance of the Religious Studies department, I was able to present my Mentored Advanced Project (i.e. undergraduate thesis) entitled “Demystifying Moral Values: How to Win Elections in the American Cosmos” to a regional meeting of the American Academy of Religion in Minnesota.

Under the direction of professor Henry Rietz, my thesis explored the role of civil religion in contemporary American presidential politics. I worked to deconstruct well-established Political Science methodology and form an alternative paradigm for under-standing voter behavior.

A few weeks before my thesis presentation, I was awarded a Watson Fellowship, which gives graduating seniors from a set of liberal arts schools the opportunity to study a longstanding area of interest abroad.

In July, I begin a year of travel to Fiji, Mauritius, Trinidad & Tobago, and Guyana. More than 100 years ago, the British Empire consigned thousands of Indians to indentured servitude on sugar plantations in each country.
The title of the project is “Finding Self in the Other: Cultural Fusion in the Indian Diaspora.” My abstract is below:

For the descendents of indentured servants in the Indian Diaspora, a strong tie to Indian culture continues to give their lives meaning and character. I will look at how these Indians' everyday art, worship, dress, and food reflect differences in political structure, religious ideology, economic status, ethnic relations, and national heritage. Furthermore, I want to understand individuals who defy cultural boundaries and fuse the varied expressions of Indian culture with "other" traditions to create a unique sense of self.

Research for my thesis and coursework in Religious Studies classes like “The Bible and Liberation,” which explored the relationship between individual and communal identity, were essential for formulating my Watson project proposal.


Katherine E. Jares '06
This March, I was delighted to learn I had been selected as a 2006 Harry S. Truman Scholar. The Truman Scholarship is a $30,000 fellowship for graduate school given to 75 undergraduate juniors who plan to pursue a career in public service.

Since my freshmen year at Grinnell, I have been teaching classes at the Newton Correctional Facility, a men’s medium-security prison about twenty minutes west of Grinnell. Last year, I created and co-edited a creative writing anthology, Concrete Perspectives, which showcased the writings produced in student-led classes. Prison education reformation is truly my passion, and I plan to pursue working in the criminal justice system.

Right now, following the establishment of Faith-Based initiatives and the heightened role religion plays in defining self for individual inmates, I am planning on pursing a dual-degree graduate program to obtain my Masters in Divinity and Masters in Social Work. After a period of working within the system, my ten to fifteen year plan includes forming a non-profit, community-based volunteer corps where community members teach general education classes in local prisons.

Community involvement is extremely important at this step. As an Iowa native, I have seen over the last three years how much public opinion has changed in regards to released inmates’ rights. I am currently studying abroad in Adelaide, Australia. Upon my return to Grinnell, I have been playing with the idea of pursuing a MAP focusing on aforementioned role of religion for inmates. But until then, I’m quite happy to enjoy the fine teas of a Commonwealth nation.


Amanda Baker `08
I will be working for People for the American Way this summer in Los Angeles. Also, I will be monitoring intelligent design-evolution battles in CA and helping them promote the responsible teaching of religion in public schools.


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• Aaron H. Bernstein
• Jenne B. Beinart
• Cain C. Elliott
• John S. Wepking
• Cassie M. Donnelly
• Justin C. Riley
• Cathy E. Geddes
• Laura R. Mason-Marshall
• Elena R. Yesner Molly C. Riley
• Greg W. Chatterley
• Rebecca L. Dworkin
• Jason S. Rathod