I had a particularly interesting conversation today with Dr. Steven Benko at Meredith, who, while being a professor of religious studies, frequently researches outside the traditional confines of comparative religion. He says that he, unlike some other professors in his field, doesn’t like to define religion on a macro scale. He discussed with me how many integral aspects of personal identity can operate as religion on a cultural scale, a point I found interesting.
Our conversation moved into philosophy as well, as he and I discussed some of his research in “cultural analysis”, in addition to authors and movements I’ve been interested in. He noted the importance of scaffolding in approaching academic research, and recommended a variety of authors which could help me tackle thinkers like Lacan and Butler.
Overall, it was a conversation which I felt allowed me to gain an understanding of the latitude allowed to those in academia to contribute to valuable research on a variety of topics of expertise.
Meredith College
exactly what i expected to read. thanks for this. -nikhil