The Laws of Hammurabi
At the Confluence of Royal and Scribal Traditions
The Laws of Hammurabi is one of the earliest law codes, dating from the eighteenth century BCE Mesopotamia (ancient Iraq). It is the culmination of a tradition in which scribes would demonstrate their legal flair by composing statutes on a repertoire of traditional cases, articulating what they deemed just and fair. The book describes how […]
Van Engen co-edits book on emotion in religion
Abram Van Engen, professor of English in Arts & Sciences, has co-edited a new collection of essays about religious feeling in early American history and literature.
Cultural backlash: Is LGBTQ progress an attack on Christianity?
New research by Clara L. Wilkins and Lerone Martin in Arts & Sciences explains why some Christians view recent LGBTQ progress as a threat and offers possible interventions to reduce such all-or-nothing beliefs.
Fear of a Muslim Planet
Global Islamophobia in the New World Order
Human rights lawyer Arsalan Iftikhar, AB ’99, JD ’03, takes on Islamophobia through the lens of the brutal Christchurch slaughter. In March 2019, a heavily-armed white supremacist walked into two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, and slaughtered 51 innocent Muslim worshippers while broadcasting on Facebook Live for the world to see. After the Christchurch mosque massacre, […]
Feeling Godly
Religious Affections and Christian Contact in Early North America
In 1746, Jonathan Edwards described his philosophy on the process of Christian conversion in “A Treatise Concerning Religious Affections.” For Edwards, a strict Congregationalist, true conversion is accompanied by a new heart and yields humility, forgiveness, and love—affections that work a change in the person’s nature. But, how did other early American communities understand religious affections […]
Making the World Over
Confronting Racism, Misogyny, and Xenophobia in U.S. History
Political polarization and unrest are not exclusive to our era, but in the twenty-first century, we are living with seemingly unresolvable disagreements that threaten to tear our country apart. Discrimination, racism, tyranny, religious fundamentalism, political schisms, misogyny, “fake news,” border walls, the #MeToo moment, foreign intervention in our electoral process—these cultural and social rifts charge […]
Scholars of religion and politics respond to the Capitol insurrection
Leaning on their expertise in history, ethics and religious studies, faculty from the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics reflect on the Jan. 6 Capitol Insurrection.
Martin receives grant for African American religions project
Lerone A. Martin, at the university’s John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics, along with colleagues at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, has received a $1 million grant from the Henry Luce Foundation to advance public understanding of the history, politics and cultures of African American religions.
Religion and the 2020 election
According to Lerone A. Martin, director of American Culture Studies and associate professor of religion and politics and of African and African-American studies, all in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, modern evangelical voters have supported political candidates for myriad reasons, not all of which are in line with traditional Christian values.
Since 1948
Israeli Literature in the Making
A portrait of Israeli literature in its full transnational and multilingual complexity. Toward the end of the twentieth century, an unprecedented surge of writing altered the Israeli literary scene in profound ways. As fresh creative voices and multiple languages vied for recognition, diversity replaced consensus. Genres once accorded lower status—such as the graphic novel and […]
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