Sightings Articles

Two intertwined dark bronze hands lightly touching at the fingertips with small space in between

art | Embodiment | Religion and the Senses

Smart Sightings | Embodying Religion in Rodin's "The Cathedral"

Time and again, my camera has taught me that religion is deeply enmeshed with the body and everyday lived experience. Rodin’s piece resonates similarly....

November 16, 2023
Black man with cigarette in hand looking pensively off to the right

Trauma | ethics | James Baldwin

James Baldwin and the Cost of Community

Denying that there is persistent brokenness in the world, we have concluded that everything wrong comes from structures that rest on ideologies we oppose. ...

November 9, 2023
Bible lying flat on table with several pages upright as if being turned

Judaism | Antisemitism | terminology | identity

Jews, Semites, and Antisemitism

We need a conceptual approach that recognizes the multifaceted nature of identity and groups....

November 3, 2023
Short white girl in white dress walking down church aisle toward camera

Exorcism | Catholicism | interfaith | Religion and media

A Demon for Everyone: Religion in the Latest "Exorcist"

The ecumenical, even interfaith, nature of the film reflects the America of 2023....

October 26, 2023
Black and white image of church on fire, with silhouettes of multiple figures in the foreground.

racism | Higher law | Wilmington Riot

“The Higher Law”: Tracing the Color Lines with Charles Chesnutt

Charles Chesnutt’s novel "The Marrow of Tradition" indexes the ongoing persistence of racism and the recourse to a color-blind “higher law” based putatively on ability rather than race....

October 19, 2023
American flag isolated against stark white background

Evangelicalism | politics | American exceptionalism

Donald Trump and the Exceptions of American Evangelicalism

Evangelicals see themselves as exceptional in both respects: as not typical of American society as it currently is governed by loathsome elites, and as surpassing that society in virtue. ...

October 13, 2023
White man holding Holy Bible while gesturing toward seated figure

Religion and media | Failure | Film | capitalism

Selling the Gospel of Positive Thinking

It's the everyday nature of the failures in "Salesman," a film about Bible salesmen, that makes the film so powerful and relatable....

October 5, 2023
Students sit and talk in lush green courtyard outside of university's Gothic-style buildings.

Welcome to a New Year of Sightings

As the Divinity School and the Marty Center begin a new academic year, Sightings welcomes new voices and new partnerships....

September 28, 2023
Woman on a bike and man with yellow bag walk by the exterior of Swift Hall

Sightings on Summer Hiatus

Enjoy a curated reading list until we return for Autumn Quarter in September 2023....

July 6, 2023
Man in white shirt and dark vest against backdrop of American and Indian flags

Narendra Modi | Hinduism | nationalism | multiculturalism

Modi, Biden, and the Surprising Links Between Multiculturalism and Islamophobia

Support for Hindu nationalism is widespread in the western diaspora, which both ends of the American political spectrum enable, in their own ways....

June 29, 2023