Week-In-Review: Shintoism up next and Flying to Denver!
Added 2018-11-09 23:00:20 +0000 UTCVideos: I've been hard at work on November videos. I've just finished recording a video on Shintoism's influence on Pokémon, due out for next week. The Sikhism video is slowly being completed, but if I don't finish it in time for November, I have a vide on the Museum of the Bible as a back-up. I've also started the script for the Zoroastrianism video that you all voted on a few weeks ago. It'll be titled: "Who was Zoroaster?" And will dig into the history of the founder of this religion.
Dissertation: I wrote a few more pages of my dissertation this week. It is a very slow process, and I sometimes feel like I will never finish this PhD. I desperately want to graduate by May 2019 though, so that is my current goal. Maybe you all can hold me accountable? I tend to slack off with this project. My new strategy is to wake up at 5:00 AM and write until 6:30 AM. It seems to work since I am usually too busy throughout the day to write.
American Academy of Religion: I'll be in Denver next week for the American Academy of Religion. This is a huge academic conference for scholars of religion. I'll be presenting a paper on one of my dissertation chapters titled: "Protect My Entrance and My Exit: Liturgical Acclamations and Household Protection in Late Antique Syria." I will be arguing that many of the magical inscriptions that we find on late Roman houses in Syria appear to have been lifted from local liturgies, illustrating an interesting intersection between public and private religion.
~Andrew
