WWU Global Humanities & Religions Dept.

04/12/2022

Please join us for the Department of Global Humanities and Religions Distinguished Speaker Series today, April 12th, 4pm. We are honored to announce Professor Judith Weisenfeld, Dept of Religion Chair, Princeton University. Use the link below to register today!

Previous Distinguished Speakers Professor Eric Swanson - June 2021 Professor of Theological Studies, Loyola Marymount University Conquering Evil and Peace of Mind: Negotiating Salvation in Esoteric Buddhism in Meiji Japan

08/26/2020

A recent survey finds many college students lack knowledge of religious traditions and interfaith skills. Courses taught in the Dept. of Global Humanities and Religions help build those skills and bridge the gap. To see the article, please click on the link below.

Survey suggests colleges can do more to equip students to engage with religious diversity. Students from some religious groups find campus more welcoming and supportive than others.

01/14/2020

Winter has arrived to campus!

11/08/2019

**The department is co-sponsoring a public lecture series on the history of slavery.

1619 marks the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans to what became the United States. The series will bring three scholars to campus who will offer both the Western and broader Bellingham community the opportunity to learn more about the history and varieties of enslavement across the Western Hemisphere.

Aviva Ben-Ur (Professor of Near East and Judaic Studies, University of Massachusetts--Amherst), November 18-19, 2019

Edgardo Perez-Morales (Assistant Professor of History, University of Southern California), February, exact dates TBD

Brett Rushforth (Professor of History and Chair, University of Oregon), May 7-9, 2020

More information to follow!

11/06/2019

The department is co-sponsoring an upcoming public lecture!

PUBLIC LECTURE & RECEPTION
"The Moral Triangle"
Dr. Sa'ed Atshan & Katharina Galor

Thursday, November 21, 2019 – 4:30 to 6:00pm
Old Main Theatre
*Reception to follow in the Western Gallery, 6:00-7:30pm (light refreshments will be provided)

Co-authors Dr. Sa'ed Atshan and Katharina Galor to WWU will speak about their book project The Moral Triangle: Germans, Israelis, Palestinians (Duke University Press). In The Moral Triangle, Atshan and Galor draw on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with Israelis, Palestinians, and Germans in Berlin to explore the asymmetric relationships in the context of official German policies, public discourse, and the private sphere. Discussing this book project will offer the Western community new modes of investigating how migration, trauma, and contemporary state politics are inextricably linked. The event is geared towards all the diverse groups on campus. We believe this has a special relevance to today's global issues of migration, history and memory. Following their talk, the Western Gallery will be hosting a reception at the Gallery to invite the speakers and audience to further engage in discussion
while viewing the Fall exhibition.

08/27/2019

Hello everyone! As of today our department page has changed its title to reflect our new name, Dept. of Global Humanities and Religions!

We wish you all a wonderful and safe Labor Day weekend!

06/26/2019

Congratulations Sukey (Susanna Black) and Nathan Kamkoff!

Sukey Black was the Dept. of Liberal Studies 2019 Outstanding Graduate! Sukey and Nathan (recent History dept. graduate) were married May 4th, 2019.

We wish you all the best!

06/19/2019

Spring Commencement 2019! We wish our spring quarter as well our fall and winter quarter graduates all the best! 😀👏👩‍🎓👨‍🎓🎉

05/31/2019

Western Today Article - Dept. of Liberal Studies to Change Name in Fall

Department of Liberal Studies to Change Name in Fall
by Hillary O'Connor, Office of Communications and Marketing Intern

Western’s Department of Liberal Studies will change its name to the Department of Global Humanities and Religions starting this fall.

The department offers interdisciplinary humanities courses and programs; in those, it primarily engages in cultural history and in the academic study of religion as an aspect of human societies and cultures, and wants to communicate this more effectively to the community at Western.

“We hope that this change helps clarify our mission as a department,” Liberal Studies Chair Kimberly Lynn said. “We want to communicate more clearly the department’s global reach. We have courses that range from ancient to modern, that cover most of the globe, and we have professors doing research in 20 different languages and research on four continents.”

Along with the department’s name change, the courses offered will also be given new prefixes. Courses previously labeled as liberal studies or, LBRL, will now be considered either humanities, HUMA, or religion, REL.

The name change was inspired by a series of conversations with tenure-line faculty. Alumni and current students were surveyed, and conversations were had with retired professors and other departments that have gone through similar changes. Informal conversations with current students were also had in order to gain more perspective on the name change.

Current Liberal Studies student Caitlin Hanson said the upcoming changes more clearly lay out what the department’s focus really is.

“As a student I am most looking forward to clarity within the department and throughout campus regarding what it is that we do,” Hanson said. “The name change expresses that global aspect much more clearly and I hope it will lead to departmental growth.”

The Department of Global Humanities and Religions offers two BA options, one in Humanities: History of Culture and one in Religion and Culture. It also offers Minors in the same two areas as well as in Arabic and Islamic Studies.

05/24/2019

Dear Alumni and Friends of the Department,

I hope this finds you very well.

As this academic year rapidly winds down, I'm delighted to announce that we'll start the new academic year with our new name, as the Department of Global Humanities and Religions! (Following from that, our course names will become Humanities (HUMA) and Religion (REL).) Another department goal for next year will be to start an alumni mentoring program, putting our alums in touch with current students... but more about all of that in our annual newsletter this Fall.

But today, I'm also writing to invite you to mark your calendars for next week's 4th annual WWU Give Day.

On May 30th, Western Washington University will be hosting its 4th Annual Give Day, a 24-hour online giving event dedicated to powering student success. Gifts to the Department of Liberal Studies (soon to be Dept. of Global Humanities and Religions) are crucial in helping us fund guest speakers, including our annual distinguished speaker, a tradition now in its eleventh year, as well as our Alumni Weekend & Annual Liberal Studies Department Reception (formerly Back2Bellingham and Scholars Week Symposium), in addition to student research opportunities and, most importantly, scholarships. Gifts to the general department fund help us make all of this possible.

And gifts can also be made to support our one named scholarship:
Meagan Elizabeth Smith Memorial Scholarship for Excellence in the Humanities
This scholarship honors the legacy of Meagan Elizabeth Smith (1993 - 2015). An outstanding student, Meagan was scheduled to graduate with departmental honors in December 2015, with a Humanities major, a concentration in Religion and Culture, and a German minor. She had developed a particular interest in non-Western societies, and especially in Nepal, which inspired the senior thesis she was researching on “Making Sense of Fierce Deities in Indian Religions.” Meagan was a member of the first Liberal Studies Leadership Team, a musician, and an athlete, dedicated to serving the many communities of which she was a cherished part. This is the first named scholarship in the more than forty-year history of the Liberal Studies Department, designed to recognize academic excellence in the humanities.

Visit https://wwugiveday.wwu.edu/liberalstudies19 to learn more!

With all best wishes,
Kimberly

Kimberly Lynn
Professor and Chair
Global Humanities and Religions
(formerly Liberal Studies)
Western Washington University

Giving Day Powered by ScaleFunder

05/21/2019

Success! The department’s annual reception was a success! We had a wonderful collection of faculty past and present, alumni, current students, family and friends! We applauded our 2018-19 Leadership Team for their dedication and promotion of the department (Jonathan Davidson, Caitlin Hanson, May Killorin & Jodie Permen), we celebrated our 2019 Outstanding Graduate Sukey Black Kamkoff, recognized our 2019-20 Humanities Scholarships awardees Rhianon Blake, Elizabeth Moorhead, Thomas Stewart and finally awarded Caitlin Hanson our fourth annual Meagan Elizabeth Smith Memorial Scholarship for Excellence in the Humanities! Congratulations everyone!