Canada

Magic and conjuring arts come to Canadian university

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OTTAWA, Ont. – Carleton University has announced that it is seeking an appropriate candidate to be the inaugural holder of the newly created Allan Slaight Chair for the Study of the Conjuring Arts. It will become part of the faculty of arts and social sciences. The university campus is located in Canada’s capitol city, Ottawa, alongside the picturesque Rideau River and historic Rideau Canal. It is also a short distance from Parliament Hill, the epicenter of Canadian federal government.

News

Wendy Griffin retires as academic dean of Cherry Hill Seminary

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COLUMBIA, S.C. –After serving as academic dean at Cherry Hill Seminary since 2011, Wendy Griffin retired from that position on Jan. 31 and has been proclaimed “academic dean emerita” by that institution’s board members. During her tenure at the seminary, a number of new programs introduced and behind-the-scenes infrastructure changes were made, and important steps taken on the difficult path to accreditation. When she was readying to retire from the California State University system after more than 30 years in higher education, Griffin did not intend on taking a new position. However, she experienced one of those coincidences that make some elders nod sagely.

News

Druid studying Pagan views on death

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DURHAM, England — A graduate student at Durham University has launched a survey aimed at better understanding Pagan attitudes to death, funerals, and ancestors. Thus far, Jenny Uzzell reports, the participation has been much more widespread than she might have hoped, meaning it could lay a foundation for more scholarship around these areas in the future. Uzzell is herself a Druid, and the bulk of her scholarship has been focused on British Druidry specifically. However, she’s looking for broader participation in this survey. “I am interested in building up as complete a body of research as possible, into the attitudes of Pagans to a range of subjects related to death and memorialisation, as well as beliefs about what happens to a person when they die,” Uzzell explained.

Paganism

Column: You’re Doing It Wrong

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“You’re doing it wrong” is a battle cry that regularly rings out throughout the Ásatrú and Heathen communities; among those who practice one of the various modern forms of Germanic polytheism. In a cluster of religions without central authority or dogma, there is a paradoxical and continual struggle to assert authority and dogma while positing one’s own perspective as the proper one. Especially in America, such assertions often turn to academia for authentication and justification. Perhaps surprisingly to those unfamiliar with the Heathen subcultures, practitioners sometimes adjust their religious beliefs to accord with academic works written by secular scholars who are openly hostile to modern Heathenry. Whether seeking to justify their own beliefs or to critique the practices of others, Heathens often turn to academic writing on ancient Germanic paganism as the fundamental arbiter of modern religious authenticity.

Culture

Column: Beowulf and Modern Paganism

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I first met Beowulf on a field trip. My grade school class had a special engagement to see a stage version of the story, performed – I think – by St. Louis’ Metro Theater Company. The spare production featured only a few actors and a set of props that, like those of The Fantasticks, were few enough that they could have been brought on stage in a gunnysack. A central platform at the center of the stage doubled as all the locations of the poem – the darkened hall of Heorot, the haunted mere, the dragon’s cave.