Remembering J. Z. Smith - A Career and its Consequence - Emily D. Crews
6. Wrestling with Angels and Heavy Books (AAR Panel)
Remembering J. Z. Smith - A Career and its Consequence - Emily D. Crews
Eric D. Mortensen [+]
Guilford College
Eric D. Mortensen is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and International Studies Program Coordinator at Guilford College. He has recently spent a year researching folk performances in Tibetan communities in China through the Fulbright Program.
Description
Mortensen revisits some of the ideas of Jonathan Z. Smith’s with which he himself wrestles: the notion of magic in the historical and comparative study of religion; the influence of Smith’s writings on his own fieldwork and research in southeastern Tibet; and what he finds most pedagogically valuable about Smith’s work on methodology—how it can lead undergraduate students, whom Smith himself famously taught at the University of Chicago, to challenge the way they see themselves and others.