On September 25, Part-Time Assistant Professor of Religion Sarah Summers presented at Harvard Divinity School’s Program for the Evolution of Spirituality 2026 Conference on Belonging. Her talk, “HONK! If You’re Part of the Resistance,” shared conclusions from her 2025 dissertation, “Marching toward Meaning: the Religious Worlds of Drum Corps and Community Bands.” Dr. Summers also spoke about her new project on HONK! bands, which are part of a global movement of activist community street bands. One of these bands will be playing at Southwestern’s Homecoming Celebration on October 23.

Professor of Religion and Culture Laura Hobgood is one of the featured authors at her undergraduate institution’s inaugural book display, “A Legacy in Print: Celebrating JMU Alumni Authors.” The book selected by the James Madison University Carrier Library is The Friends We Keep: Unleashing Christianity’s Compassion for Animals (Baylor UP: 2010).

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Religion Sarah Summers has joined the editorial team for the Encyclopedia of Religion and Popular Culture. She is the Sounds section editor and will also be assisting with the Sights section. This project is part of Springer’s prestigious Major Reference Works publishing program known as SpringerReference. Titles are published online first and then in print.

Professor of Religion and Culture and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood published two book reviews and an invited essay over the past several months. She reviewed When Animals Die: Examining Justifications and Envisioning Justice for H-Net Reviews (August 2026) and Lab Dog: What Global Science Owes American Beagles for Environmental History (July 2026). Her essay, “Religion, Animals, and Academic,” was published in June on the official blog of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature, and Culture as part of a series of reflections contributed by past presidents of the Society.

Professor of Religion and Culture and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood was recently a featured guest on the Relationscapes podcast episode titled “How Dogs Domesticated Humans.” As the author of A Dog’s History of the World: Canines and the Domestication of Humans, Hobgood provided her expertise on the long, complicated co-evolution of humans and dogs. Hosted by award-winning journalist Blair Hodges, the Relationscapes podcast explores relationships, gender, sexuality, race, ability, and culture, focusing on ideas that inspire deeper connection and a more humane life. Listen to the episode here. 

Professor of Religion and Culture and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood presented on the panel “Beyond Personhood: New Ways to Imagine Our Solidarity with Animals” at the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting in Boston. The Animals and Religion Group was founded by Dr. Hobgood and several colleagues in 2000 and has now been active in the AAR for 25 years.

Professor Emeritus of Kinesiology Jimmy Smith and Professor of Religion and Culture/Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood were invited by Lifelong Learning (formerly Senior University) to teach a six-week class called “Going to the Dogs.” The course is based on their 20-year FYS taught at SU.

Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood presented as part of a panel on her contributions to the recently published volume Animals and Religion  at the American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting. Her two chapters are “Companion Animals” and “Blessings of Pets in Jewish and Christian Traditions.”

Professor of Religion Elaine Craddock published the article “Divine Power and Fluid Bodies: Tirunaṅkai Communities in Tamil Nadu” in the International Journal of Hindu Studies this March. The article can be read here.

Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood spent part of spring break in Los Angeles being interviewed and filmed for a documentary focusing on women as leaders and healers in early and medieval Christianity. The documentary, tentatively titled “Immortality Key,” will be a feature length motion picture when it is completed.

Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood had three chapters published in edited volumes in January and February. “Blessings of Pets in Jewish and Christian Traditions” and “Companion Animals” in Animals and Religion, Routledge Press (ed. D. Aftandilian, B Ambros, and A. Gross) and “Animals and Religion” in Religion and Nature in North America, Bloomsbury Press (ed. L. Kearns and W. Bauman).

Professor of Religion Elaine Craddock published an article titled “Un/Desirable Encounters at the Intersections of Caste, Class and Religion” in the journal Feminist Review in December.

Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood was interviewed for U.S. Catholic magazine’s podcast “Glad You Asked.” Each episode of GYA is centered around a question about Catholicism/Christianity that may seem simple at first but requires a good deal of nuance to address well. The question posed to Laura is, “Do dogs go to heaven?” The episode will be released on November 10, 2023.

Professor of Religion and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood has been invited to join the Board of Directors of Education Congo. This organization works to provide scholarships and raise funds to support programs aimed at enhancing the quality of higher education in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Her term begins with the fall board meeting in September.

Professor of Religion Laura Hobgood was invited to appear for a second interview on the NPR broadcast “Dog Talk (and Kitties Too).” The focus of the interview was her book Holy Dogs and Asses: Animals in the Christian Tradition. It will air in February.

Professor of Religion Laura Hobgood was interviewed for the NPR show “Dog Talk” (Radio Pet Lady Network, Long Island). The show will air in 4–6 weeks and features information from Hobgood’s book A Dog’s History of the World. 

Professor of Religion Laura Hobgood was interviewed and featured in an article in the September 2021 issue of The Atlantic. The article, “Why Millennials Are Obsessed With Dogs,” includes a reference to Hobgood’s book A Dog’s History of the World.

Professor of Religion Laura Hobgood  will participate as an invited international panelist to discuss the recently released book Enter the Animal  (Sydney University Press) on Tuesday, July 13. For more information or to attend the panel, see the official website .

Part-Time Assistant Professor of Religion Andrea Gutiérrez  won the 2021 DK Award for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis on Sanskrit, an international prize given by the International Association of Sanskrit Studies once every three years to one candidate globally, for her 2020 Ph.D. dissertation “A Genre of Its Own: A History of Pākaśāstra and Other Culinary Writing of Early India.” Gutiérrez will also have a book chapter titled “Medieval Food as Deity Worship: The Elaboration of Food Offerings in Chola-Era Ritual Practice” in an upcoming volume, The Hindu Temple: Materiality, Social History, and Practice  (Routledge, forthcoming). She will also be presenting research virtually at this year’s Oxford Food Symposium at Oxford University in July 2021.

Laura Hobgood,  professor of religion and holder of the Brown Chair in Religion and Environmental Studies, was the invited lecturer for Texas Christian University’s annual Blessing of the Animals (this year virtual). Her lecture was titled “We Are Animals Too” and was presented on September 30.

Professor of Religion and Elizabeth Root Paden Chair in Religion and Environmental Studies Laura Hobgood has had an article accepted for Bloomsbury Religion in North America, a multimedia, peer-reviewed project. Hobgood researched and wrote “Animals and Religion” during her Southwestern-granted sabbatical in the fall of 2019.

Professor of Religion Elaine Craddock published the essay “Kālī Dances into the Cremation Grounds of the Tamil Land” in the Routledge anthology Regional Communities of Devotion in South Asia: Insiders, Outsiders, and Interlopers, edited by Gil Ben-Herut, Jon Keune, and Anne E. Monius.

Professor of Religion Elaine Craddock delivered a talk, “Tamil Thirunangais: Performing Divine Identities,” for the South Asian Religions Colloquium at Harvard University on March 28, 2019.

Professor of Religion Elaine Craddock published the article “Recalibrating (Field)work” in the peer-reviewed journal QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking (vol. 5, no. 3, fall 2018) as part of the Queer Forum on Navigating Normativity between Field and Academe in India.

Professor of Religion Elaine Craddock  presented the paper “Caste, Class, and Religion among Tamil Thirunangais” for the Queer Symposium at the annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, Wis., Oct. 11.

Professor of Religion Elaine Craddock gave two presentations at the annual Conference on South Asia in Madison, Wisconsin, Oct. 26–28. She presented the paper “Recalibrating Fieldwork” as part of the Queer Pre-Conference: Navigating Normativity from a Non-normative Perspective in Academia and the Field. She also presented the paper “Tamil Transgender Servants of the Goddess” for the panel Purity, Power, and Purpose: Non-elite Goddess Traditions in India and Their Encounters with Modernities.

Professor of Religion Laura Hobgood published a chapter titled “Animals” in The Routledge Companion to Death and Dying, ed. Christopher Moreman. Routledge, 2017.

Professor of Religion Elaine Craddock presented the paper “Dancing in Cremation Grounds in Tamil Nadu” as part of the Regional Scholars of Bhakti workshop at the annual South Asia Conference at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on Oct. 20, 2016.

Professor of Religion Laura Hobgood will present a lecture at Harvard University on Oct. 16, 2016. The invited lecture is part of the conference “Religion, Ecology and our Planetary Future.” Her talk is entitled “Critical Animal Studies Meets Religion and Ecology.”

Professor of Religion Laura Hobgood was invited to be and presented as the Dianne Collins and Alan K. Collins Distinguished Speaker Series at Florida International University in January 2016. Her lecture was titled “Becoming Human and Dog Together.”

Professor of Religion Laura Hobgood was invited to be and presented as the Dianne Collins and Alan K. Collins Distinguished Speaker Series at Florida International University in January 2016. Her lecture was titled “Becoming Human and Dog Together.”

Professor of Religion Elaine Craddock presented her paper “Kali Moves Into Tamil Country” for the Regional Bhakti Scholars Network’s day-long panel on “Who’s In, Who’s Out?” at the 44th annual South Asia Conference in Madison, WI, October 22, 2015.

Professor of Religion Laura Hobgood-Oster was one of the guests on HuffPost Live on Nov. 13. 2014.