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.