The American Religious Sounds Project collection is now searchable through the Atla Digital Library. Atla Digital Library brings religious and theological collections from dozens of libraries, archives, and religious institutions together in one open access platform.
At the beginning of May, the ARSP Community Engagement Committee (Vicki Brennan, Ely Lyonblum, and Lauren Pond) participated in the Distribute 2020 conference, which was organized by the Society for Cultural Anthropology and the Society for Visual Anthropology. In a dynamic multimedia panel, the committee members presented some of the materials archived on the ARSP website and discussed the concepts that animate their plans for interactive and immersive exhibits about religious sound for public audiences.
Ohio State News has chosen to feature the ARSP's project on religion in the time of Covid, including some of our crowdsourced clips. In the time since they spoke to us about the project, the number of submissions has more than doubled.
By David Stowe
Professor in Religious Studies, Michigan State University
Having been involved in the first stages of what has developed into the American Religious Sounds Project, what excites me most about the latest iteration of the archive is its potential for use in the classroom. The homepage features a Teaching Resources pulldown that includes seven class activities.
We are thrilled to announce that we have been named 1st runner up in the category of "Best DH Public Engagement” in this year's Digital Humanities Awards!
Thanks to the DH Awards and to those who voted for us, and congratulations to the winner, "Representations of Cyprus."
The other winners this year were:
From left: Lauren Pond, Caroline Toy, Rosalind Hackett, Finnian M. M. Gerety, Alison Furlong, Amy DeRogatis, and Isaac Weiner
In November, the ARSP team traveled to San Diego, California, for the American Academy of Religion (AAR) Annual Meeting. Each November, the AAR conference brings together thousands of scholars, journalists, artists, publishers, and others from around the world for several days of workshops, panel discussions, and exhibits.
On October 24, the ARSP leadership team gathered at OSU for an all-day workshop with our four newest partners. Jake Johnson (Oklahoma City University) has already begun working with his students on the project this term, and in Spring 2020 he will be joined by Harold Morales (Morgan State University), Pierce Salguero (Penn State Abington), and Homayra Ziad (Johns Hopkins University).
This summer and fall, the ARSP staff have been working on revising the materials we provide to coordinators at sites that are joining the project, including our manual of best practices. The manual covers everything from the project philosophy to recording technology to strategies for introducing undergraduates to ethnography via sound. Alongside that, we’ve also given a lot of thought to the ethical implications of our work.
