Laura Snell

Area:

Religion of the Americas/East Asian Religion/Japanese American Religion; Shinto in the United States, secularism, space/place, visual and material culture, transpacific

Office:

HSSB 3069

Office Hours:

Tuesday 1-4pm (Beginning Oct 15th)

Time Period: Fall Quarter 2024

Email:

laurasnell@ucsb.edu

About:

External Co-President of the UCSB Graduate Student Association

Religious Studies Department Graduate-Faculty Liaison

Co-Chair Asian American Religion Unit AAR West

Currently soliciting papers for AAR West 2025! Please send submissions to laurasnell@ucsb.edu or shannon_toribio@ucsb.edu

MAR Yale Divinity School

BFA, BA Randolph College

Upcoming Events

Oct

Tue

2024

4:30 pm Public lecture series “Buddhist ... @ University Club in Santa Barbara

Public lecture series “Buddhist ... @ University Club in Santa Barbara

Oct 8 @ 4:30 pm – Dec 12 @ 7:00 pm

Fall Public Lecture Series Throughout the fall of 2024, international specialists will present to a broad public audience aspects of the rich cultural heritage of Buddhism (material culture, music, texts, and visual arts) and[...]

Nov

Tue

2024

3:00 pm The Material Girls of Early Chri... @ HSSB 4080

The Material Girls of Early Chri... @ HSSB 4080

Nov 19 @ 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm

A mini conference featuring three lectures highlighting the relationship between early Christianity and ancient Mediterranean material culture. The 25% in the title refers to the percentage of the membership of the Society of Biblical Literature[...]

5:00 pm Public lecture “Buddhist Influen...

Public lecture “Buddhist Influen...

Nov 19 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

This lecture is part of the “Buddhist Cultural Heritage Past and Present” organized by Vesna A. Wallace and Fabio Rambelli (Religious Studies, UCSB) in the context of the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of the[...]

Nov

Wed

2024

4:45 pm Lecture “Old Seeds in New Soil: ... @ UCSB SSMS 2135

Lecture “Old Seeds in New Soil: ... @ UCSB SSMS 2135

Nov 20 @ 4:45 pm – 6:15 pm

Old Seeds in New Soil: Constructing Shinto Space and Place Outside of Japan Shinto is popularly imagined as a ritual tradition coterminous with Japanese ethnicity, culture, and geography. Historically hailed as a “divine realm/nation” (*shinkoku*),[...]

Dec

Thu

2024

5:00 pm Public lecture “The Sacred and t... @ University Club in Santa Barbara

Public lecture “The Sacred and t... @ University Club in Santa Barbara

Dec 12 @ 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm

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Statement

The Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara stands in support of the protests for racial justice and police reform. Black lives matter.

We commonly hear that “The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic.” This sentiment echoes in the national response to the current health crisis, where thousands and thousands have died and continue to die daily.

Our expertise lies in the academic study of the world’s religions. Each emphasizes the sanctity of life. In Jewish, Christian, and Islamic traditions, human life is holy because God is holy (Lev 19:4; Qur’an 5:32, 6:131; 1 Corinthians 3:16). In the Buddhist tradition, the first and foremost precept is the prohibition against taking life (any life, not only human); at the same time, the human condition is unique and precious because Buddhas can only appear in human form. In religious traditions of the African Diaspora, Black gods and ancestors rise up to defend Black and Latinx lives in historical rebellions and revolutions. The most well-known of these is the Haitian Revolution that began with the invocation Vodou deities in 1791 at Bwa Kayiman.

Racially motivated killings are often processed as a statistic, notwithstanding the well-known killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Freddie Gray, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, Tony McDade, and Ahmaud Arbery, among many others. In the violent taking of George Floyd’s life, witnessed by the world, we have not a statistic but a tragedy. It is both a reminder of the anti-Blackness embedded in our society and an example of the systemic institutional brutality directed towards minoritized communities.

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