For the past academic year, the Center for the Study of Religion (CSR) at UCLA has been going through a transition from one director to another. My doctoral advisor, Scott Bartchy stepped down from his tenure as director for the CSR after over a decade of skillful and passionate leadership. Another professor with whom I work closely, Ra’anan Boustan, has taken up the reins and brought me on staff as he builds upon the strong foundation that Prof. Bartchy has laid.

One of the central projects of this transitional year has been the recreation of the CSR website. The old website had served its purpose well, but it was time to move on and UCLA’s Center for the Digital Humanities (many of you may know about this center through its Instructional Technology Coordinator, Bob Cargill) helped us out big time. I encourage you to go check out the new site. We’ve got some cool things going on.

If you’re reading this blog post, chances are that you generally, well, read blog posts. If that’s the case, please do check out and subscribe to the CSR blog! Here’s the link for the RSS feed. Visually, the blog is currently a little bare bones, but we’ll be working on that. As far as content goes, we will be hosting many guest posts, including an upcoming one from Dr. Cargill himself, explaining our multidimensional icon (see the “o” in the logo above). One of our instructors for the Study of Religion summer courses will be contributing as well. I hope keep it active and include interviews and reflections on CSR events and topics.