Which Comes First, Big Cities or Big Gods – Norenzayan in Nautilus
Warriors among the Kwara’ae, a collection of tribal communities indigenous to the Solomon Islands, sacrificed pigs before battle. The tradition granted the combatants, so the belief went, aid from heroic ancestral spirits—like the mighty A’orama, a fierce fighter in Kwara’ae folklore. For every man who prepared to shed blood, a hog met its end. [more]
Turning history into a binary code – the DRH in Science
In January of this year, Anders Petersen folded his nearly 2-meter frame into an airplane seat for a flight from Copenhagen to Vancouver, Canada, crossing two continents on his way to check boxes on a computer screen. It would be a new experience for the religious studies scholar from Aarhus University in Denmark, who, like […]
DRH Personnel Changes
June and July have seen some momentum personnel changes at the Database of Religious History, happily all of them tied to very auspicious life events. Dr. Brenton Sullivan, our original Managing Editor for two years, has accepted a tenure track faculty position at Colgate (congrats Brenton!). Brenton played a huge role in defining the basic […]
The Secret of Our Success – Joseph Henrich
The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter Humans are a puzzling species. On the one hand, we struggle to survive on our own in the wild, often unable to solve basic problems, like obtaining food, building shelters or avoiding predators. On the other hand, […]
Religion in the Text and on the Ground: May 2015 CERC Plenary
The 2015 CERC Plenary: Religion in the Text and on the Ground gathered together an international collection of historians, philosophers, literary scholars, anthropologists, archaeologists, ethnographers, cognitive scientists, and psychologists to engage in targeted and substantive discussions concerning the convergence of historiographic and ethnographic approaches to the study of religion. As the midterm plenary of the […]
Prosociality Conference Keynote Address Videos Available
In October of 2014, the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies hosted an International Research Roundtable entitled “Prosociality in History and Historiography: Can Big Gods tip the Balance in World History?”. We now have the three-part keynote address available on our youtube channel, including segments by HECC directors Joseph Henrich and Edward Slingerland, and a […]
The University of the 21st Century: A Catalyst for Creativity and Innovation
On Tuesday, January 13 at 5pm at the Coach House, Green College, 6201 Cecil Green Park Road, Professor Arvind Gupta, President and Vice-Chancellor of UBC gave the fourth talk in a special Green College lecture series on Ideas of the University in the Early 21st Century, in which prominent intellectuals and public figures offer their […]