This paper offers a study of the Scripture, Interpretation, and Practice (SIP) graduate program at the University of Virginia, conceptualizing it as a mode of intellectual formation—one that produces distinct scholarly orientations and patterns of inquiry within the broader field of Religious Studies. Rather than relying on the program’s official descriptions or curricular structures, I begin by reflecting on my own formation within SIP, analyzing how what I take to be characteristically SIP forms of inquiry appear in my dissertation. I then extend this reflection
outward by examining how similar patterns appear in the work of other SIP graduates. The goal is to articulate a model of SIP as an intellectual formation, not as a singular or unified mode of inquiry, but potentially as a set of overlapping orientations with family resemblances. Determining how to characterize SIP’s distinctiveness across multiple projects is part of the paper’s analytic task.
This paper offers a study of the Scripture, Interpretation, and Practice (SIP) graduate program at the University of Virginia, conceptualizing it as a mode of intellectual formation—one that produces distinct scholarly orientations and patterns of inquiry within the broader field of Religious Studies. Rather than relying on the program’s official descriptions or curricular structures, I begin by reflecting on my own formation within SIP, analyzing how what I take to be characteristically SIP forms of inquiry appear in my dissertation. I then extend this reflection
outward by examining how similar patterns appear in the work of other SIP graduates. The goal is to articulate a model of SIP as an intellectual formation, not as a singular or unified mode of inquiry, but potentially as a set of overlapping orientations with family resemblances. Determining how to characterize SIP’s distinctiveness across multiple projects is part of the paper’s analytic task.