Congratulations to Prof. Jamal Elias, who has been awarded a grant by the Templeton Religion Trust for a project entitled "Art and Islam in Society: Aesthetic Cognition Expanding Religious Meaning"! The 18-month, $222,000 grant will fund a study of the relationship between art and understanding in American Muslim communities. It brings practicing artists together with scholars of art and society in a conversation on the cognitive value of art. The project will also involve interviews with members of Muslim communities in several cities and artists active in those spaces. Religious Studies doctoral candidate Max Dugan is one of the scholars participating in this project.