This series explores the place of religious and spiritual life in a world that is sometimes at odds with faith, other times in search of it, and always at work reshaping it.

Upcoming Lectures:

Wednesday, October 29, 2008 - "Who's Afraid of American Religion?" - Alan Wolfe, Professor of Political Science and Director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College. 4:30 PM in Rehm Library.

Monday, November 3, 2008 -Modern Cosmology and Life's Meaning Rev. George Coyne, S.J., Director of the Vatican Observatory from 1978-2006, and current President of the Vatican Observatory Foundation - .  7:30 PM, Rehm Library

 

Past Lectures

2007-2008

This year's lectures focus on four religious movements that are growing or resurgent forces in the world today. Each is important to understand in its own right for any persons who want to understand the contemporary world. All four movements also have an important impact on Catholics world wide.

Tuesday, October 2, 2007 - "Tolerance and  Intolerance, Eroticism and Asceticism, in Hinduism" Wendy Doniger, Director of the Martin Marty Center and Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago, where she is also a member of the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, the Committees on the Ancient Mediterranean World and Social Thought, and the faculty of the College. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Monday, October 29, 2007 - "Protestant and Catholic Modernities" - Fr. Anthony Carroll, SJ, Associate Director, The Heythrop Institute for Religion Ethics and Public Life, Heythrop College, University of London. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Thursday, November 1, 2007 - "Of Golden Plates and Global Warming: Translating Mormonism in the Twenty-first Century" - Dan Wotherspoon, PhD, Executive Director, Sunstone Education Foundation and editor, Sunstone Magazine: Mormon Experience, Scholarship, Issues and Art. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Thursday, April 24, 2008 - "Muslim-Christian Encounters in 21 st Century" - John Esposito, University Professor & Founding Director of the Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, Georgetown University. 4:30 PM, Rehm Library.

2006-2007:

Thursday, October 19, 2006 - Harvard historian of education Julie Reuben on "Authority, Allegiance, and Advocacy: Religion and Politics in American
Higher Education." "Through out its history, American higher education has included some form of religious and political education, linked to colleges' commitment to the moral formation of their students and their service to the larger society. Both religion and politics, therefore, have been seen as a central and enduring part of the mission of higher education. But both have also been
problematic part of American higher education, particularly in the twentieth century, when strong religious or political commitments seemed to conflict with the research ideals of openness and objectivity, and the demands of a pluralistic society. This talk will compare the history of religion and politics in order to better illuminate the possibilities and limits of their respective roles in contemporary American higher education." Reuben is author of The Making of the Modern University: Intellectual Transformation and the Marginalization of Morality (Univ of Chicago, 1996) about the secularization of higher education at the end of the 19th century. She is currently at work on a book titled Campus Revolts: Politics and the American University in the 1960s. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Monday, November 6, 2006 - "Whatever Happened to 'Holy Dark'?- Electric lights, intimacy, and modernity" Rev. John Staudenmaier, SJ, historian of technology and editor of Technology and Culture, The International Quarterly of the Society for the History of Technology, discusses the impact of one major form of technology on social life and spirituality. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007 - "The Dominance of the Present Over the Past: The Church's forgotten constitutionalist heritage" - Francis Oakley, Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas and President Emeritus of Williams College, former President of the American Council of Learned Societies. Among his many works are The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages (Cornell, 1985); Community of Learning: The American College and the Liberal Arts Tradition (Oxford, 1992); The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300-1870 (Oxford, 2004); Natural Law, Laws of Nature, Natural Rights: Continuity And Discontinuity in the History of Ideas (Continuum, 2005); and Kingship: The Politics of Enchantment (Routledge, 2006). 4:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 - "Was Jesus in Auschwitz? Talking of God beyond barbed wire" - Rev. Paolo Gamberini, SJ, Professor of Theology at the Pontifical Theological Faculty "San Luigi" in Naples, Italy. Gamberini is also the Delegate for the Diocese of Naples for Ecumenism and Southern European Assistant for Interreligious Dialogue for the Society of Jesus. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

2005-2006 Lectures:

Monday February 27, 2006 - Catholics and Contraception in Twentieth-Century America - Leslie Woodcock Tentler, Professor of History and Director, Center for American Catholic Studies, The Catholic University of America. Tentler's new book on the subject deals with how pastors and lay Catholics have responded to church teachings on contraception over the course of a century. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

Tuesday March 14, 2006 - Robert A. Orsi, Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America at Harvard University, is a widely admired scholar of twentieth century Catholicism and devotions. Orsi is currently engaged in research on Catholic childhood -- what it meant to grow up Catholic in twentieth century America, and will present a talk on that current research. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

2004-2005 Lecture:

Wednesday, Oct 6, 2004 - Rev. Dr. John Polkinghorne, KBE, FRS - One of the world's most distinguished writers on religion and science, Sir John Polkinghorne is a mathematical physicist, an Anglican priest, a fellow of the Royal Society, and a winner of the Templeton Prize. He will deliver a lecture entitled "Science and the Soul" and be available two days for informal meetings with students and faculty. 7:30 PM, Rehm Library.

2003-2004 Lectures:

Monday, December 8, 2003 - "Pragmatism and the Modern Self" - Michael J. Lacey, Emeritus Director, Center for American Society and Culture, Woodrow Wilson Center, Smithsonian Institution. 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

Thursday February 5, 2004 - Rev. Joseph A. Komonchak, Professor, Catholic University: "The Jesuits and Modernity: the Case of John Courtney Murray" 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.Wednesday, March 24, 2004 -Terrence Tilley, Professor of Religous Studies, University of Dayton - "The Falsification Challenge Revisited: Religious Principles and Historical Evidence." 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

2002-2003 Lectures:  

Terrorism and War: Struggles with Apocalyptic Violence"
Robert Jay Lifton
Harvard Medical School
Tuesday, April 8, 2003, 4:00 PM, Rehm Library.

R. Scott Appleby
Cushwa Center for American Catholic Studies
University of Notre Dame
"As if in Prayer": Against the Consolations of Virtual Catholicism