Please Note: All of the meetings will take place in the Faculty House, with dinner preceding at a time to be announced.

October 5, 2011, 7:00 PM Faculty House
Richard Bulliet, Professor of History, Columbia University.
"Islam and Political Legitimacy from Saladin to the Arab Spring."

November 2, 2011, 7:00 PM Faculty House
Gary Dorrien, Reinhold Niebuhr Professor of Social Ethics, Union Theological Seminary
"The Idea of Social Ethics: History, Method, Social Justice, and Economic Democracy."

December 7, 2011, 7:00 PM Faculty House
Sabine Jell-Bahlsen, PhD, Former Editor-in-Chief: Dialectical Anthropology.
"OGBUIDE, An Igbo Water Goddess of Southeastern Nigeria."

Abstract: 
"My presentation is based on extensive field research from 1978 to 2009. Ancient beliefs of the Oru-Igbo inform us of the female side of the universe expressed in the reverence for motherhood, locally embodied in major female divinities, earth and water. Oguta's Lake Goddess, Ogbuide, occupies a preeminent position in the eternal cycle of life. She is regarded as the life giver. Yet, the harbinger of children and wealth is also feared, is volatile, may change human destiny, and bring death; closely linked to the belief in re-incarnation, Ogbuide defines behavioral and reproductive norms. She controls transitions and human entry into and exit from life. Today, Nigeria faces an onslaught of aggressive proselytism and rapid transformations. Yet, the ancient awe for the life giving and sustaining power of water remains."

February 1, 2012, 7:00 PM  Faculty House
Christopher D. Denny, Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, St. John's University (NY) "Reading across Religious Traditions and the Challenge of Cultural Particularism"

March 7, 2012, 7:00 PM  Faculty House
Angela Harkins; Associate Professor, Department of Religious Studies, Fairfield University

"Thinking about the Authority of Anonymous Pluriform Text Traditions"

Abstract: This essay examines how authority was negotiated by anonymous pluriform traditions like the "Self-Glorification Hymn," a composition in the Qumran Hodayot collection of prayers. It proposes that assumptions which associate a text's authority with textual stability and convergence presume an anachronistic printing-press model of texts. The orthography in the Hodayot collections indicates that this collection emerged over time and had multiple authors. In the case of prayer texts like the Hodayot which neither enjoy ancient pseudepigraphic authority nor the benefit of later canonical status, this essay argues that markers of textual pluriformity and literary divergence can be understood as signs that the Hodayot prayers were used for ritual purposes and authenticated by the bodily during the reenactment of these texts.

April 4, 2012, 7:00 PM  Faculty House
Marcia Contins; Professor, State University of Rio de Janeiro; Visiting Professor, New York University

"Transitions and Displacements among Religious Groups in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil"

Abstract: The focus of my reflections is the relationship between religious practices and beliefs (Afro-Brazilian groups, Pentecostals and Carismatics), and the urban context in Rio de Janeiro. My purpose is to describe and analyze the ways these specific religious groups move between different neighborhoods in the city, and the role these transitions and displacements play in the process of collective self-perception. I explore the social as well as the symbolic relations that bond these groups to the society as a whole and to the universe.

May 2, 2012, 7:00 PM  Faculty House
Patton Burchett, Columbia University
"Devotees, Yogīs, and Sufis Trapped in Our Own Skin: Constructing and Understanding Religious Identities in Early Modern North India."