Center for the Study of Religion Calendar - Past Events for this Academic Year

Apocalyptic Religion and the Environment

Presents

Apocalyptic Religion and the Environment

A Lecture By:

Dr. Jean E. Rosenfeld, Research Associate UCLA Center for the Study of Religion

Wednesday, 19 October 2005 12:00PM - 1:30PM Bunche Hall 10383

About Dr. Rosenfeld | Dr. Jean E. Rosenfeld's research keeps her on the cutting edge of the interaction between religion and popular culture in the USA. Since earning her Ph.D. in the History of Religion from UCLA, she has published a book on Maori resistance movements, THE ISLAND BROKEN IN TWO HALVES, as well as many articles in academic journals, in encyclopedias dealing with religious violence and with sacred space, and in the Los Angeles Times. For many years she has served as a very productive research associate in the Center for the Study of Religion.

This event is free and open to the public. For further details, please visit our website at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humnet.ucla.edu)

Seminar: "'Re-Orienting' Jewish Modernity: A Genealogical Approach"

Presents

“‘RE-ORIENTING’ JEWISH MODERNITY: A GENEALOGICAL APPROACH”

A Faculty/Student Workshop

By: LITAL LEVY (UC Berkeley)

Monday, November 7, 2005 • 306 Royce Hall • 12 pm

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED.

Please RSVP to cjs@humnet.ucla.edu

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

Seminar: "DOV SADAN: A ZIONIST LITERARY THEORY"

Presents

“DOV SADAN: A ZIONIST LITERARY THEORY”

A Seminar on Jewish Culture

By: ARNOLD BAND (UCLA)

Wednesday, November 16, 2005 • 236 Royce Hall • 12 pm

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. PLEASE RSVP TO CJS@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

Lecture: "THE LAST DAYS OF BUCZACZ: JUDICIAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE DESTRUCTION OF A MULTI-ETHNIC GALICIAN TOWN"

Presents

“THE LAST DAYS OF BUCZACZ: JUDICIAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE DESTRUCTION OF A MULTI-ETHNIC GALICIAN TOWN"

The "1939" Club Distinguished Lecture in Holocaust Studies

By: Omer Bartov (Brown University)

Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies

Sunday, November 20, 2005 Faculty Center • 7:30 pm

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. PLEASE RSVP TO CJS@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU.

About the Lecture: Buczacz is the hometown of the only Hebrew author who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature, Shmuel Yosef Agnon; of the great Polish Jewish historian, Emanuel Ringelblum; of Sigmund Freud’s grandparents; of Simon Wiesenthal; and of Bartov’s own mother. It was founded in the 14th century as a private Polish town owned by a noble family. Bartov is particularly interested in the relationships between its Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish residents, whose ethnicity, religion and trades differed.

About the Speaker: Omer Bartov is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University and considered one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject of genocide. He is the author of six books and the editor of three volumes, including Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation (Oxford UP, 1996), which received the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History; Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity (Oxford UP, 2000), an analysis of the relationship between total war and state-organized genocide and the emergence of modern identity; and The “Jew” in Cinema: From the Golem to Don’t Touch My Holocaust (Indiana UP, 2005). As a Guggenheim Fellow (2003-2004), Professor Bartov researched the history of interethnic relations and violence in the East Galician town of Buczacz. He received his Ph.D. from Oxford.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

Seminar: "THE DEBATE OVER THE EXHIBITION 'CRIMES OF THE WEHRMACHT' AND THE REALITY OF INTER-ETHNIC RELATIONS IN EAST GALICIA IN 1941"

Presents

"THE DEBATE OVER THE EXHIBITION ‘CRIMES OF THE WEHRMACHT’ AND THE REALITY OF INTER-ETHNIC RELATIONS IN EAST GALICIA IN 1941”

A Faculty/Student Workshop

By: OMER BARTOV (Brown)

Monday, November 21, 2005 12 pm • 314 Royce Hall (please note new room)

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. PLEASE RSVP TO CJS@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU.

About the Speaker: Omer Bartov is the John P. Birkelund Distinguished Professor of European History at Brown University and considered one of the world’s leading authorities on the subject of genocide. He is the author of six books and the editor of three volumes, including Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation (Oxford UP, 1996), which received the Fraenkel Prize in Contemporary History; Mirrors of Destruction: War, Genocide, and Modern Identity (Oxford UP, 2000), an analysis of the relationship between total war and state-organized genocide and the emergence of modern identity; and The “Jew” in Cinema: From the Golem to Don’t Touch My Holocaust (Indiana UP, 2005). As a Guggenheim Fellow (2003-2004), Professor Bartov researched the history of interethnic relations and violence in the East Galician town of Buczacz. He received his Ph.D. from Oxford.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

Lecture: "AZARIAH DE' ROSSI (1511-1577): AN EXCEPTIONAL ITALIAN JEW OF THE RENAISSANCE"

The Viterbi Program in Italian Jewish Studies and The UCLA Center for Jewish Studies present

"AZARIAH DE' ROSSI (1511-1577): AN EXCEPTIONAL ITALIAN JEW OF THE RENAISSANCE"

By: JOANNA WEINBERG (Oxford)

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2005 • Fowler Auditorium • 7:30 PM

ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. PLEASE EMAIL CJS@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU TO RSVP.

This new program has been made possible by the generous support of the Viterbi Family Foundation.

******************************************* ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Joanna Weinberg is the James Mew Lecturer in Rabbinical Hebrew and Catherine Fellow in Rabbinics at Oxford. Professor Weinberg is the author of The Light of the Eyes of Azariah de’ Rossi (Yale UP, 2001), which reveals her mastery of rabbinic texts, Greek and Roman literature, and Italian writers. Her research interests include Jewish historiography, Jews in the Renaissance, and Midrash.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

Lecture: "AZARIAH DE' ROSSI (1511-1577): AN EXCEPTIONAL ITALIAN JEW OF THE RENAISSANCE"

The Viterbi Program in Italian Jewish Studies and The UCLA Center for Jewish Studies present

"AZARIAH DE' ROSSI (1511-1577): AN EXCEPTIONAL ITALIAN JEW OF THE RENAISSANCE"

By: JOANNA WEINBERG (Oxford)

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2005 • Fowler Auditorium • 7:30 PM

ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. PLEASE EMAIL CJS@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU TO RSVP.

This new program has been made possible by the generous support of the Viterbi Family Foundation.

*******************************************

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Joanna Weinberg is the James Mew Lecturer in Rabbinical Hebrew and Catherine Fellow in Rabbinics at Oxford. Professor Weinberg is the author of The Light of the Eyes of Azariah de’ Rossi (Yale UP, 2001), which reveals her mastery of rabbinic texts, Greek and Roman literature, and Italian writers. Her research interests include Jewish historiography, Jews in the Renaissance, and Midrash.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

Lecture: "AZARIAH DE' ROSSI (1511-1577): AN EXCEPTIONAL ITALIAN JEW OF THE RENAISSANCE"

**PLEASE NOTE VENUE CHANGED TO FOWLER AUDITORIUM**

The Viterbi Program in Italian Jewish Studies and The UCLA Center for Jewish Studies present

"AZARIAH DE' ROSSI (1511-1577): AN EXCEPTIONAL ITALIAN JEW OF THE RENAISSANCE"

By: JOANNA WEINBERG (Oxford)

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 8, 2005 • Fowler Auditorium • 7:30 PM

ADVANCE REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. PLEASE EMAIL CJS@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU TO RSVP.

This new program has been made possible by the generous support of the Viterbi Family Foundation.

*******************************************

ABOUT THE SPEAKER: Joanna Weinberg is the James Mew Lecturer in Rabbinical Hebrew and Catherine Fellow in Rabbinics at Oxford. Professor Weinberg is the author of The Light of the Eyes of Azariah de’ Rossi (Yale UP, 2001), which reveals her mastery of rabbinic texts, Greek and Roman literature, and Italian writers. Her research interests include Jewish historiography, Jews in the Renaissance, and Midrash.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

CJS SEMINAR: "Western Jewish Agricultural Colonies and Why They Failed"

“Western Jewish Agricultural Colonies and Why They Failed”

A Seminar on Jewish Culture

By ELEANOR KAUFMAN (UCLA)

Thursday, January 26, 2006 • 306 Royce Hall • 12 pm

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. PLEASE RSVP TO CJS@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

CJS SEMINAR: "Modern Jewries and the Imperial Imagination"

“Modern Jewries and the Imperial Imagination”

Seminar on Jewish Culture

By SARAH STEIN (Washington University)

Tuesday, January 31, 2006 • 306 Royce Hall • 12 pm

PRE-REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED. PLEASE RSVP TO CJS@HUMNET.UCLA.EDU

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

"TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION AT UCLA"

Presents

"TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION AT UCLA"

By

RONALD VROON, Professor Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures

1 March 2006, Noon-1:30 Bunche Hall 10367

About the lecture: This is a series to inform faculty and students about how "religion" is conceived, researched, and discussed in UCLA classrooms.

Lecture is free and open to the public.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

Religion and Politics: The Emergence of a New Type of Religious Human Being

Presented by

Dr. Kees Bolle, Professor Emeritus of History, UCLA

Sunday, 12 March 2006 7:00 p.m. at Westwood Hills Christian Church 10808 LeConte Avenue Los Angeles, CA 90024 310-208-8576

{SW corner of Hilgard and LeConte) (parking is free)

ABOUT THE LECTURE: Dr. Bolle's lecture will be related to his new book, Religion and Politics: The Emergence of a New Type of Religious Human Being, and will address the inextricable relationship between religion and politics and its impact on modern Western culture.

Dr. Bolle’s various publications include The Enticement of Religion, The Freedom of Man in Myth, a translation of the Bhagavad Gita (UC Press), and the article on "Myth" for the Encyclopedia of Religion. Dr. Kees Bolle taught History of Religions for the Department of History at UCLA and served as the chair of the undergraduate Study of Religion major, which he helped to create, for more than 20 years. He was one of the major players in planning for the creation of the Center for the Study of Religion, which was finally chartered a few years after his retirement.

We hope to see you all there!

For directions to the church, please visit the church's website: http://home.earthlink.net/~whccweb/pages/directions.html

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

CJS Seminar: "Religion After Secularization: The Liturgical Lives of Generation X Jews in LA"

Presents

“Religion After Secularization: The Liturgical Lives of Generation X Jews in LA”

Seminar on the LA Jewish Experience

By: J. Shawn Landres (Synagogue 3000)

Tuesday, April 4, 2006 • 306 Royce Hall • 12 pm

Pre-Registration is required. Please RSVP to cjs@humnet.ucla.edu

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

CJS Seminar: "Torah Vs. Toyrah: The Linguistic Construction of Orthodox Identity"

The UCLA Center for Jewish Studies

Presents

“Torah Vs. Toyrah: The Linguistic Construction of Orthodox Identity”

Seminar on Jewish Culture

By: Sarah Bunin Benor (Hebrew Union College)

Monday, April 10, 2006 • 306 Royce Hall • 12 pm

Pre-Registration is required. Please RSVP to cjs@humnet.ucla.edu

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

CJS Lecture by BHL "Anti-Semitism in Europe Today"

The UCLA Center for Jewish Studies

Presents

"ANTI-SEMITISM IN EUROPE TODAY”

a lecture by Bernard-Henri Lévy

Tuesday, April 11, 2006 • Korn Convocation Hall • 7:30 pm

With the generous support of Lya Cordova-Latta

Cosponsored by the UCLA Center for European and Eurasian Studies, the UCLA Department of French and Francophone Studies, and the Consulate General of France in Los Angeles

Pre-Registration is not required. Seating is limited and available on a first-come, first-served basis.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S "MEDITATION ON THE DIVINE WILL", WHAT IS THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN PUBLIC SPEECH?

invites you to a special lecture titled

ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S "MEDITATION ON THE DIVINE WILL" WHAT IS THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN PUBLIC SPEECH?

by RONALD C. WHITE, Visiting Professor - UCLA Department of History

Wednesday, 19 April 2006 | 12:00PM - 1:30PM | Bunche Hall 10367

ABOUT Professor Ronald C. White, Jr.: Ronald C. White, Jr. is the author of Lincoln’s Greatest Speech: The Second Inaugural (Simon and Schuster, 2002) and The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words (Random House, 2005). Lincoln’s Greatest Speech was honored as a New York Times Notable Book of 2002 and was on the best-seller list of the Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle. The Book-of-the-Month Club said of The Eloquent President, “this is a book unlike any other you have read on our 16th president.” The Eloquent President has been on the Los Angeles Times bestselling list and in addition to being a selection of the Book-of-the-Month Club was selected by The History Book Club as its Main Selection for March 2005.

Dr. White is a graduate of UCLA (Honors in History, 1961), Princeton Theological Seminary, 1964, and he earned his Ph.D. in Religion and History from Princeton University in 1972. He is a Visiting Professor in the History department at UCLA for the Spring Quarter. (see below). White is the author or editor of seven books and is presently writing a biography of Abraham Lincoln. He has lectured at the White House and been interviewed on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. He is Professor of American Religious History at San Francisco Theological Seminary and a Fellow at the Huntington Library.

This quarter Prof. White is teaching the course on Religion in the USA (History 142C) here at UCLA, giving our students a special opportunity to learn from one of the leading historians of the effects of religious beliefs and practices on life in America. The last time he was our guest (two years ago) his students gave him rave evaluations. So the word is out there, and his course is once again full to overflowing.

This lecture is free and is open to the public.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

The Newly Discovered Gospel of Judas

Marvin Meyer

Griset Professor of Bible and Christian Studies, Director of the Albert Schweitzer Institute, Chapman University; and Member of the Advisory Board of National Geographic Society Judas Codex Project

will speak about the Gospel of Judas contained in the fourth century AD Codex Tchacos, which was acquired by the Swiss Maecenas Foundation only a number of years ago. Considered to have been lost for ever, the Gospel of Judas will now be published in due course as the result of a concerted effort of scholars to conserve and translate the codex. Marvin Meyer is a member of this distinguished team of international scholars and will relate the discovery of the manuscript, the painstaking work of conservation, and the Gospel of Judas' significance for the study of early Christianity.

-- submitted by Jacco Dieleman (dieleman@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, see http://www9.nationalgeographic.com/lostgospel/

"Searching for GOD in Judaism"

presents

"SEARCHING FOR ‘GOD’ IN JUDAISM"

by RABBI CHAIM SEIDLER-FELLER

with a response by S. SCOTT BARTCHY, Professor UCLA Department of History

WEDNESDAY, MAY 31, 2006 4PM - 6PM HAINES A25

This lecture is free and open to the public.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

Subliminal Selves and Psychical Souls: Exploring the Immortality of Mind in Late Victorian Science

presents

“Subliminal Selves and Psychical Souls: Exploring the Immortality of Mind in Late Victorian Science”

by Dr. Courtenay Raia, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2006 12:00PM - 1:30pm BUNCHE 10383

About Dr. Raia: Courtenay Raia received her Ph.D. in European cultural and intellectual history from UCLA in November of 2005 and is currently employed as a lecturer by her alma mater. She recently won the John C. Burnham early career award from the Forum for the History of the Human Sciences for her work on Oliver Lodge, soon to be published by The Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences.

Her dissertation, titled The Substance of Things Hoped For: Faith, Science and Psychical Research in the Victorian Fin de Siècle, explores some of the synergies between psychical research (what today could most nearly be called parapsychology) and important aspects of nineteenth and early twentieth century science. The project aims ultimately to understand the deeper underlying issues that unified more orthodox scientific interests with this daring yet programmatic fascination for the aberrational and the unexplained, placing psychical research at the crossroads of urgent social, scientific, and even spiritual concerns.

This lecture is FREE and open to the public.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

"THE JEWISH PRESENCE IN LATIN AMERICA: THEN AND NOW"

Present

"THE JEWISH PRESENCE IN LATIN AMERICA: THEN AND NOW"

By: Marcos Aguinis (Author; Former Secretary of Culture, Argentina)

Tuesday, October 17, 2006 • 306 Royce Hall • 4 PM

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

"HISTORY’S TRACES: PERSONAL NARRATIVE, DIASPORA, AND THE ARAB-JEWISH EXPERIENCE"

Presents

“HISTORY’S TRACES: PERSONAL NARRATIVE, DIASPORA, AND THE ARAB-JEWISH EXPERIENCE”

Faculty/Student Workshop

Kyla Tompkins (Pomona College

Pre-registration is required. • Please email cjs@humnet.ucla.edu to RSVP.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (vdios@humanities.ucla.edu)

"Apocalyptic Representations of Jerusalem"

presents

"APOCALYPTIC REPRESENTATIONS OF JERUSALEM"

by: Professor Maria Leppakari, Dept. of Language & Culture/Comparative Religion Abo Akedemi University, Helsinki

Wednesday, November 1, 2006 12PM – 1:30PM Bunche Hall, 7398

Lecture is FREE and open to the public! For more information about this and other events, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

"Escaping the Straightjacket of Religious Fundamentalism"

presents

"Escaping the Straightjacket of Religious Fundamentalism"

by: Dr. Jimmy Laura Smull, Independent Scholar

Wednesday, November 8, 2006 12PM – 1:30PM Bunche Hall, 7368

Dr. Smull is a cultural anthropologist with a doctorate in philosophy of human science. She is a graduate of Saybrook Graduate School and Research Center, San Francisco, and her research has focused on identifying and breaking free from destructive childhood religious ideologies. The result is her book, “Healing Eve”, which reports on the women she interviewed and tells her own story as well.

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For more information about this event or upcoming ones, please visit our website at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

"Case of the Danish Cartoons and Islam"

by:

Professor Mikael Rothstein, University of Copenhaven

Wednesday, 29 November 2006, 12PM – 1:30PM Bunche Hall 7386

About Professor Rothstein: Prof. Rothstein has been a major representative of Denmark in talks with Muslim leaders. Since 1989 he has been associated with the Institute for the History of Religions at the University of Copenhagen. His main interest is the new religions of the western world, with special focus on the question of continuity and change. He is a member of the executive board of RENNER (Research Network on New Religions) and editor of the journal CHAOS. Publications include "Gyldendals religonshistorie" (1994) (with Tim Jensen and Jørgen Podemann Sørensen) and "Belief Transformations" (1996).

This lecture is free and open to the public.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

"Oops! What the Pope Didn’t Mean to Say in Regensburg, But Did Anyway."

presents

"The Pope, the Muslims & the Problems of Religion"

or

"Oops! What the Pope Didn’t Mean to Say in Regensburg, But Did Anyway."

by:

Professor Ivan Strenski, Department of Religious Studies - UC Riverside

Wednesday, 17 January 2007 12-1:30PM Bunche Hall 10383

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

Current Coptic Initiatives for Educational, Cultural, Social, and Constitutional Reforms in Egypt

Mr. Youssef Sidhom Editor-in-Chief of Egyptian weekly Watani

Abstract: The promotion of Coptic culture in the media and educational systems in Egypt can have a powerful positive impact on the promotion of democracy, education, civil society, and nation building. Since the late 18th century Coptic politicians and intellectuals have been involved in the process of nation building of the modern republic of Egypt, even though their presence and input may not always be acknowledged in the public media and history text books. The talk will address the Coptic contribution from a variety of angles, such as its cultural, social, political, historical, and religious aspects, and reflect upon the possibilities and challenges of today. The ongoing project to amend the Egyptian constitution presents an opportunity for Coptic initiatives once again; are we seeing positive signs and is there a cause for optimism?

Biography: Mr. Youssef Sidhom is Editor-in-Chief of Watani, which is a major weekly Egyptian newspaper founded in 1958. Watani (www.wataninet.com) is the only newspaper in the Arab world that contains sections in Arabic, English and French. Watani’s mission includes providing a forum for democracy, citizenship rights, liberalism (by Egyptian standards), and women and minority issues. Watani is deeply dedicated to offer its readers high quality, extensive, credible press coverage, with special focus on Coptic issues, culture, heritage, and contribution to Egyptian society.

-- submitted by Jacco Dieleman (dieleman@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact dieleman@humnet.ucla.edu

TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION AT UCLA

Presents

A special lecture on our ”TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION AT UCLA” Series

By: Dr. Ra’anan Boustan, Assistant Professor Department of History & Near Eastern Languages & Cultures

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2007 12:00PM – 1:30PM BUNCHE HALL, 7386

About Dr. Boustan: Dr. Boustan is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Departments of History and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA teaching courses on all aspects of Jewish history (society, culture, literature, and language) within its broader ancient Mediterranean context from approximately 300 BCE to 750 CE.

Before coming to UCLA in September 2006, Dr. Boustan served for two years as an Assistant Professor of early Judaism in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. During the 2003–2004 academic year, he was a research fellow at University of Pennsylvania's Center for Advanced Judaic Studies in a group working on the interface between Anthropology and History in Jewish Studies.

Dr. Boustan completed his PhD in 2004 in the Department of Religion at Princeton University with a dissertation on the historical development of early Jewish mystical literature.

This lecture is FREE & open to the public.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

OF THE INDEFINITE HUMAN: RELIGION AND THE NATURE OF TECHNOLOGICAL CULTURE

Presents

"OF THE INDEFINITE HUMAN: RELIGION AND THE NATURE OF TECHNOLOGICAL CULTURE"

By: DR. THOMAS A. CARLSON, Professor Department of Religious Studies, UCSB

WEDNESDAY, 7 MARCH 2007 4PM – 6PM BUNCHE HALL, 1209B

Respondent: DR. KENNETH REINHARD, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA.

Please visit our website at http://www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion. This event is FREE and open to the public.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

"A SCHOLAR'S TALE: THE JEWISH FACTOR"

"A SCHOLAR'S TALE: THE JEWISH FACTOR"

Geoffrey Hartman (Yale)

Thursday, March 8, 2007 6275 Bunche Hall 4pm

Pre-registration is required. To RSVP please email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu or call (310)267-5327.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (cjs@humanities.ucla.edu)

"POWER WITHOUT LAND? JEWS AND WARFARE IN MODERN EUROPE"

"POWER WITHOUT LAND? JEWS AND WARFARE IN MODERN EUROPE" Faculty/Student Workshop

Derek Penslar (University of Toronto)

Tuesday, March 13, 2007 306 Royce Hall 12:30pm

Pre-registration is required. To RSVP please email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu or call (310)267-5327.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (cjs@humanities.ucla.edu)

"THE NEIGHBOR -REFLECTIONS AND SPECULATIONS ON POLITICAL THEOLOGY"

"THE NEIGHBOR -REFLECTIONS AND SPECULATIONS ON POLITICAL THEOLOGY"

Eric Santner (University of Chicago) and Kenneth Reinhard (UCLA)

Thursday, March 15, 2007 306 Royce Hall 12:30pm

Pre-registration is required. To RSVP please email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu or call (310)267-5327.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (cjs@humanities.ucla.edu)

"POPULAR KABBALAH AN D NEW RELIGIOUS MOVEMENT RESEARCH"

"Popular Kabbalah and New Religious Movement Research" Seminar on the LA Jewish Experience

Jody Myers (CSUN)

April 16, 2007 UCLA Hillel:12pm

Pre-registration is required. To RSVP email cjs@humnet.ucla.edu or call (310)825-5387.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (cjs@humanities.ucla.edu)

"Why Didn't the Gospels of Judas, Thomas & Mary 'Make the Cut' in the New Testament? And Who Decided?

Presents

"Why Didn't the Gospels of Judas, Thomas, and Mary 'Make the Cut" into the New Testament? And Who Decided?"

By Dr. S. Scott Bartchy, Director - UCLA Center for the Study of Religion and Professor, UCLA Department of History

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 18, 2007 12-1:30PM BUNCHE HALL 6275

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About Dr. S. Scott Bartchy: Dr. Bartchy has been teaching at UCLA since 1981. Previously he taught in the internationally-renowned theological faculty of the University of Tuebingen, Germany, and directed the Institut zur Erforschung des Urchristentums there. He earned his Master's degree from Harvard Divinity School and his Ph.D. in the History of Religion from Harvard University, specializing in Christian Origins and Early Christian History. His research interests focus on the relation of the early Christian movement to such social problems as slavery, racial identity, social and economic inequalities, imperial domination, female and male gender formation, and violence.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

"LEGACY: BUILDING THE MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS IN WARSAW"

"LEGACY: BUILDING THE MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS IN WARSAW" Arnold Band Distinguished Lecture in Jewish Literature Co-sponsored by the "1939" Club and the UCLA Fowler Museum

Barbara Kirschenblatt-Gimblett(NYU)

Pre-registration is required. To RSVP email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu or call (310)825-5387.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (cjs@humanities.ucla.edu)

"THE HISTORIAN'S CRAFT IN RENAISSANCE ITALY-THE CASE OF JOSEF HA-KOHEN"

"THE HISTORIAN'S CRAFT IN RENAISSANCE ITALY-THE CASE OF JOSEF HA-KOHEN" Viterbi Lecture in Italian Jewish Studies

Robert Bonfil(Hebrew University)

April 24, 2007 UCLA Hillel. 7:30pm.

Pre-registration is required. To RSVP email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu or call (310)825-5387.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (cjs@humanities.ucla.edu)

REMEMBERING LOT'S WIFE

Presents

REMEMBERING LOT 'S WIFE

By

Professor LOWELL GALLAGHER, UCLA Department of English

WEDNESDAY, 25 APRIL 2007 12PM – 1:30PM BUNCHE HALL, 6275

About the lecture: Biblical tradition, informed by both midrashic commentary and patristic exegesis, remembers Lot's wife as a type of improvident curiosity or disobedience. Literary and visual cultures in modernity emphasize instead the figure's legibility as witness to catastrophe or trauma. Professor Gallagher's talk explores a significant middle zone charted between these two scripts: the redeployment of the figure in early modern religious polemics (Protestant vs. Romanist) over the identifying marks of the true Church.

About Professor Gallagher: Lowell Gallagher is Associate Professor of English (UCLA) and specializes in literary, theological, and visual cultures of Catholicism in early modernity.

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For more information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

REMEMBERING LOT'S WIFE

Presents

REMEMBERING LOT 'S WIFE

By

Professor LOWELL GALLAGHER, UCLA Department of English

WEDNESDAY, 25 APRIL 2007 12PM – 1:30PM BUNCHE HALL, 6275

About the lecture: Biblical tradition, informed by both midrashic commentary and patristic exegesis, remembers Lot's wife as a type of improvident curiosity or disobedience. Literary and visual cultures in modernity emphasize instead the figure's legibility as witness to catastrophe or trauma. Professor Gallagher's talk explores a significant middle zone charted between these two scripts: the redeployment of the figure in early modern religious polemics (Protestant vs. Romanist) over the identifying marks of the true Church.

About Professor Gallagher: Lowell Gallagher is Associate Professor of English (UCLA) and specializes in literary, theological, and visual cultures of Catholicism in early modernity.

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For more information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

"TURNING A PAGE: HOW YIDDISH -SPEAKING IMMIGRANTS REINVENTED THEMSELVES THROUGH READING"

"TURNING A PAGE: HOW YIDDISH -SPEAKING IMMIGRANTS REINVENTED THEMSELVES THROUGH READING" Seminar in Yiddish Studies Viterbi Lecture in Italian Jewish Studies

Eric Goldstein (Emory University)

306 Royce Hall. 12:30pm.

Pre-registration is required. To RSVP email cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu or call (310)825-5387.

-- submitted by Vivian Holenbeck (cjs@humanities.ucla.edu)

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent: Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent: Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

Presents

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar

DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent:

Professor CLAUDIA RAPP,

Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

Presents

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent: Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007

4PM-6PM

HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

Presents

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar

DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent: Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

Presents

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar

DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent:

Professor CLAUDIA RAPP,

Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007

4PM-6PM

HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

Presents

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar

DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent: Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

Presents

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar

DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent:

Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

Presents

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar

DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent:

Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent: Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent: Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience.

"What “Really” Happens? Prayer, Sacred Texts, and Our Everyday Experience. An Exploration of the life and practice of the Desert Mothers and Fathers"

A lecture by Independent Scholar DANIEL WOLPERT

Respondent: Professor CLAUDIA RAPP, Department of History, UCLA

WEDNESDAY, 23 MAY 2007 4PM-6PM HAINES HALL, Room A18

This lecture is FREE and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

About the Lecture: Our society has become obsessed with “the real” and with “experience.” From reality TV shows, to U-Tube, to spiritual practice, we are fascinated with the question of what is real and what ‘really happened’ at a given place and time. This question, which is grounded in a view of reality based largely upon a kind of scientific materialism, has particular significance in the realm of religious practice and study as people attempt to make claims about humans and God and the interaction between the two. What is the result when we try to describe that which by it’s nature can defy description? Are miracle stories “true”? Did so and so really see and angel? Etc. These are the questions I will explore using texts from the period of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, our knowledge of the practice of silent contemplation, as well as insights from modern disciplines of physics and neuroscience in order to see how the practice of prayer evolves into the description of mystical experience as well as spiritual leadership.

About Daniel Wolpert: Daniel Wolpert has been a student of the life of prayer for 30 years. He worked as a psychologist and spiritual director, a farmer, a teacher, and a construction worker before earning his Masters of Divinity degree at San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS – 2000). Over the past twenty years he has taught in the fields of psychology and spiritual formation and led retreats in such settings as the Art of Spiritual Direction Program at SFTS, the Youth Ministry and Spirituality Project, the Fund for Theological Education, and Luther Seminary. Daniel currently serves as the church pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Crookston, MN where he lives with his wife, Dr. Debra Bell, and their two sons, Sam and Max. Dan is a co-founder of the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing (MICAH- www.micahprays.com). He is also the author of “Leading a Life with God: the practice of spiritual leadership” (Upper Room 2006); “Creating a Life with God: the call of ancient prayer practices”(Upper Room 2003), and co-author of “Meeting God in Virtual Reality: using spiritual practices with media” (Abingdon 2004).

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

Mujeres de celuloide en el cine clasico mexicano

The Department of Spanish & Portuguese and the Latin American Center Present:

Julia Tuñón "Mujeres de celuloide en el cine clásico mexicano"

Wednesday, May 23, 6:00 pm Rolfe 4302 (Lydeen Library)

Prof. Julia Tuñón holds a Ph.D. in History from the University of Mexico (UNAM). She has written extensively on women's history in Mexico and on the representation of women and children in Mexican cinema. Prof. Tuñón is the author of several books, among them, Las mujeres en México. Una historia olvidada (1988), Mujeres de luz y sombra en el cine mexicano. La construcción de una imagen, 1939-1952 (1998), and Cuerpo y espíritu. Médicos en celuloide (2005), She has been a member of Mexico´s prestigious National System of Researchers since 1989. Her talk will focus on the image of women in Mexico´s classic cinema.

-- submitted by Dacia Serrano (dacia@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact dacia@humnet.ucla.edu

“American Judaism Today: Polarization and Post-Denominalization”

“American Judaism Today: Polarization and Post-Denominalization”

The Naftulin Family Lecture on Studies in Jewish Identity Samuel Heilman (Queens College)

Limited Seating. Please RSVP at CJSRSVP@humnet.ucla.edu

-- submitted by UCLA Center for Jewish Studies (cjs2@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu

"From Hebrew to Ladino: Manuscripts and Books Among the Jews of Medieval Spain and the 'Sephardi Diaspora'"

"From Hebrew to Ladino: Manuscripts and Books Among the Jews of Medieval Spain and the 'Sephardi Diaspora'" The Maurice Amado Symposium in Sephardic Studies Evelyn Cohen (The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York) Moshe Lazar (USC) Shalom Sabar (UCLA / Hebrew University)

Limited Seating. Please RSVP at CJSRSVP@humnet.ucla.edu For more information contact CJS (310) 825-5387.

-- submitted by UCLA Center for Jewish Studies (cjs2@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu

The Ninth St. Shenouda Conference of Coptic Studies

You are cordially invited to attend

The Ninth St. Shenouda Conference of Coptic Studies at UCLA.

Friday-Saturday, 13-14 July 2007

Royce Hall, Room 314,

For full program and directions, see www.stshenouda.com.

You may register at www.stshenouda.com. Walk-ins are most welcome.

Scholars from 14 institutions will present 19 papers in all things Coptic: monasticism, history, sociopolitical development, language, early Christian literature, Gnosticism, art, music, ecumenism, library resources, and education.

The conference is organized by St. Shenouda the Archimandrite Coptic Society and co-sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures (NELC) of UCLA and the Collegiate Coptic Orthodox Christian Club at UCLA.

Nineteen will be presented by scholars such as:

- Professor James Robinson of Claremont Graduate University,

- Professor Marvin Meyer of Chapman University,

- Professor Boulos Ayad Ayad of University of Colorado,

- Dr. Jacco Dieleman of UCLA,

- Professor Mark Swanson of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago,

- Dr. Tim Vivian of California State University Bakersfield,

- Dr. Monica Bontty of the University of Louisiana in Monroe,

- Mr. Hany Takla of St. Shenouda Society,

- Dr. Maged (Severus) Mikhail of California State University Fullerton,

- Dr. Rene Marquedant of Claremont Graduate University,

- Michelle Youssef-Forgione of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles,

- Dr. Youhanna Youssef of Australian Catholic University in Melbourne,

- Dr. Saad Michael Saad, Senior Editor, Watani International.

-- submitted by Jacco Dieleman (dieleman@humanities.ucla.edu)

MEDIUMS, GHOSTS, AND GUARDIAN ANGELS: ENVISIONING COMBAT AND SPIRIT ACCOMPANIMENT IN POST-9/11 AMERICA

Presents "MEDIUMS, GHOSTS, AND GUARDIAN ANGELS: ENVISIONING COMBAT AND SPIRIT ACCOMPANIMENT IN POST-9/11 AMERICA”

A lecture by:

PATRICK POLK, Professor UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures and Director, James S. Coleman African Studies Center

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2007 12PM - 1:30PM BUNCHE HALL, 10367

About Patrick Polk | Patrick A. Polk's primary research interests focus on folk religion, material behavior, popular culture, and urban visual traditions. His publications include "Haitian Vodou Flags(1997), "The Cast-Off Recast: Recycling and the Creative Transformation of Mass-Produced Objects" (co-edited, 1999), "Arte y Estilo: The Lowriding Tradition" (co-edited, 2000), "Botánica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels" (2004), and the forthcoming "Conjurers, Healers, and Hoodoo Doctors: Readings on African-American Magic and Folk Medicine. Among the exhibits he has curated are "Sequined Spirits: Contemporary Vodou Flags" (1996), " Cruisin,' Stylin,' and Pedal-Scrapin': The Art of the Lowrider Bicycle" (1998), "Muffler Men, Munecos and Other Welded Wonders: Folk Art from Automotive Debris" (1999), and “Botánica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels.” This lecture is FREE and is open to the public! For more information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

"TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION AT UCLA"

invites you to

"TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION AT UCLA"

A Brown Bag Lunch Series Lecture by:

ALLEN ROBERTS, Professor UCLA World Arts & Cultures

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 17, 2007 12PM - 1:30PM BUNCHE HALL, 10367

About Professor Allen F. Roberts | As director of UCLA's famed African Studies Center, Roberts participates in multi-disciplinary research ranging from art and AIDS awareness in Africa to social pressures on the biodiversity of central African rainforests, from cultural history linking eastern Africa with islands and lands along the rim of the Indian Ocean to issues concerning recent African immigrants to the U.S. He also conducts research, writes, teaches, and organizes museum exhibitions with his spouse, Dr. Mary Nooter Roberts (Deputy Director and Chief Curator, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and an Adjunct Professor in WAC). Their recent books are Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History (1997), A Sense of Wonder (1997) and A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal 2003). The latter accompanies a major exhibition currently on national tour, and is previewed at " www.fmch.ucla.edu/passporttoparadise.htm" . The Roberts' current projects include cross-cultural comparison of religious visual culture in Senegal and Mauritius, and an initiative shared with WAC colleagues called "Searching for God in the City of Angels."

This lecture is free and open to the public! For more information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

"The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry from Muslim and Christian Spain" with Peter Cole

“The Dream of the Poem: Hebrew Poetry From Muslim and Christian Spain”

The Maurice Amado Lecture in Sephardic Studies

Peter Cole has published two collections of poetry, Rift (Station Hill) and Hymns & Qualms (Sheep Meadow Press). What Is Doubled: Poems 1981-1989, was recently published by Shearsman Books in the UK. Cole has worked intensively on Hebrew literature, with special emphasis on medieval Hebrew poetry. His Selected Poems of Shmuel HaNagid, published by Princeton U.P. (1996), received the MLA’s Scaglione Prize for Translation. Cole was granted a TLS translation award for Selected Poems of Solomon Ibn Gabirol, also by Princeton U. Press (2001). His new anthology, The Dream of the Poem, traces the arc of the entire period and reveals this remarkable poetic world in all of its richness, humor, grace, gravity, and wisdom.

Cole has received numerous awards for his work, including fellowships from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the 1998 Modern Language Association Translation Award. He was just named a recipient of the prestigious 2007 MacArthur Genius Award.

-- submitted by David Wu (davidwu@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, see http://www.cjs.ucla.edu

MEDIUMS, GHOSTS, AND GUARDIAN ANGELS: ENVISIONING COMBAT AND SPIRIT ACCOMPANIMENT IN POST-9/11 AMERICA

Presents “MEDIUMS, GHOSTS, AND GUARDIAN ANGELS: ENVISIONING COMBAT AND SPIRIT ACCOMPANIMENT IN POST-9/11 AMERICA”

A lecture by:

PATRICK POLK, UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2007 12PM - 1:30PM BUNCHE HALL, 10367

About Patrick Polk | Patrick A. Polk's primary research interests focus on folk religion, material behavior, popular culture, and urban visual traditions.

His publications include "Haitian Vodou Flags(1997), "The Cast-Off Recast: Recycling and the Creative Transformation of Mass-Produced Objects" (co-edited, 1999), "Arte y Estilo: The Lowriding Tradition" (co-edited, 2000), "Botánica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels" (2004), and the forthcoming "Conjurers, Healers, and Hoodoo Doctors: Readings on African-American Magic and Folk Medicine.

Among the exhibits he has curated are "Sequined Spirits: Contemporary Vodou Flags" (1996), " Cruisin,' Stylin,' and Pedal-Scrapin': The Art of the Lowrider Bicycle" (1998), "Muffler Men, Munecos and Other Welded Wonders: Folk Art from Automotive Debris" (1999), and “Botánica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels.” This lecture is FREE and is open to the public! For more information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

MEDIUMS, GHOSTS, AND GUARDIAN ANGELS: ENVISIONING COMBAT AND SPIRIT ACCOMPANIMENT IN POST-9/11 AMERICA

Presents “MEDIUMS, GHOSTS, AND GUARDIAN ANGELS: ENVISIONING COMBAT AND SPIRIT ACCOMPANIMENT IN POST-9/11 AMERICA”

A lecture by:

PATRICK POLK, UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2007 12PM - 1:30PM BUNCHE HALL, 10367

About Patrick Polk | Patrick A. Polk's primary research interests focus on folk religion, material behavior, popular culture, and urban visual traditions.

His publications include "Haitian Vodou Flags(1997), "The Cast-Off Recast: Recycling and the Creative Transformation of Mass-Produced Objects" (co-edited, 1999), "Arte y Estilo: The Lowriding Tradition" (co-edited, 2000), "Botánica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels" (2004), and the forthcoming "Conjurers, Healers, and Hoodoo Doctors: Readings on African-American Magic and Folk Medicine.

Among the exhibits he has curated are "Sequined Spirits: Contemporary Vodou Flags" (1996), " Cruisin,' Stylin,' and Pedal-Scrapin': The Art of the Lowrider Bicycle" (1998), "Muffler Men, Munecos and Other Welded Wonders: Folk Art from Automotive Debris" (1999), and “Botánica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels.” This lecture is FREE and is open to the public! For more information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

CMRS Sawyer Seminar, "Biblical Roots: Talmud, Disputation and the Torah"

-- submitted by Brett Landenberger (cmrs@humanities.ucla.edu)

CMRS Sawyer Seminar, "Gilbert Crispin: The Disputation of a Jew with a Christian"

-- submitted by Brett Landenberger (cmrs@humanities.ucla.edu)

ISLAM, HONOR/SHAME and FORGIVENESS

Presents

“ISLAM, HONOR/SHAME and FORGIVENESS”

A CSR Colloquium featuring

AMIR HUSSAIN, Professor Loyola Marymount University

Respondent:

Dr. S. SCOTT BARTCHY, Director Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA and Professor of Christian Origins and History of Religion at the Department of History

WEDNESDAY, 14 NOVEMBER 2007 4:00PM – 6:00PM HAINES 118

This lecture is FREE and is open to the public! For more information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

Egypt and Israel –The ways of cultural contact in the Late Bronze and Iron Age

Bernd U. Schipper (Associate Professor for Biblical and Religious Studies, University of Bremen)

Egypt and Israel –The ways of cultural contact in the Late Bronze and Iron Age

Abstract: The debate on the form and significance of cultural contact between Israel and Ancient Egypt is one of the most salient issues of religious history in the Ancient Near East. Besides the so-called 'Egyptian-tradition' with such famous texts as the Joseph Story or the book Exodus, a few more literary traditions are represented in the Old Testament that show similarities with Egyptian literature. For example, the book of Proverbs includes passages which are influenced by Egyptian wisdom instruction of the New Kingdom (ca. 1550 – 1070 BCE). If these Biblical texts are taken as evidence for Egyptian influence on the Old Testament, a pertinent question poses itself to the scholarly community: how to imagine and reconstruct the ways of cultural contact? And when could Egyptian literary texts such as the Instruction of Amenemope have had an influence on literary production in Ancient Israel? The lecture will put forward an answer to this question by examining all relevant sources that shine light on the ways of cultural contact between Egypt and Israel in the Late Bronze and Iron Age.

Bernd U. Schipper studied Theology, Egyptology and Archaeology at the Universities of Mainz and Bonn. In 1999 he obtained a PhD in Theology (University of Bonn) and in 2004 a PhD in Egyptology (University of Hamburg: Prof. Hartwig Altenmueller). Since 2002 he has been Associate Professor for Biblical and Religious Studies at the Department for the Study of Religions at the University of Bremen. During the summer term 2007 he was Visiting Professor at the University of Heidelberg. He is co-editor of the Journal "Die Welt des Orients" (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Press) and has published and edited books about the history of Apocalypticism, the cultural contacts between Egypt and Israel in biblical times, the history of Egyptology and the religious literature of Pharaonic Egypt. More: http://www.religion.uni-bremen.de/schipper

-- submitted by Jacco Dieleman (dieleman@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact Dieleman@humnet.ucla.edu

Ir-Religious Religious Education: A Must For A Secular State

presents

“Ir-religious religious education: a must for a Secular State”

by Tim Jensen, Associate Professor Department of the Study of Religions University of Southern Denmark

Monday, 26 November 2007 4PM - 6PM Bunche Hall 6275

About Professor Jensen | Tim Jensen (b. 1950) received the Danish equivalent of the Ph.D. degree in 1981, at the Department of the History of Religions, University of Copenhagen. The thesis dealt with ‘The Concept of Hybris in the Homeric Epics’, focusing also on the reception of the concept of hybris in European history.

Tim Jensen has been heavily involved in the politics and development of the study of religions at various levels, as well as in religious education more generally in a Danish context. He has been chairman of The Danish Religious Education Teachers’ Association, of DAHR and of Norrel, and later (2001-2004) General Secretary of the EASR. Since 2005 he holds the position of General Secretary of the IAHR, the International Association for The History of Religions (cf. http://www.iahr.dk). He has been head of the department in Odense for the last 6 years and head of the Institute for Philosophy and the Study of Religions for 3 years.

This lecture is FREE and is open to the public! For more information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

A DIALOGUE CONCERNING THE NATURE OF GOOD AND EVIL ACCORDING TO ABRAHAMIC TRADITION

In Association with the University Religious Conference

Present

"A DIALOGUE CONCERNING THE NATURE OF GOOD AND EVIL ACCORDING TO ABRAHAMIC TRADITION"

With

Reverend George Grose , Ph.D., UCLA Professor President – The Academy for Judaic, Christian and Islamic Studies

Rabbi Elliott Dorf, Professor of Philosophy, American University of Judaism VP & Rector – The Academy for Judaic, Christian and Islamic Studies

Imam Jihad Turk, Spiritual Director Southern California Islamic Center

MONDAY, 3 DECEMBER 2007 5PM – 7PM HAINES HALL, 118

This event is free and open to the public. For further information, please visit our website at www.humnet.ucla.edu/religion.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu

MIMETIC THEORY and NEUROSCIENCE

In Its “FUTURE OF RELIGION” Series

Invites you to a two-day conference on the theme:

“MIMETIC THEORY and NEUROSCIENCE”

Featuring the author of this famous theory of human behavior, Prof. RENÉ GIRARD of Stanford University and Prof. ANTONIO DAMASIO, distinguished neuroscientist at the University of Southern California.

The conference will be focused on the latest developments in Girard’s “mimetic theory,” including a high-powered symposium dealing with cutting-edge research on the relation of Girard’s theory to recent breakthroughs in neuroscience and developmental psychology. On the first day, Tuesday January 15, Prof. Girard will speak at 7:30PM, and his long-time collaborator Dr. Robert Hamerton-Kelly also from Stanford, will speak that afternoon at 4:00.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 15 in the PUBLIC POLICY BUILDING, ROOM 1246:

4:00-5:45: Lecture by Dr. Hamerton-Kelly titled “Religion as a Theory of Human Behavior”

7:30-9:00: Lecture by Prof. Girard titled “Religion and Apocalypse”

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16TH, 3:00PM – 6:00PM: Panel discussion in ROYCE HALL, ROOM 314.

Theme: “Mimetic Theory and Neuroscience”

The panelists are:

René Girard (Professor Emeritus, Stanford University, Honorary Chair of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion and elected member of the Academie française, the highest rank for French intellectuals)

Antonio Damasio (Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience, and Neurology at USC and Director of the USC College Brain and Creativity Institute)

Jean-Pierre Dupuy (Professor of Social and Political Philosophy at the École Polytechnique, Paris and the Director of C.R.E.A. (Centre de Recherche en Épistémologie Appliquée), which he founded in 1982. At Stanford University, he is a researcher at the Center for Study of Language and Information (C.S.L.I.)

Scott Garrels (Assistant Research Professor, Travis Research Institute, Graduate School of Psychology, Fuller Theological Seminary)

Marco Iacoboni (Associate Professor, Neuropsychiatric Institute, David Geffen School of Medicine UCLA and Director, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation Lab of the Ahmanson-Lovelace Brain Mapping Center) (not yet confirmed)

Dr. Hamerton-Kelly (President of “Imitatio Inc.-Integrating the Human Sciences”) will introduce the panel and Dr. William Hurlbut (Consulting Professor, The Neuroscience Institute at Stanford, Stanford University Medical Center, and the President’s Council on Bioethics) will moderate.

Parking in Structure #2 at Westholme off Hilgard. A fee of $8.00 is charged.

This conference is FREE and open to the public.

-- submitted by UCLA Center for the Study of Religion (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

CJS SEMINAR: The War Between Eldad the Danite and Prester John Through Time and Space

Presents

The War Between Eldad the Danite and Prester John Through Time and Space

A Faculty/Student Seminar on Jewish-Christian Relations

By Micha Perry (UCLA)

Thursday, January 24, 2008 12:00PM

Pre-registration is required. Please RSVP at (310) 267- 5327 or at cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu

For more information about the event or the speaker, please visit our website.

-- submitted by Bora Kim (cjs2@humanities.ucla.edu)

Locating the Copts in Ottoman History: New Approaches & Findings

presents

Febe Armanios

Assistant Professor of History Middlebury College

Abstract The history of Copts in the “early modern” Ottoman era (1517-1798 CE) has been scarcely studied in the academic literature. But the question of how to begin writing the history of non-Muslims in the Middle East has been framed within this narrow construct: were these communities “tolerated” or “persecuted” by the broader Islamic society? This paradigm fails to produce the complex, nuanced answers demanded by varying historical situations. In essence, and for the Coptic case, it tells us little about what it meant to be a practicing Coptic Christian in Ottoman Egypt. As such, I discuss how we can go about uncovering new sources and how to raise different questions so that we can transcend these restrictive paradigms and learn more about the varied nature of Coptic life. In my talk, I present “snapshots” of the Coptic religious experience in an effort to grasp how Coptic believers actually constructed and, at times, contested their religious identity. I look to a body of sources that has been mostly neglected in the scholarly literature and analyze Coptic-Arabic manuscripts—martyrologies, hagiographies, miracle narratives and sermons—collected from archives in Egypt, Europe and the United States. I also supplement my work with Ottoman-era Arabic chronicles and European travel accounts. In the end, I argue that maintenance of and participation in popular religious life became crucial for a Coptic minority which resisted full cultural assimilation by seeking to articulate and preserve its religious distinctiveness in Ottoman Egypt.

Biography Febe Armanios is an Assistant Professor of History at Middlebury College in Vermont, where she specializes in Islamic and Middle Eastern History. Her research interests the history of popular religious practices among Egypt’s Copts, Muslim-Christian relations, and women and gender in the Muslim World. Her publications include “Patriarchs, Archons and the Eighteenth-Century Resurgence of the Coptic Community,” in William Lyster, ed., The Cave Church at the Monastery of St. Paul the First Hermit (Yale University Press, forthcoming 2008); “A Christian Martyr under Mamluk Justice: The Trials of Salib (d. 1512) according to Muslim and Coptic Sources,” co-authored with Boğaç Ergene, in Muslim World (2006); and “‘The Virtuous Woman’: Images of Gender in Modern Coptic Society,” in Middle Eastern Studies (2002). She is currently preparing a monograph on Coptic religious life in the Ottoman period, titled Beyond Persecution and Tolerance: Coptic Christianity in Ottoman Egypt.

-- submitted by Jacco Dieleman (dieleman@humanities.ucla.edu)

Elizabeth Povinelli Lecture

“Beyond Autonomy and Genealogy: Economies of Abandonment”

Thursday, April 10, 2008 4:30pm 314 Royce Hall

Elizabeth Povinelli is professor of Anthropology & Gender Studies and Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Law & Culture. Her writing has focused on developing a critical theory of late liberalism, grounded in theories of the translation, transfiguration and the circulation of values, materialities, and socialities within settler liberalisms. She looks at how the distinction between individual freedom and social bondage subtends and animates most theories and practices of sexuality in postcolonial liberalisms. Her publications include: The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities and the Making of Australian Multiculturalism; The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy, and Carnality; and Labor's Lot: The Power, History, and Culture of Aboriginal Action.

-- submitted by Catharine McGraw (catharinemcgraw@humanities.ucla.edu)

Conversion-led Movements: Convergences and Divergences between Brazilian Pentecostalism and Israeli Judaism

The Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA and the Latin American Studies Center

Presents

“Conversion-led Movements: Convergences and Divergences between Brazilian Pentecostalism and Israeli Judaism.”

By:

DAVID LEHMANN, Reader in Social Science Cambridge University

Monday, April 28, 2008 12:00PM – 1:30PM Bunche Hall, 6275

About the lecture: The concept of conversion-led movements is a convenient one to encompass a range of movements located in different religious traditions but which share common features: a growth dynamic based on conversion campaigns; a concomitant call to converts to rebuild their lives and to adopt a lifestyle in accordance with the prescriptions of the religious organization or movement; a dissident posture vis-à-vis a cultural elite; an opportunist approach to politics; and an appeal to the socially excluded. It encompasses Pentecostalism and also movements of ‘return’ seeking to bring secularized Jews and Muslims ‘back’ to strict observance of their faith. A secular age in which claims to religious affiliation are acceptable on the basis of belief independently of birth or heritage, has opened up a vast space for these movements, which are now having substantial influence on the major religious traditions. The lecture will explore these claims on the basis of a comparison principally between Brazilian Pentecostalism and the Israeli movement and party of Sephardi revival, Shas.

About David Lehmann: David Lehmann is Reader in Social Science at Cambridge University. He has published extensively on development and religion in Latin America, notably in Chile, Ecuador and Brazil, on themes ranging from land reform and peasant economies to Catholicism and Pentecostalism. He has also written on charismatic and fundamentalist movements generally. In 2000 he began to work on religious revival among Israel’s Sephardi population, leading to a book written with Batia Siebzehner: Remaking Israeli Judaism: the challenge of Shas, (New York, Oxford University Press, 2006). He is currently working on a project tracing the diffusion of multicultural ideas in Latin America. www.davidlehmann.org.

This lecture is FREE and open to the public.

-- submitted by Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA (religion@humanities.ucla.edu)

For more information, contact religion@humnet.ucla.edu