Past Wednesday Luncheons

 

Spring Quarter 2008

April 2
Paul Copp, Assistant Professor in Chinese Religion, East Asian Languages and Civilizations, on "Incantations, Amulets, and Efficacy in Medieval Chinese Buddhism." Prof. Copp works on the cultural and intellectual history of medieval Chinese religions and is completing a book manuscript on Tang Buddhist spell craft, its attendant imaginings of linguistic and material forms of efficacy, and the ways its practices drew on longstanding Chinese traditions, both Daoist and otherwise (as well as working on numerous other projects).

April 9
Dr. Rick Kittles, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Medicine, will discuss "genetics, race, and ancestry." Dr. Kittles' research focus is to formally evaluate genetic mechanisms involved in complex diseases. His work entails understanding how genetic variation is structured across human populations and how that variation contributes to inter-individual variation in disease susceptibility and other phenotypes such as drug response and skin color. Currently his work explores sequence variation within candidate genes in well-characterized populations for prostate and breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and human pigmentation. His interests also include biological and socio-cultural issues related to "Race" and health disparities and the utility of admixture mapping for genes for common traits and disease in African Americans and Hispanic Americans.

April 16
Dean's Forum with Jean-Luc Marion, Professor of the Philosophy of Religion and Theology in the Divinity School; also in the Department of Philosophy and the Committee on Social Thought. Respondents TBA. Prof. Marion will discuss his book The Erotic Phenomenon.

April 23
Poetry open mic. In honor of National Poetry Month, lunch guests may bring a poem to read at our first annual Divinity School Poetry Month Lunch.

April 30
Daniel Sack, administrator of the Divinity School's Border Crossing Project and a historian of American religion, on "Food and Religion, Memory and Community." As part of his work for the Material History of American Religion Project, Sack wrote Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture (Palgrave, 2000), an investigation into the food practices of white mainline Protestants--ranging from conflicts over communion wine to potlucks to soup kitchens. This history reveals how food builds community and shapes memory. Sack will share some of the stories he discovered and invite us to share our stories of religion and food.

May 7
Eboo Patel, founder and Executive Director of Interfaith Youth Core (http:// www.ifyc.org), a non-profit organization based in Chicago that ''builds mutual respect and pluralism among young people from different religious traditions by empowering them to work together to serve others,'' speaking. Dr. Patel has recently written Acts of Faith, chronicling his struggle to forge his identity as a Muslim, an Indian, and an American. He received his doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University. Dr. Patel will discuss his book and his theory of the ''Faith Line: Religious Totalitarians vs. Religious Pluralists in the 21st century.''

May 14
Garrett Kiely, Director of the University of Chicago Press, on a topic TBA. The U of C Press is the nation's largest academic press, and the publisher of numerous award-winning books and journals aimed at a scholarly and general interest audience including The Chicago Manual of Style. Kiely, an academic publishing veteran, began his duties as director of the Press last September.

May 21
Dipesh Chakrabarty, Lawrence A. Kimpton Distinguished Service Professor, SALC, History, and the College, on "The Power of 'Superstition' in Everyday Life in India."

May 28
Musical Offering. Join us for an outdoor lunch (weather permitting) and the music of The Prairie Dogs, who join us from Urbana-Champaign to offer a little bluegrass, a little traditional folk, a little old-time music. For this lunch only, there will be meat, vegetarian, or vegan options. Rain location: Common Room.

Winter Quarter 2008

January 9
Richard A. Rosengarten, Dean and Associate Professor of Religion and Literature in the Divinity School.

January 16
Cristina Benitez, speaking on the subject of her book Latinization...How Latino Culture is Transforming the U.S. Cristina Benitez is the president of Lazos Latinos -- Latino Branding, Advertising & Latinization -- a Chicago-based brand and marketing consulting company focusing on the nuances of Hispanic culture.

January 23
Ivan Brunetti, of the department of Creative Writing, on "Editing an Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories." Brunetti teaches on editorial illustration and comics at Columbia College Chicago and the University of Chicago. In 2005, he curated The Cartoonist's Eye, an exhibit of 75 artists' work, for the A+D Gallery of Columbia; the exhibit was a preview for An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories (Yale University Press, 2006), which he edited. A second volume of this Anthology is scheduled for Fall 2008. He draws for The Chicago Reader and other alternative weekly newspapers, and his work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Entertainment Weekly, Spin, Mother Jones, Fast Company, and others. Fantagraphics Books has published four issues of his comic book series, Schizo.

January 30
Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, speaking. Previously Bishop of Nevada, Jefferts Schori is the twenty-sixth Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, chief pastor to the Episcopal Church's 2.4 million members in 16 countries and 110 dioceses, ecumenical officer, and primate, joining leaders of the other 38 Anglican Provinces in consultation for global good and reconciliation. Read more about Bishop Jefferts Schori here: http://www.episcopalchurch.org/presiding-bishop.htm.

February 13
Richard A. Shweder on "'Celebrate Diversity!': But Do We Really Mean It?" Prof. Shweder is a cultural anthropologist and the William Claude Reavis Distinguished Service Professor of Human Development in the Department of Comparative Human Development at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. degree in social anthropology in the Department of Social Relations at Harvard University in 1972, taught a year at the University of Nairobi in Kenya and has been at the University of Chicago ever since. He is author of Thinking Through Cultures: Expeditions in Cultural Psychology and Why Do Men Barbecue? Recipes for Cultural Psychology (both published by Harvard University Press); and editor or co-editor of many books in the areas cultural psychology, psychological anthropology and comparative human development.

February 20
Stephen Pruett-Jones, Associate Professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution, will speak on the famous—or infamous—monk parakeet, the green tropical birds living in Hyde Park, in a talk entitled ''Monk Parakeets in North America: Biology, Wildlife Management, and Public
Opinion.'' Pruett-Jones has been generating a map of all active monk parakeet nests, stretching from northwest Indiana into southern Wisconsin, using sightings by local inhabitants. Read more about his project here: http://magazine.uchicago.edu/9810/html/invest2.htm.

February 27
Kenan Heise and former alderman Leon Despres will discuss Heise's new book Chicago Afternoons with Leon.

Former Fifth Ward (Hyde Park) alderman Leon M. Despres went up against the authoritarian Daley machine for two decades. Elected to the Chicago City Council in 1955 — the same year as Richard J. "Da Mare" Daley — he was one of the few independents on the council and the most liberal alderman in the city. Despres ushered in 20 years of reform efforts: he worked to ban discrimination, end patronage, and ferret out corruption and is recognized today as a local legend who dared to spite the "Boss of all Bosses."

Kenan Heise is a former Tribune reporter who previously collaborated on 2005's "Challenging the Daley Machine: A Chicago Alderman's Memoir" with Mr. Despres. Mr. Despres graduated from the University of Chicago College in 1927 and the Law School in 1929 -- and turned 100 this February.

Read more about Leon Despres here: http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases
/05/050922.despres.shtml.

March 5
MUSICAL OFFERING: The New Budapest Orpheum Society, performing. Headed by artistic director and emcee Philip Bohlman, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Chicago Department of Music, the New Budapest Orpheum Society is a revival of the longest-running Jewish cabaret in Vienna. Called "a superb Chicago ensemble" by The Chicago Tribune, the New Budapest Orpheum Society performs music rescued from the Austrian Censor's Office. Musicians include Julia Bentley, mezzo-soprano; Stewart Figa, baritone; Iordanka Kissiova, violin; Ilya Levinson, piano; Stewart Miller, bass; and Hank Tausend, percussion.

Autumn Quarter 2007

September 26
A conversation with Kimberly Goff-Crews, Dean of Students in the University. Ms. Goff-Crews joined the U of C in July 2007 as Vice-President and Dean of Students. She provides leadership and strategic direction for services and programs supporting graduate and undergraduate students’ academic success and personal development, supervises overall student life, providing University policy direction, and managing multiple campus departments. She will also manage and plan budgeting in areas of student life and develop new services to address student interests and needs. See more here: http://orgchart.uchicago.edu/bios/goff-crews.shtml.

October 3
Catherine Braendel, co-founder of Good Read Games, Inc., Speaker and Gaming MC: "It Was a Dark and Stormy Night: A Game of First Lines." Do you know all the answers in Trivial Pursuit? Are you Scrabbled out? Be among the first to play a newly published board game. Many hours spent reading for pleasure have equipped you to compete with other readers to identify the author or title of a book with only the book's first line as a clue. It's that simple and that challenging. Catherine Braendel will give you the inside scoop on how she and her husband developed the Dark and Stormy Night game, and cheer you on while you play.

October 10
Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity in the Divinity School, speaking about his book "The Mystery of the Child." Martin Marty has taught in the Divinity School, the Department of History, and the Committee on the History of Culture since 1963. He specializes in late eighteenth and twentieth-century American religion and occasionally holds seminars on subjects related to this specialty. An ordained minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Professor Marty has put considerable effort into the Master of Divinity program at the Divinity School and into teaching for public ministry."Marty" is one of the most prominent modern interpreters of religion and culture.

October 17
Mark N. Swanson, Harold S. Vogelaar Professor of Christian-Muslim Studies and Interfaith Relations at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, speaking on "Bad Theology and Attempted Reform: The Upsetting Career of Mark ibn al-Qunbar (Egypt, late 12th c. CE)." Marqus (Mark) ibn al-Qunbar was a priest and charismatic teacher and preacher in the Coptic Orthodox Church of the late 12th century CE. Over the course of his career he attracted a devoted following, alienated the patriarchs of two different churches, made odd theological arguments, traded fierce polemics - and set off a discussion about the practice of Confession in the Coptic Orthodox Church that went on for decades and would involve some of the Church's greatest theologians. Professor Swanson is working on a book entitled The Coptic Papacy in Islamic Egypt (for the American University in Cairo Press); this talk reflects some of that work-in-progress.

October 24
Victoria Martin, a visual artist whose work transcends time and religions, depicting mystical and magical subjects from ancient texts, will be showing and discussing some of her artwork. Martin, a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago, has had recent exclusive exhibitions including "World Spirituality and Mysticism" at the Chicago Cultural Center, "Incantations to the Viscera" at the Chicago's Museum of Surgical Science and "Of Mystery and Magic" at the University of Chicago's renowned Rockefeller Chapel. She was featured on the popular public television series "Ben Around Town" and was a cover story for the independent Chicago Reader. At her day job, she writes business-oriented horoscopes for Bloomberg News.

October 31
Report from Rockefeller Chapel's 2007 Delegation to Iran - This August and September, a dozen University of Chicago representatives travelled to Iran to meet with religious leaders, community members, students, and teachers. In this Lunch, a panel of participants will share their experiences—and their photographs.

November 7
Dean's Forum with James T. Robinson, Assistant Professor of the History of Judaism in the Divinity School. Prof. Robinson's recent book, Samuel Ibn Tibbon's Commentary on Ecclesiastes: The Book of the Soul of Man, will be the subject of the Forum. Lucy Pick, Director of Undergraduate Studies and Senior Lecturer in the History of Christianity, responding.

November 14
Dr. Rick Kittles cancelled for this day and has rescheduled for April 9.

November 28
Will Okun, on a topic TBA. A teacher at of 11th and 12th graders in the Austin
community of Chicago, Mr. Okun accompanied the New York Times's Pulitzer Prize
winning columnist Nicholas D. Kristof on a reporting trip to Africa last summer and
is currently a guest blogger on the New York Times website.

Tead Mr. Okun's NYTimes blogs, including his entries from his trip to Africa, here:
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/author/wokun/.

Mr. Okun also operates http://wjzo.com, a Web site that features his portraits of
high school students and documentary photographs of the West Side communities
of Chicago. The site offers a unique perspective on inner-city youth culture and
averages 30,000 views a week from all over the world.

Spring Quarter 2007

March 28
Michael McColly, author of The After-Death Room: Journey Into Spiritual Activism, will discuss his memoir (and his years at the Divinity School). A national speaker and writer on spiritual activism and AIDS, his book examines the AIDS epidemic from a global, spiritual, and physical perspective—as well as the territory where those perspectives meet. Mr. McColly is an HIV+ journalist and a yoga teacher who received his M.A. from the Divinity School in 1985.

April 4
Annual Franz Bibfeldt Lunch. David P Lyons, PhD Student in History of Christianity, will speak on "Franz Bibfeldt, the Academy, and Me: Toward a Postmodern Hermeneutic of Both the Subaltern and the Other" and Kyle Rader, M. Div. student, will offer the customary toast. The lecture commemorates the life and scholarship of eminent theologian and proteanist extraordinaire Franz Bibfeldt, mentor to Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity in the Divinity School.

April 11, 2007
J. Ronald Engel, Senior Research Fellow at the Martin Marty Center and Professor Emeritus at Meadville-Lombard, will speak on "Making the Earth Covenant." Prof. Engel will draw from his current research to try to understand the meaning of contemporary calls for a "New Earth Covenant," and some of the ways previous Faculty and graduates of the Divinity School may have helped lay the groundwork for this revolutionary step in religious history. This Earth Month event is cosponsored by the Religion and Environment Initiative.

April 18
Julie Vieira is the author (blogger) of A Nun's Life: A Blog about Being a Catholic Nun in Today's World, recently profiled in a Time Magazine article about young nuns today. She is a member of the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM), a Roman Catholic religious community based in Monroe, Michigan committed to building a culture of peace and right relationships. She works at Loyola Press, a nonprofit publisher serving the Catholic community in faith formation, education, and spiritual growth. Read her blog at www.nuns2day.wordpress.com.

April 25
Ronne Hartfield, in honor of National Poetry Month, will speak on "The Words to Say It: Poetry, Perplexity, and the Blues." Ronne Hartfield is a Divinity School alumna (M.A., 1982) and serves on the Advisory Board for the Martin Marty Center. An international museum consultant and expert in arts and multicultural education, she is recently the author of Another Way Home: The Tangled Roots of Race in One Chicago Family (University of Chicago Press, 2005). Read more about Ronne Hartfield here: http://www.thehistorymakers.com/biography/biography.asp?bioindex=181&category=artMakers.

May 2, 2007
Linda C. McClain, Rivkin Radler Distinguished Professor of Law, Hofstra University School of Law, will discuss some ideas from her recent book The Place of Families: Fostering Capacity, Equality, and Responsibilitity (Harvard University Press, 2006). Her book offers a liberal and feminist theory of the relationships between family life and politics Prof. McClain received her M.A. from the Divinity School in 1981. Read more here: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MCCPLA.html.

May 9
Dean's Forum featuring Lucy Pick, Director of Undergraduate Studies and Senior Lecturer in the History of Christianity in the Divinity School. Professor Pick will be discussing her book, Conflict and Coexistence: Archbishop Rodrigo and the Muslims and Jews of Medieval Spain (U of Michigan Press, 2004). James T. Robinson, Assistant Professor of the History of Judaism, and Richard A. Rosengarten Dean and Associate Professor of Religion and Literature, responding.

May 16, 2007
Emilie M. Townes, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale Divinity School, will speak on her new book, Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil.

May 23
Musical Offering, Join us for an outdoor lunch (weather permitting) and the music of The Prairie Dogs. A little bluegrass, a little traditional folk, a little alt country. For this lunch only, there will be meat, vegetarian, or vegan options. Rain location: Common Room.

Winter Quarter 2007

January 10
A conversation about the University with Robert Zimmer, President of the University of Chicago. President Zimmer began his position as the 13th president of the school in March, 2006. An accomplished scholar, Zimmer is a specialist in geometry, particularly ergodic theory, Lie groups, and differential geometry. Previously Provost of Brown University, Zimmer was also the Max Mason Distinguished Service Professor in Mathematics here at U of C.

January 17
Dan Margoliash, Professor in Anatomy & Organismal Biology, on birdsong. Please see this Chronicle article for more information on Professor Margoliash's recent groundbreaking work on starlings and language: http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/060427/birds.shtml.

January 24
McGuire Gibson, Professor of Mesopotamian Archaeology at the Oriental Institute will speak on the looting of antiquities in Iraq. One of the world's leading authorities on ancient Mesopotamia, Prof. Gibson has done fieldwork in Iraq and elsewhere in the region and has published extensively. He was as part of a National Geographic delegation visiting Iraq to inspect archaeological sites in 2003. He also has provided expert advice to UNESCO and other cultural and scholarly organizations working to preserve the archaeological heritage of Iraq. In 1992, he and colleague A ugusta McMahon published Lost Heritage: Antiquities Stolen from Iraq's Regional Museums, the first academic publication to call attention to the problem of looting after the first Gulf War. He also is the author and co-author of numerous articles and books on ancient Mesopotamia.

January 31
Robert Daum, Professor of Pediatrics, Microbiology and Molecular Medicine and the Biological Sciences Collegiate Division, will discuss "Pediatric Immunizations and Public Heath: Current I ssues." Dr. Daum has been honored by Chicago magazine, Castle Connolly, and other organizations as one of the best pediatric infectious disease specialists in Chicago and the country. He has lent his expertise to dozens of studies of new treatments to fight or prevent infections. He also directs the Pediatric Immunization Program, an outreach initiative to promote early vaccination in Chicago's public housing projects. A member of the Immunization Advisory Committee for the Illinois Department of Public Health, he is also assistant chair of the Illinois Chapter Committee on Infectious Diseases.

February 7, 2007
Peter Dembowski, Distinguished Serice Professor Emeritus in Romance Languages & Literature, on his recent book Christians in the Warsaw Ghetto: An Epitaph for the Unremembered. Dembowski was born in Warsaw and spent more of the war years there, participating in the Polish uprising and becoming a prisoner of war. Several of his close family members were "Jewish Christians"—converts to Christianity. Please see this Chronicle article for more information on Professor Dembowski's book: http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/060427/dembowski.shtm.

February 14, 2007
Rev. Monica A. Coleman, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, will speak on "Braiding Salvation: Theological responses to sexual violence."

February 21
Tomomi Yamaguchi, Center for East Asian Studies, the Department of Anthropology and the Deparment of East Asian Languages and Civilizations will speak on "Conservative religious groups and feminism: the current backlash in Japan." Tomomi Yamaguchi is a cultural anthropologist with additional backgrounds in Women's Studies and Communications. She is interested in feminism and other social movements in Japan and has launched a research project on the ideologies of gender and sexuality held by Japanese right-wing orgnizations and conservative elements of Japanese society.

February 28, 2007
A special lunch-and-chat (no speaker) for the Divinity School Community.

March 7
Musical Offering: The University of Chicago's Shape-Note Singing Association, dedicated to this traditional American form of song, will join us for Music of the Sacred Harp. The Sacred Harp tradition is a participatory one, not a passive one. Those who gather for a singing sing for themselves and for each other, and not for an audience—so everyone in attendance will be invited to participate! Please join us no matter your perceived level of musicality. Find out more here: http://fasola.org/.

Autumn Quarter 2006

September 27, 2006
William C. Burger, Curator Emeritus, Department of Botany, The Field Museum, on "How Flowers Changed the World."

October 4, 2006
Cass Sunstein, Karl N. Llewellyn Distinguished Service Professor and Fried Teaching Scholar in the D'Angelo Law School, and in the Department of Political Science, and the College, on "Traditions."

October 11, 2006
Nicholas Epley, Assistant Professor of Behavioral Science at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, will speak on ''Mind Reading.''

October 18, 2006
Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, Louis Block Professor in Geophysical Sciences and The College, will speak on the intersection of physical and ethical perspectives on global warming.

October 25, 2006
Gina M. Samuels, Ph.D., a professor in the School of Social Service Administration, will be discussing transracial adoption and identity.

November 1, 2006
Alison Boden, Wendy Doniger, Divinity M.A. student Simone Sandy and other members of the Divinity School community who participated in a trip to Tibet in September will speak about their experience. The trip, sponsored by Rockefeller Chapel, included 20 faculty, staff, and students of the University. The objective of the trip was to learn about the religion and culture of contemporary Tibet, and to observe first-hand the state of religious, political, and other categories of human rights.

November 8, 2006
Dean's Forum featuring William Schweiker, Professor of Theological Ethics in the Divinity School and the College. Professor Schweiker will be discussing his book, Theological Ethics And Global Dynamics: In The Time Of Many Worlds, which has been nominated for a Grawemeyer Award. Michael Fishbane, Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies in the Divinity School, and Kathryn Tanner, Dorothy Grant Maclear Professor of Theology in the Divinity School will respond.

November 15, 2006
Michael Dawson, John D. MacArthur Professor of Political Science and the College, will speak on "Katrina: Publics, counterpublics, and civil society."

November29, 2006
Musical Offering Wednesday Lunch with Ana Porter. Ana is an accomplished musician and a ministry student at the Divinity School. Find out more about her music at http://www.anaporter.com.

Spring Quarter 2006

March 29
James Robinson, Assistant Professor of the History of Judaism in the Divinity School, will deliver the annual Franz Bibfeldt Lecture. Professor Robinson's lecture is entitled "The Argument from Barking Dogs: Remarks on Bibfeldt and the Theology of Subaltern Species." The lecture commemorates the life and scholarship of eminent theologian and proteanist extraordinaire Franz Bibfeldt, mentor to Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity in the Divinity School.

April 5
Dean's Forum featuring Malika Zeghal, Associate Professor of the Anthropology and Sociology of Religion in the Divinity School. Professor Zeghal will be discussing her 2005 book, Les islamistes marocains. Michael Sells, John Henry Barrows Professor of Islamic History and Literature in the Divinity School, will respond.

April 12
Glenn Most, Professor of Social Thought and of Classics, will discuss some of the ideas from his recent (2005) book Doubting Thomas. A leading Classics scholar, Most is also Professor of Greek Philology at the Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa (Italy). Doubting Thomas examines how Thomas's story, in its many guises, touches upon central questions of religion, philosophy, hermeneutics, and life.

April 19
Kathleen Roberts Skerrett, a scholar of religious studies, law, and gender theory at Grinnell College, will speak on "Sex, Law, and Other Reasonable Endeavors." Professor Roberts will be considering the development of new natural law theory as a rational basis for public policies that regulate sex and marriage norms.

April 26
Theodore Hiebert, Francis A. McGaw Professor of Old Testament at McCormick Theological Seminary, will speak on "The Bible's Influence on Western Values and Nature." Professor Hiebert has taught at McCormick since 1995. Before joining McCormick's faculty, he taught at Harvard Divinity School, Louisiana State University, Gustavus Adolphus College, Boston College, St. John's Seminary, Tabor College, and Numan Teachers College in Numan, Nigeria. Among the courses he regularly teaches at McCormick are Genesis, Isaiah, Job and Its Modern Interpreters, and Biblical Perspectives on Nature. The event is cosponsored by the Religion and Environment Initiative.

May 3
Panel discussion on pastoral care featuring Therese Becker, Kevin Boyd, and the Rev. Randall Haycock. Becker is Chaplain Educator in the UC Hospitals' Department of Spiritual Care. Kevin Boyd, M. Div., is a graduate of the Divinity School's Master's in Divinity program currently working in the Department of Religion, Health, and Human Values at Rush University Medical Center. Rev. Haycock, M. Div., is an Episcopal priest with 25 years experience in parish ministry currently serving at Holy Trinity Episcopal Church in Belvidere, Illinois. Fr. Haycock is also a chaplain in the Army Reserve and holds certificates of advanced training in critical incident stress management, conflict resolution and mediation.

May 10
Shane Isaac, M.Div. student, will give a talk entitled "'...he was like our spiritual sentry...': WWII Chaplains and a Ministry of Presence." Isaac is a third-year M.Div. student in the Divinity School and a candidate for ordination in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and is studying military chaplaincy while obtaining a chaplain candidate's commission in the U.S. Navy.

May 17
Dean's Forum featuring Dan Arnold, Assistant Professor of the Philosophy of Religion in the Divinity School will discuss his book Buddhists, Brahmins, and Belief: Epistemology in South Asian Philosophy of Religion. Margaret M. Mitchell, Professor of New Testament and Early Christian Literature, and James T. Robinson, Assistant Professor of the History of Judaism, will respond.

May 24
Dean's Forum featuring Dwight Hopkins, Professor of Theology in the Divinity School. Professor Hopkins will be discussing his book, Being Human. Dean Richard Rosengarten and Dean of Students Teresa Hord Owens will respond.

May 31
Musical offering Wednesday Lunch with the Prairie Dogs, an old-timey bluegrass trio from Champaign-Urbana.

Winter Quarter 2006

January 4
Wallace Goode Jr., new director of the University Community Service Center, will discuss community service, tranformation, and cross-cultural dexterity. Also serving as Associate Dean of Students in the University, Goode comes to the University after seven years with the City of Chicago and a long career in higher education, community and rural development, international programming, and non-profit work.

January 11
Achy Obejas, a sought-after speaker on topics including Cuba and Jewish Latin America, will speak on "Identity and Dislocation." Obejas is the author of three books, including the award-winning novel Days of Awe. For more than a decade, she was a staff writer at the Chicago Tribune, where she shared in a team Pulitzer. Also a poet and translator, she is currently the Springer Lecturer in Fiction at the University of Chicago, teaching Jewish Latin American Fiction.

January 18
Geoffrey Stone, Harry Kalven, Jr. Distinguished Service Professor of Law, will discuss civil liberties in wartime. Stone has been a member of the law faculty since 1973; from 1987 to 1993, he served as dean of the Law School, and from 1993 to 2002 he served as Provost of the University of Chicago. His most recent book, Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism (2004) received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award for 2005, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for 2004 as the Best Book in History, and was a finalist for the American Bar Association's 2005 Silver Gavel Award. It was also hailed as among the most notable books of 2004 by the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, and the Christian Science Monitor.

January 25
Dava Sobel, bestselling science writer, will speak on "Galileo's Daughter, The Planets, and Intelligent Design: The Schism between Science and Religion." Sobel is renowned for her ability to present arcane subjects in riveting and readable prose. Her latest book is The Planets (2005), a history of the individual members of our "solar family" as they have been explained by science, mythology, visual art, and popular culture throughout the ages. Her previous books are the 1995 surprise bestseller, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, and Galileo's Daughter: A Historical Memoir of Science, Faith and Love (1999). The latter was a number one New York Times nonfiction bestseller, and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award. In 2001 Sobel received both the National Science Board's Public Service Award and the Bradford Washburn Award from the Museum of Science in Boston. She is an award-winning former science reporter for the New York Times, and a contributor to numerous magazines including the New Yorker, Discover, and Audubon.

February 1
Salikoko S. Mufwene, Frank J. McLoraine Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Linguistics and the College and Professor on the Committee on Evolutionary Biology, will discuss "Globalization and Language Endangerment: Myths and Facts." Prof. Mufwene is interested in the characteristics and development of languages including Gullah, African-American Vernacular English, English, "Atlantic creoles", and some African languages, as well as in other general questions of language evolution, such as language birth and death. He is also an associate member of the Department of Comparative Human Development and an affiliate faculty member in the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture. He is author of The Ecology of Language Evolution (2001) and Créoles, écologie sociale, évolution linguistique (2005) and series editor for the Cambridge Approaches to Language Contact.

February 8
Mae Ngai, Associate Professor in U.S. History and the College, will discuss the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Ngai's research and teaching focus on twentieth century U.S. history, with emphasis on immigration and ethnicity (Asian American and comparative), politics and law, and labor. Her first book, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America is a study of the origins of illegal immigration to the U.S. She is also affiliated with the Center for the Study of Race, Politics and Culture and Human Rights Program, both interdisciplinary venues for socially engaged scholarship and teaching.

February 15
James Kallenbach, Director of Choral Activities at the University of Chicago, will discuss "Mysticism and the New Choral Music." Kallembach conducts the University Chorus, Motet Choir, and Rockefeller Chapel Choir. Prior to his appointment, he was Assistant Director of Choirs at Earlham College in Richmond, Indiana, and served as Assistant Director of the Richmond Symphony Chorus and Director of the Kokomo Symphony Chorus. His works have been premiered at international competitions and published by Corda Music in the United Kingdom. He will conduct the Rockefeller Chapel Choir and University Chorus concert, "As the Incense: Mysticism in New Choral Music," on Saturday, February 25, 2006 at 8 PM in Rockefeller Chapel.

February 22
Olufunmilayo Olopade, M.D., will discuss her current work. Dr. Olopade was recently awarded a MacArthur "genius" grant award for her work in translating findings on the molecular genetics of breast cancer in African and African-American women into innovative clinical practices in the United States and abroad. Professor in Medicine and Human Genetics and Director of the Cancer Risk Clinic (which she started in 1992) at the University Hospitals, Olopade's interests as a clinician include finding and testing improved methods for prediction, prevention and early detection of cancer for moderate- and high-risk populations.

March 1
Chris Sheppard will discuss "'Empire,' or the Idea of Rome in America." Dr. Sheppard received his PhD from the Divinity School in 2002 in the Area of Religion and Literature. A Lecturer in the Basic Program at the University of Chicago, he is co-editor of Mystics: Presence and Aporia. (The University of Chicago Press).

March 8
Music of the Sacred Harp. Representatives of the University of Chicago Shape-Note Singing Association will speak about and demonstrate Sacred Harp music—the largest surviving branch of traditional American Shape Note singing. Shape Note is a living tradition which can be directly traced as a distinct musical thread back beyond the American Revolution, through to rural England, back to Reformation psalmody and beyond to Renaissance polyphony. Everyone in attendance will be invited to participate.

Autumn Quarter 2005

September 28
Ted Cohen, Professor in Philosophy in the College, the Committee on Art and Design, and the Committee on General Studies in the Humanities, will be speaking about "imagining oneself to be another" as well as opening up the discussion to jokes. Cohen received his A.B. from the University of Chicago in 1962, the Ph.D. from Harvard in 1972, and has taught at the University of Chicago since 1967. Cohen works mainly on language, aesthetics, and taste. Among his recent publications are the book Jokes, and the essays, "Identifying with Metaphor," "Metaphor, Feeling, and Narrative," and "Three Problems in Kant's Aesthetics." He has been the moderator of the annual Latke-Hamentash debate for almost 30 years.

October 5
Rory Childers, professor in the cardiology section of the Department of Medicine and director of the Heart Station, will discuss the nature of Irish Humor. Childers is the grandson of Robert Erskine Childers (1870-1922), Irish patriot and writer (author of The Riddle of the Sands), who was executed in 1922 during the Irish Civil War, and the son of Erskine Hamilton Childers (1905-1974), fourth President of the Republic of Ireland.

October 12
Richard Epstein, James Parker Hall Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Director, Law and Economics Program, will discuss "Separation and Accommodation: Can Anyone Make Sense of the Religion Clauses in the First Amendment?" He is also the Peter and Kirsten Bedford Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, a think tank on the campus of Stanford University dedicated to research in domestic policy and international affairs. His next book, How the Progressives Rewrote the Constitution, will be published this fall by the Cato Institute; his other books include Skepticism and Freedom: A Modern Case for Classical Liberalism and Principles for a Free Society: Reconciling Individual Liberty with the Common Good. Epstein teaches a range of courses from civil procedure to Roman Law.

October 19
John T. Cacioppo, one of the nation's leading experts on social relations and aging, will be speaking on social connectedness and health. The Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago, Dr. Cacioppo is the Director of the U of C Social Psychology Program and Co-Director of the Institute for Mind and Biology. Among other projects, he is currently involved in the nation's first comprehensive study to examine the relationship between religious attitudes and health.

October 26
Maureen Corrigan, book critic for NPR's Fresh Air for over 16 years, will discuss "What Catholic Martyr Stories Taught Me About Getting to Heaven - and Getting Even." The author of the recently-published Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading, Dr. Corrigan is one of the nation's best-known readers. She is a professor of English at Georgetown University and writes a popular mystery column for the Washington Post.

November 2
Elizabeth Marquardt will discuss her recent book, Between Two Worlds: The Inner Lives of Children of Divorce (Crown, September 2005). Marquardt graduated from the Divinity School's M.Div. program in 1999 and is currently an affiliate scholar at the Institute for American Values in New York City. Her writings have appeared in the New York Times, The Washington Post, the Christian Science Monitor, and elsewhere. She has appeared on national television programs including NBC's Today Show and ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings, and interviewed on National Public Radio's All Things Considered Weekend Edition.

November 9
Edward O. Laumann, George Herbert Mead Distinguished Service Professor of Sociology and the College, will speak on "Sexual Well-being Among Older People." Prof. Laumann will address some results from the Global Study of Sexual Attitudes and Behavior, a 29-country survey from all the world regions of men and women aged 40 and 80 on their sexual well-being and its linkage to quality of life outcomes—and its variation by world regions. Since joining the University in 1973, Professor Laumann has acted as the editor of the American Journal of Sociology, chair of the department of sociology, dean of the division of social sciences, provost of the University of Chicago, and is currently the director of the Ogburn Stouffer Center for Population and Social Organization. Professor Laumann directed the National Health and Social Life Survey, one of the largest surveys of sexual attitudes and behaviors in the U.S. since the publication of the Kinsey Reports in the 1950's, and is currently the principal investigator of a study examining the relationship between sexual behaviors and social institutions in Chicago, as well as a co-principal investigator of the National Survey of Chinese Sexual Practices.

November 16
Emil Coccaro, Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, will discuss "Biology and Treatment of Impulsive Aggression." Dr. Coccaro is also the Director of the Clinical Neuroscience & Psychopharmacology Research Unit as well as a Professor of Psychiatry. His research focuses on aggression, with a particular interest in the biology of impulsive aggression.

November 30
The Mosaic Trio, representing musicians from the Chicago Classical Oriental Ensemble, performs traditional instrumental music from the Arabic, Sephardic, Egyptian, Levantine, Turkish, and Armenian repertoire. Trio members will speak briefly about their music and instruments, and also be available for Q & A.

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