Wednesday Community Luncheons
For decades, Wednesday has been a day of community gathering at the Divinity School. Ecumenical services are held at Bond Chapel at 11:30 a.m. that draw on the contributions of students, staff, faculty, and a variety of preachers from Chicago's religious communities, followed at 12:00 noon by a community luncheon in Swift Common Room. The lunches always feature a guest speaker, invited from the University, the local community, or beyond. Lunch topics have addressed everything from the parakeets of Hyde Park to the world of male modeling to language loss in Siberia. The programs provide a unique opportunity for students, staff, and faculty to engage one another in informal conversation.
Special Wednesday Lunch events include the Dean's Forum, which invites a faculty member to discuss one of his or her recent works, with formal response from several Divinity School colleagues, and our quarterly Musical Offerings.
Lunch itself (a vegetarian meal; a vegan option is available by request) is prepared and served by our creative and energetic student staff. Wednesday lunches take place from 12:00 noon to 1:15 p.m. in Swift Common Room (1025 East 58th Street), and cost $5 at the door. Those interested in attending should reserve a lunch in advance by emailing divinitylunch@gmail.com.
Spring 2013
April 10
Irregularly Annual Bibfeldt Lecture, with Pastor Tom Willadsen. “It Could Be Wurst: Franz Bibfeldt: The Lost Years of Gastronomic Theology.”
Willadsen is Pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, and a 1990 Div graduate. He wrote his master's thesis on laughter in the Bible and has been an ordained Presbyterian minister since 1991. He is the author of OMG! LOL! Faith and Laughter, published by Gemma Open Door.
April 17
Jasmine Kwong (AB 2006) will present The Seminary Co-op Documentary Project: A serious attempt to capture the Co-op Bookstore's unique history, character, and distinction. In collaboration with Megan E Doherty (PhD 2010), Jasmine has worked to document and commemorate the bookstore during its 50th year in business. Through photography, oral and written testimonies, and artifacts, the project tries to explore and express what the Co-op is. The project is online (www.semcoop-project.org) and will be on exhibit at the Regenstein Library Special Collections April 22 – June 20. Jasmine is a photographer who manages a social psychology lab at Chicago Booth, where she is also a student.
April 24
Dean's Forum with Professor Daniel A. Arnold on his recent book, Brains, Buddhas, and Believing: The Problem of Intentionality in Classical Buddhist and Cognitive-Scientific Philosophy of Mind (Columbia University Press, 2012). Arnold is Associate Professor of the Philosophy of Religions; he is a scholar of Indian Buddhist philosophy, which he engages in a constructive and comparative way. Alireza Doostdar, Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies and the Anthropology of Religion, and Martha C. Nussbaum, Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics in the Law School, the Department of Philosophy, and the College and one of our associated faculty members, will offer responses.
May 1
Christian Williams, speaking on "Moral Injury." Williams is in the last year of the dual degree (MDiv/MA) program in divinity and social work at the University of Chicago. He also is a chaplain candidate in the US Army National Guard, a Certified Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST) instructor, and Certified Meditation Instructor. Since joining the chaplain corps, Mr. Williams’s interactions with servicemembers and veterans instigated a deep concern for the multiple predicaments that confront the military community, including combat-related “disorders” (PTSD, TBI, combat stress, etc.). Moral Injury is a classification that integrates the psychological, biological, and spiritual consequences of perpetration of violence in a warzone.
May 8
Dean's Forum with Professor Richard Strier on his recent book, The Unrepentant Renaissance from Petrarch to Shakespeare to Milton (University of Chicago Press, 2011), the winner of the Warren-Brooks Award from the Center for Robert Penn Warren Studies. W. Clark Gilpin, Margaret E. Burton Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Christianity and Theology, and Michael J. Murrin, Raymond W. and Martha Hilpert Gruner Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Religion and Literature; also in the Departments of Comparative Literature and of English Language and Literature, responding.
May 15
Jamil Khoury, Founding Artistic Director of Silk Road Rising, speaking. Silk Road Rising (formerly known as Silk Road Theatre Project) creates live theatre and online videos that tell stories through primarily Asian American and Middle Eastern American lenses.Promoting playwrights of Silk Road backgrounds is a passion that dovetails well with Khoury’s experiences living in the Middle East and his eleven years as a cross-cultural trainer and international relocations consultant. Khoury’s plays focus on Middle Eastern themes and questions of Diaspora. He is particularly interested in the intersections of culture, national identity, sexuality, and class. He received his AM from the Divinity School in 1992.
May 22
Julian Hendrix on "Medieval Manuscripts in the Digital Age: on the opportunities and challenges of the digital humanities." Julian Hendrix is assistant professor of Classics and History at Carthage College. His current research focuses on the origins of monastic commemoration and the early history of liturgical books.
May 29
Annual end-of-the-year barbeque. Weather allowing, we will meet and eat in the courtyard adjacent to Swift Hall.
Click here to read about past Wednesday luncheons (since Autumn 2005).
