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 particle physics and the search for a fifth dimension to the history of Klezmer music. (Click here for an archive of Wednesday lunches since Autumn 2005.) 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 ($4 for all students with ID) at the door. Those interested in attending should reserve a lunch in advance by emailing divinitylunch@gmail.com.
Autumn 2009
Oct. 28
Melissa Gilliam, MD, MPH, speaking on "a lifecourse approach to sexual and reproductive health, rights and justice." Dr. Gilliam is Associate Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Chicago, Director of the Fellowship in Family Planning, Chief of the Division of Family Planning and Contraceptive Research in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Dr. Gilliam is particularly interested in studying vulnerable populations at risk of unintended pregnancies due to health care disparities including low income populations, women of diverse racial/ethnic groups, and adolescents.
Nov. 4
Dr. Karen Cassiday, speaking, on "Scrupolosity." Dr. Cassiday is the owner and Clinical Director of the Anxiety and Agoraphobia Treatment Center, a founding fellow in the Acaedemy of Cognity Therapy, and clinical assistant professor at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Sciences and an instructor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at Rush Medical School. She is also Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board for OCD Chicago, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives of people who suffer with OCD. A resource for individuals, families, mental health professionals, educators, clergy and the media, OCD Chicago is the only Chicago-area organization dedicated solely to OCD. Scrupulosity is a common and treatable form of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder involving persistant, disturbing thoughts about religious devotion or observances, morality, or sin.
Nov. 11
Tobin Sosnick, speaking. Prof. Sosnick is the Director of the University's Institute for Biophysical Dynamics, an interdisciplinary research center that works at the interface between the Biological Sciences and Physical Sciences divisions. Sosnick is Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Institute of Biophysical Dynamics, and a senior fellow in the Computation Institute at Chicago. His research focuses on synergistic studies of protein and RNA folding and design. The work involves experiment and computation and is based on the premise that rigorous and innovative studies of basic molecular processes have broad implications in many areas of biological research. He will be speaking to us on what motivates the work of the IBD.
Nov. 18
Musical Offering: Stero Sinai is Alan Jay Sufrin and Miriam Brosseau. Lending renewed relevance to ancient Jewish texts by taking original Hebrew, Yiddish, and Aramaic verses and mixing them with synthesized pop arrangements they call "Biblegum Pop," Stereo Sinai is the Good Book like you've never heard it before.
The group won the 2008 Tibera Battle of the Bands, and represented Chicago at the 2008 International Jewish Music Festival Competition in Amsterdam. As an integral part of the emerging new American Jewish cultural scene, Stereo Sinai has so far contributed to projects like G-dcast and Pioneers for a Cure, and has been featured in publications such as PresenTense Magazine and Shemspeed.com. They are artists-in-residence at The Newberger Hillel Center at the University of Chicago.
Visit Stereo Sinai online at http://stereosinai.blogspot.com/.
Winter 10
Jan. 13
Ilsa Flanagan, Director of Sustainability for the University of Chicago, speaking. Before joining the U of C in 2008, Flanagan was most recently Senior Vice President and Director of Sustainable Development at LaSalle Bank/ABN AMRO. She earned a B.A. in Political Science from Moravian College and a J.D. from American University. She came to Chicago after a comprehensive nationwide search that engaged University students and staff in the interviews with candidates.
Jan. 20
Aziz Huq, Assistant Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School, speaking.
Jan. 27
Feb. 3
Feb. 10
Dean's Forum with Michael Fishbane. Fishbane is Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies. His latest work, Sacred Attunement: A Jewish Theology, published in fall 2008 by the University of Chicago Press, will be the subject of this Forum. Respondents will be Willemien Otten, Professor of the Theology and History of Christianity, and Martin E. Marty, Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of the History of Modern Christianity.
Feb. 17
Feb. 24
Adam Hosein, speaking. Adam Hosein received his PhD in philosophy from MIT in 2009. Mr. Hosein works mainly in ethics and political philosophy, with a special interest in issues of global justice. He also has interests in feminist philosophy and its implications for moral and political theory. His dissertation, The Significance of Fairness, explores the relation between moral constraints that fall on private individuals and those that apply to political institutions and their agents. Following his 2009-10 appointment at the Law School, he will join the Philosophy Department faculty of the University of Colorado, Boulder, as an Assistant Professor.
March 3
Spring 2010
Apr. 7
Annual Bibfeldt lunch. Michael Meeuwis, Ph.D. student in the English Department, will deliver the toast, and Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions, will deliver the main address. 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.
Apr. 14
Dean's Forum with Francoise Meltzer and Jas' Elsner. Meltzer is Professor of the Philosophy of Religions; also the Mabel Greene Myers Professor of the Humanities in French and in Comparative Literature, and the College; Jas' Elsner is Humfry Payne Senior Research Fellow in Classical Art at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Visiting Professor of Art History at the University of Chicago. Profs. Elsner and Meltzer will be discussing the Spring 2009 issue of Critical Inquiry, which they coedited. The volume is titled Faith without Borders: The Curious Category of the Saint.
Apr. 21
Galit Hasan-Rokem, speaking. Visiting Professor of Israel Studies during Spring Quarter of 2010, Hasan-Rokem is the Max and Margarethe Grunwald Professor of Folklore at the Mandel Institute of Jewish Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She has also been an active participant of Women in Black, a world-wide network of women committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to injustice, war, militarism and other forms of violence.
Apr. 28
Peter J. Smith, M.D., on "Intellectual Disability and Medical Decisions." Smith is Assistant Professor of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics and of Community Health Sciences, The Institute of Molecular Pediatric Sciences at The University of Chicago. His educational background includes undergraduate and graduate degrees in theology and his clinical interests include mental retardation, autism, behavioral difficulties, and learning difficulties.
May 5
May 12
May 19
Dean's Forum with Wendy Doniger, Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions, on her recent work The Hindus. The Dean's Forum invites a faculty member to discuss a recent work, with formal response from colleagues. Respondants TBA.
May 26
