Swift 100
From its groundbreaking 100 years ago, Swift Hall has enabled the Divinity School to expand its influence and impact from the very heart of the University of Chicago’s Hyde Park Campus.
The Div School hosted a year-long celebration in honor of Swift Hall's centennial anniversary throughout the 2025-2026 academic year. Here you can engage with the legacy, the present, and the future of the academic study of religion through a collection of Swift 100 exhibits, event recaps, and content series.
Swift Hall
1025 E. 58th Street, Chicago, IL 60637
The Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion has curated 100 artifacts that reflect the rich history and evolving mission of the Divinity School's scholarship. This element of Swift 100 features a digital and physical exhibit and self-guided tour, highlighting photographs, video narrations, and unique digital interactions that tell the story of Swift Hall’s first century.
Each October, the Chicago Architecture Center hosts Open House Chicago, a free public festival that offers rare behind-the-scenes access to sites of architectural, historical, and cultural significance. The event also spotlights businesses, organizations, and creative leaders contributing to the spirits of Chicago’s diverse neighborhoods. Swift Hall will make its first appearance on the festival line-up this autumn on October 18-19.
Open House Chicago is one of the largest events of its kind in the world. This festival is part of Open House Worldwide, a network of nearly 60 organizations hosting festivals and conversations about architecture, design, and cities across the globe.
A gathering of alumni, family, faculty, staff, and friends of the Divinity School to celebrate the dynamism of our shared history and experiences at a party on Friday, November 7, 2025, during Homecoming weekend.
The celebration will remind our community of Swift Hall’s centrality to the history of the University of Chicago and its founding leaders, as well as the relevance of the Divinity School’s work today, in 2025. Attendees should feel inspired to help strengthen and expand the capacity of Swift Hall to support the next century of critical, multi-religious scholarship.
The student-run coffee shop in the basement of Swift Hall, Grounds of Being, is a cultural touchstone of the University of Chicago. Enjoy a "Swift Kick" latte in our commemorative Swift 100 logo mug.
Stay tuned to our bi-weekly newsletter, Criteria, and divinity.uchicago.edu for Swift 100 Faculty Reflections. These essays find the Divinity School's multigenerational faculty returning to the questions, commitments, and intellectual habits that define the School's work. Taken together, they offer a portrait of a community shaped not by a single tradition or method, but by the ongoing practice of rigorous, critical inquiry into religion and its place in the world.
- "Nothing is Final," by Anand Venkatkrishnan, Assistant Professor of the History of Religion in South Asia
- "On the 'Advantages of Marginality' in Swift Hall," by Sheila E. Jelen, Director of MA/AMRS Studies, Professor of Religion, Literature and Visual Culture and History of Judaism
- "The Flight of American Christianity," by William Schultz, Assistant Professor of American Religions
- "A Place Like No Other" by Dan Arnold, John Henry Barrows Professor of the Philosophy of Religions
- "Joy, Rest, and the Work of Ethics" By Sarah E. Fredericks, Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics
- "Exploring the Worlds of the Religions" by William Schweiker, Edward L. Ryerson Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Theological Ethics
- "Choosing Swift Again and Again," by Sarah Hammerschlag, John Nuveen Professor of Religion and Literature, Philosophy of Religions, and History of Judaism
- "The Idea of the University of Chicago Divinity School," by Richard A. Rosengarten, Associate Professor of Religion and Literature
- "Tough-Minded, Tender-Hearted" by Dwight N. Hopkins, Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor
- "If Not Here, Where?" by Carolina López-Ruiz, Professor of Ancient Mediterranean Religions and Mythologies
- "Swift Hall and the Good Life" by Raissa von Doetinchem de Rande, Assistant Professor of Religious Ethics and Islamic Studies
- "Performance is What Makes Religion Matter" by Abimbola Adelakun, Associate Professor of Global Christianity
- "The Space Always Wins" by Cynthia G. Lindner, Director of Ministry Studies and Clinical Faculty for Preaching and Pastoral Care
- “Our Better Angels”: Reflections on My Years in Swift Hall by Willemien Otten, Dorothy Grant MacLear Professor of Theology and the History of Christianity
- "The Divinity School and the Hebrew Bible: Past, Present, and Future" by Jeffrey Stackert, Caroline E. Haskell Professor of Hebrew Bible
"How do you get to Swift Hall?"
On ninja crazes, necromancy, and the surprisingly common roads that lead to Swift Hall. A few m...
The Flight of American Christianity
Martin Gardner's The Flight of Peter Fromm and the Making of Modern American Religion Quick: Na...
On the “Advantages of Marginality” in Swift Hall
Sheila Jelen on Dvora Baron, the Jewish Enlightenment, and Finding a Home in Swift Hall. In Rea...