Events

Feb 19

Lunchtime Lecture With Prof. Alexia Williams

Swift Hall Common Room|12:00PM

Join the University of Chicago Divinity School in celebrating Black History Month with a lunchtime lecture by Prof. Alexia Williams. The lecture will take place on Wednesday, February 19, 2024, from 12:00 to 1:30 PM in the Swift Hall Common Room (First Floor). This event is open to the public, and lunch will be provided. No RSVP is required, and everyone is welcome to attend.

Alexia Williams is an Assistant Professor of Religion and African American Studies at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, where she also serves as Co-director of Graduate Studies in Religion. She specializes in Afro-American religious history, Roman Catholicism, Afro-diasporic religions in hemispheric context, and American secularism. Her research and teaching explore how religious communities operate as sites of racial identity formation, political organizing, and aesthetic production for Black Americans.

Her ongoing book project, titled Black Revolutionary Saints: Roman Catholicism & the U.S. Racial Imagination, examines Catholic lay efforts to canonize an African American saint within the Roman Catholic tradition. While the Vatican has yet to officially recognize a saint of African American descent, the veneration of these holy figures has become a key component of advocacy for racial justice in Catholic communities and institutions. Dr. Williams contextualizes the political discourses and aesthetic production inspired by these potential saints within the landscape of 20th and 21st century American social movements and public life.

Dr. Williams holds a Ph.D. in American Studies and African American Studies from Yale University and a B.A. in English and Spanish from Spelman College. Before joining the University of Illinois, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics. Her research has been generously supported by the UNCF Mellon Mays Program, the Ford Foundation, and the Louisville Institute.

Feb 20

Brauer Seminar Lecture with Prof. Aaron Hughes

Swift Hall Third Floor Lecture Hall|5:00PM

Prof. Aaron Hughes’ talk begins with a simple enough question: How or why do we study those that we assume to be like us? This question, in turn, leads to a broader reflection on the nature of borders, alterity, and certain assumptions we make in the academic study of religion. It is a call, then, to think about the implicit (if not outright explicit) nationalist sentiments in what is ostensibly a universal field of study. This subsequently leads to a discussion of several examples where we see this at work derived from the author’s recent work on Islam in Canada.

Aaron W. Hughes is the Dean’s Professor of the Humanities and the Philip S. Bernstein Professor of Religion at the University of Rochester. The author of many books and articles/chapters, his forthcoming work includes The Charter: A Biography (University of Alberta Press, 2026); Islam: A Canadian History (University of Toronto Press, 2026); and A History of Ismaili Muslims in Canada (Bloomsbury for the Institute of Ismaili Studies, 2026).

Feb 23

Close Event "Public Lecture with Prof. Baruch Schwartz" Public Lecture with Prof. Baruch Schwartz

Swift Hall Third Floor Lecture Hall|5:35PM

As part of the 2025 Chicago-Yale Pentateuch Colloquium, Prof. Baruch Schwartz will deliver a public lecture on the key to understanding the composition of the Pentateuch. Join us on February 23 from 5:35 to 7 p.m. in Swift Hall’s third floor Lecture Hall.