News
The Flight of American Christianity
Martin Gardner's The Flight of Peter Fromm and the Making of Modern American Religion Quick: Name the most accomplished fictional scholar to teach at Swift Hall. The easy answer is Franz Bibfeldt, that spoof of academic faddishness and triviality. Bu...
June 3, 2026
"How do you get to Swift Hall?"
On ninja crazes, necromancy, and the surprisingly common roads that lead to Swift Hall. A few months ago, I was having coffee with a senior colleague from the psychology department. Our topic of conversation was the changing patterns of religious aff...
June 3, 2026
On the “Advantages of Marginality” in Swift Hall
Sheila Jelen on Dvora Baron, the Jewish Enlightenment, and Finding a Home in Swift Hall. In Reading Jewish Women, Iris Parush claims that the marginalization of Jewish women from the educational hierarchies in traditional East European Jewish society...
June 2, 2026
Nothing is Final
On South Asian religion, postcolonial critique, and the future of the field It is difficult to imagine the future of a field whose past is littered with skeletons. This is a question for all forms of knowledge that emerge in American universities, wh...
June 1, 2026
A Place Like No Other
Swift Hall is a place where students in Room 403, with its impressive collection of ancient Christian bas-reliefs, are as likely as not to be discussing China’s Tian-tai tradition of Buddhist thought, Sun Ra’s Afrofuturism, American pragmatism, or Ar...
May 20, 2026
Joy, Rest, and the Work of Ethics
Professor Sarah E. Fredericks examines climate change, moral emotion, and the expanding horizons of religious ethics at Swift Hall. Looking back to the 1967 volume of Criterion celebrating the centennial of the Divinity School, I recognize that the f...
May 1, 2026
Exploring the Worlds of the Religions
"The creation of the universe operates on the principle that Intellect (Reason) prevails over Necessity not by force, but by persuasion."—Plato, Timaeus My first encounter with Chicago as an adult came late at night, driving over the Skyway, up from ...
April 22, 2026
Choosing Swift Again and Again
The first time I came to Swift Hall, I was there to decide if it was the right place for me. It was early April 1998. Outside, a thin layer of gray slush coated the lawn. Inside, the now-familiar pattern of atonal clangs sounded its irregular rhythm ...
April 8, 2026
The Idea of the University of Chicago Divinity School
I am grateful for Dean Robinson’s invitation to reflect on the University of Chicago Divinity School at this historic marker. It has prompted me to return to some of my own earlier attempts in my years as dean of students and then as dean to exegete ...
March 25, 2026
Tough-Minded, Tender-Hearted
My first visit to the University of Chicago campus came in 1993 for my interview and job talk. At the time, I was teaching in Silicon Valley, and this was my first encounter with the Divinity School and Swift Hall. I already knew something about the ...
March 11, 2026