Past Events 
| PAST EVENTS |
The University Religious Conference at UCLA and
the Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA Present ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S RELIGIOUS ODYSSEY  By: RON C. WHITE, Visiting Professor, UCLA Wednesday, May 6, 2009 4PM - 6PM Haines A-18
About Professor White: Ron C. White is
visiting professor at UCLA, senior fellow of the Huntington Library,
former Dean of San Fransisco Theological Seminary and author of
Lincoln’s Greatest Speech, The Eloquent Presidency and the 2009 NY
Times/LA Times bestselling biography A. Lincoln (Random House).
For more information, please contact the University Religious Conference at (310) 208-5055 or at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it For more information about the Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA, please visit our website at www.religion.ucla.edu This lecture is FREE and open to the public. Parking is available for $9 at a parking kiosk for structures 2 or 3.
SARAH, HAGAR AND THEIR CHILDREN: AN INTERFAITH TRIALOGUE ON THE ROLE OF WOMEN IN JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY AND ISLAM
Thursday, December 4, 2008
4:00 p.m – 6:50 p.m. Haynes Hall A-18
Panelists
Dr. Rachel Adler Professor of Jewish Religious Thought and Feminist Studies, University of Southern California and Hebrew Union College, Los Angeles, CA Dr. Judy Siker Vice President and Professor for New Testament, San Francisco Theological Seminary, Pasadena, CA Ms. Milia Islam-Majeed Executive Director, South Coast Interfaith Council, Long Beach, CA Moderator Dr. Reinhard Krauss Lecturer, University of California Los Angeles -- Open to the Public --
AWAY WITH ALL GODS! POSSIBILITY OR FANTASY?
By: Sunsara Taylor
Colloquia Respondent:
Thursday, 6 November 2008
About SUNSARA TAYLOR | Sunsara Taylor, a writer for
Revolution newspaper and a host on “Equal Time for Free Thought Radio”
(WBAI-NY), has been on a national campus speaking tour for AWAY WITH
ALL GODS! Unchaining the Mind and Radically Changing the World, the
recent book by Bob Avakian. In her talk, Sunsara draws from the book
and her experiences around the country challenging religion and the
harm it does. Sunsara will argue that:
• Religion is harmful; aside from the reactionary content of the major religions, all forms of religious myth obstruct people’s ability to understand scientifically why things are the way they are and how they actually can be changed. • There is no such thing as an unchanging and unchangeable human nature. • We do not need gods, or belief in gods, to be good; there is a much more profound basis for morality in confronting reality as fully as possible and as emancipators of humanity. From Away With All Gods: “The notion of a god, or gods, was created by humanity, in its infancy, out of ignorance. This has been perpetuated by ruling classes, for thousands of years since then, to serve their interests in exploiting and dominating the majority of people and keeping them enslaved to ignorance and irrationality. Bringing about a new, and far better, world and future for humanity means overthrowing such exploiting classes and breaking free of and leaving behind forever such enslaving ignorance and irrationality.” From Colloquia Respondent, Dr. S. Scott Bartchy, Director - Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA on Away With All Gods: Apart from the historical errors and serious misunderstandings of religious texts and cultural values that are claimed to be the truth in Bob Avakian's book, "Away with All Gods", its basic premise is on target: religion in its various forms has been used to justify some of the worst things that human beings have done to each other and to the earth. What is clear to me as a historian of religion is that there is "bad religion" and there is "good religion." Imagining that humans can evolve into a stage of "no religion" does seem to me to be a fantasy, and probably a dangerous one. The fatal flaw in the vision of this book is its author's apparent misjudgment regarding human nature. As I reflect on Avakian's vision, I have to conclude that it will take angels, not human beings, both to lead the called-for revolution and to govern us afterwards. As wonderful as that would be, I have yet to meet such a creature.
PSYCHOANALYSIS, THE REALITY
PRINCIPLE, AND RELIGION By: DR. JAMES V. FISHER Distinguished British Psychoanalyst Monday, October 20, 2008 12PM - 1:30PM
About Dr. Fisher |
Having earned his M.Div and Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Religion from
Harvard University and his MScience from the London School of
Economics, Jim Fisher has become a leading figure in the British and
the International Psychoanalytic Associations. His interests range from
exploring the relationships in famous literature, e.g., his articles on
"The Marriage of the Macbeths" (2006) and "Poetry and Psychoanalysis:
Twin 'Sciences' of the Emotions" (2002), to the role of the imagination
in individuals and couples, e.g., his article on "Love Looks Not with
the Eyes but with the Mind: the Death and Rebirth of Imagination"
(2004) and his book The Uninvited Guest: Emerging from Narcissism
towards Marriage (2005). Fisher is a long-time friend of Prof. Bartchy,
who is delighted that the CSR can present such a
distinguished analyst of the human condition and religious experience.
West Coast Screening of SILHOUETTE CITY
Written and directed by MICHAEL WILSON Thursday, October 16, 2008 7:00PM
About the Film |
SILHOUETTTE CITY is a dramatically revealing documentary about the
extraordinary influence on politics in the USA that extreme actors on
the religious right have gained during the past three decades. At
recent conferences and rallies, often sponsored by Tim LaHaye and other
"Left Behind" believers, prominent politicians have been featured
speakers, including Mike Huckabee, Tom Delay, and Newt Gingrich. This
film takes its title from the mock-up "city" created to train Christian
"warriors" in urban warfare.
The screening is October 16 at 7:00 PM. A panel discussion and audience Q&A will follow featuring the Director, Michael Wilson, the Producer Natalie Zimmerman, Dr. Jean Rosenfeld, nationally-recognized expert on religion and violent groups, Prof. S. Scott Bartchy, and the Rev. Ed Bacon, Rector of All Saints Episcopal Church, Pasadena.
Panel discussion and Q&A is to be moderated by nationally-syndicated columnist, Robert Sheer.
TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION AT UCLA
MEDIUMS, GHOSTS, AND GUARDIAN ANGELS:
ENVISIONING COMBAT AND SPIRIT ACCOMPANIMENT IN POST-9/11 AMERICA By: PATRICK POLK, Professor CLA Department of World Arts & Cultures and Director, James S. Coleman African Studies Center Wednesday, October 31, 2007 12PM - 1:30PM
About Patrick Polk | Patrick A. Polk's primary research interests focus on folk religion, material behavior, popular culture, and urban visual traditions.
His publications include "Haitian Vodou Flags(1997), "The Cast-Off Recast: Recycling and the Creative Transformation of Mass-Produced Objects" (co-edited, 1999), "Arte y Estilo: The Lowriding Tradition" (co-edited, 2000), "Botánica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels" (2004), and the forthcoming "Conjurers, Healers, and Hoodoo Doctors: Readings on African-American Magic and Folk Medicine. Among the exhibits he has curated are "Sequined Spirits: Contemporary Vodou Flags" (1996), " Cruisin,' Stylin,' and Pedal-Scrapin': The Art of the Lowrider Bicycle" (1998), "Muffler Men, Munecos and Other Welded Wonders: Folk Art from Automotive Debris" (1999), and “Botánica Los Angeles: Latino Popular Religious Art in City of Angels.”
TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION AT UCLA
By:
ALLEN ROBERTS, Professor UCLA Department of World Arts & Cultures and Wednesday, October 17, 2007 12PM – 1:30PM About Professor Allen F. Roberts | As director of UCLA's famed African Studies Center, Roberts participates in multi-disciplinary research ranging from art and AIDS awareness in Africa to social pressures on the biodiversity of central African rainforests, from cultural history linking eastern Africa with islands and lands along the rim of the Indian Ocean to issues concerning recent African immigrants to the U.S. He also conducts research, writes, teaches, and organizes museum exhibitions with his spouse, Dr. Mary Nooter Roberts (Deputy Director and Chief Curator, UCLA Fowler Museum of Cultural History and an Adjunct Professor in WAC). Their recent books are Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History (1997), A Sense of Wonder (1997) and A Saint in the City: Sufi Arts of Urban Senegal 2003). The latter accompanies a major exhibition currently on national tour, and is previewed at " www.fmch.ucla.edu/passporttoparadise.htm”. The Roberts' current projects include cross-cultural comparison of religious visual culture in Senegal and Mauritius, and an initiative shared with WAC colleagues called "Searching for God in the City of Angels."
REMEMBERING LOT’S WIFE
By: Professor LOWELL GALLAGHER, UCLA Department of English Wednesday, April 25, 2007 12PM - 1:30PM
WHY DIDN’T THE GOSPELS OF JUDAS, THOMAS
AND MARY ‘MAKE THE CUT’ IN THE NEW TESTAMENT? AND WHO DECIDED? By: DR. S. SCOTT BARTCHY, Professor Department of History, UCLA Director, UCLA Center for the Study of Religion Wednesday, April 18, 2007 12PM – 1:30PM
About Dr. S. Scott Bartchy | Dr. Bartchy has
been teaching at UCLA since 1981. Previously he taught in the
internationally-renowned theological faculty of the University of
Tuebingen, Germany, and directed the Institut zur Erforschung des
Urchristentums there. He earned his Master's degree from Harvard
Divinity School and his Ph.D. in the History of Religion from Harvard
University, specializing in Christian Origins and Early Christian
History. His research interests focus on the relation of the early
Christian movement to such social problems as slavery, racial identity,
social and economic inequalities, imperial domination, female and male
gender formation, and violence.
OF THE INDEFINITE HUMAN: RELIGION AND THE
NATURE OF TECHNOLOGICAL CULTURE By: DR. THOMAS A. CARLSON, Professor Department of Religious Studies, UCSB Wednesday, March 7, 2007 4PM - 6PM Respondent: DR. KENNETH REINHARD, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature, UCLA
About Dr. Carlson | Thomas A. Carlson received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1995 and is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he teaches courses in religion and modern philosophy, contemporary theory, and the history of Christian thought. He is author of Indiscretion: Finitude and the Naming of God (University of Chicago Press, 1999) and of the forthcoming The Indiscrete Image: Infinitude and Creation of the Human (University of Chicago Press), a study of human self-creation in mystical and technological contexts.
About Dr. Reinhard | Kenneth Reinhard is Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University in English and American Literature in 1989. His fields of research and teaching include the History of Critical and Aesthetic Theory, Contemporary Critical Theory (Psychoanalysis, Philosophy, Political Theory) and Jewish Studies (Hermeneutics and Modern Jewish Philosophy). Currently he is writing a book on the political theology of the neighbor in religion (Torah, Talmud, and Patristic writings), philosophy (Kant, Kierkegaard, Adorno, Rosenzweig, and Levinas), and psychoanalysis (Freud and Lacan) for Princeton University Press.
TEACHING ABOUT RELIGION AT UCLA
By: DR. RA’ANAN BOUSTAN, Assistant Professor Department of History & Near Eastern Languages and Cultures Thursday, February 15, 2007 12PM - 1:30PM
About Dr. Boustan | Dr. Boustan is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Departments of History and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA teaching courses on all aspects of Jewish history (society, culture, literature, and language) within its broader ancient Mediterranean context from approximately 300 BCE to 750 CE.
Before coming to UCLA in September 2006, Dr. Boustan served for two years as an Assistant Professor of early Judaism in the Department of Classical and Near Eastern Studies at the University of Minnesota. During the 2003–2004 academic year, he was a research fellow at University of Pennsylvania's Center for Advanced Judaic Studies in a group working on the interface between Anthropology and History in Jewish Studies. Dr. Boustan completed his PhD in 2004 in the Department of Religion at Princeton University with a dissertation on the historical development of early Jewish mystical literature.
IR-RELIGIOUS RELIGIOUS EDUCATION:
About Professor Jensen | Tim Jensen received the Danish equivalent of the Ph.D. degree in 1981, at the Department of the History of Religions, University of Copenhagen. The thesis dealt with ‘The Concept of Hybris in the Homeric Epics’, focusing also on the reception of the concept of hybris in European history.
Tim Jensen has been heavily involved in the politics and development of the study of religions at various levels, as well as in religious education more generally in a Danish context. He has been chairman of The Danish Religious Education Teachers’ Association, of DAHR and of Norrel, and later (2001-2004) General Secretary of the EASR. Since 2005 he holds the position of General Secretary of the IAHR, the International Association for The History of Religions (cf. http://www.iahr.dk). He has been head of the department in Odense for the last 6 years and head of the Institute for Philosophy and the Study of Religions for 3 years.
THE POPE, THE MUSLIMS & THE PROBLEMS OF RELIGION
WHAT CHRISTIAN NATION? THE PATH TO A MORE
About Professor Orsi: Robert A. Orsi came to Harvard in 2001, as the Charles Warren Professor of the History of Religion in America. His research, which draws on both archival sources and ethnographic fieldwork, has focused on practices of Catholic devotionalism, specifically relationships between humans and the saints; religion in the industrial and post-industrial city; religion and immigration and migration; religion and gender; and religious responses to suffering and pain, including healing idioms. Professor Orsi is also interested in the critical review and development of theories and methods in the study of religion. He is currently at work on a social and cultural history of growing up Catholic in the United States in the twentieth century, which raises questions about children's distinctive religious experiences and about what it means to become persons within specific worlds of religious practice and imagination. Professor Orsi's most recent publication is Between Heaven and Earth: The Religious Worlds People Make and the Scholars Who Study Them (Princeton University Press, 2005).
THE NEWLY DISCOVERED GOSPEL OF JUDAS
POLITICAL HINDUISM
CONFERENCE PARTICIPANTS
VINAY LAL, Conference Director
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
FRIDAY, MAY 6, 2005
9:00AM - 9:30AM
The Politics of Hinduism: Introduction to the Conference
9:30AM - 11:00AMBy: Vinay Lal
Tilak's Arctic Home Theory: Religion,
11:15AM - 12:45AMPolitics, and the Colonial Context. By: Madhav Deshpande
Vande Mataram: the Genesis and Power of a Song.
12:45PM - 2:15PMBy: Julius Lipner
LUNCH
2:15PM - 3:45PM
Religious Categories, Translation and Everyday Life.
4:00PM - 5:30PMBy: Veena Das
C. Rajagopalachari and the Cultural Work
of the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. By: Paula Richman
SATURDAY, MAY 7, 2005
9:00AM - 10:30AM
Making Hinduism Global: New Guru-Oriented Religious
Movement as Confluent with or Counter to Hindutva? By: Joanne Waghorne
10:30AM - 12:00PM
Nationalist Nostalgias, Diasporic Desires: Identityand Tradition in an Era of Transnational Media. By: Purnima Mankekar
LUNCH
1:15PM - 2:45PM
Ramdev and Ravidas: How Hinduism gets Political for Dalits.
2:45PM - 4:15PMBy: Chris Pinney
Getting a Life: The "Hanumayana" as Emerging Epic.
4:30PM - 6:00PMBy: Philip Lutgendorf
Patriotism and the Hindi Film.
By: Ron Inden The political ascendancy of the Hindu right in India since the mid-1980s has been a subject of much scholarly inquiry. This conference is not intended to cover terrain that has already been well explored, but rather it seeks to open new lines of inquiry and bring cultural anthropologists, scholars of Hinduism, media and cultural studies practitioners, historians, and scholars of Indian culture more broadly into conversation with each other. The distinguished scholars who will be presenting papers at this conference will pose different kinds of questions, such as: What is the relationship between Hindu militancy and Hindutva to Hinduism on the ground? Have Hindu modes of worship and religious practices witnessed any dramatic changes? We have all heard much about 'Vedic science', but is the Hindi film also a barometer of these changes, and not only in the most obvious ways (increasing references to terrorism in Pakistan, for instance)? Again, we have heard (correctly or otherwise) a good deal about the elevation of the Ramacaritmanas into an allegedly hegemonic text under the aegis of Hindutva, but can we entertain broader considerations about how certain texts, religious practices, deities, and 'margas' have prospered while others have declined, been demoted, or have suffered from neglect? is it only the upper castes which have mobilized in the name of Hindutva, or have the lower castes done so as well? Can there be 'political Hinduism' that is something other than Hindutva?
WORSHIP IN THE ARMENIAN CHURCH:
GANDHI AND THE CHALLENGE OF VIOLENCE
About Dr. Joseph Prabhu | Dr. Prabhu is a professor of Philosophy & Religion at Cal State, Los Angeles. He is also a visiting professor of Religious Studies at Berkeley and at the Graduate Theological Union in Comparative Religions. A former senior fellow at the Harvard Center for World Religions, Dr. Prabhu has written numerous articles, book reviews, and has presented many papers at conferences throughout the world. He is currently writing a book, "Gandhi, Globalization, and A Culture of Peace", for Rowman and Littlefield and "Human Rights in Cross - Cultural Perspective", being considered by Hackett Publishing Company.
HOW WAS RELIGION USED IN THE
About DR. DIELEMAN | Jacco Dieleman is currently working as Assistant Professor of Egyptology at the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures of UCLA. He obtained his Ph.D. degree last year from Leiden University, the Netherlands, on a dissertation dealing with the social and cultural contexts of two Egyptian magical handbooks written in Demotic and Greek. Trained as a philologist at the universities of Leiden, Würzburg and Chicago his research topics are primarily concerned with cultural, religious and linguistic change in Greco-Roman Egypt as reflected in the hieroglyphic, hieratic, Demotic, Coptic and Greek sources of that period.
Present research projects are a slight revision of the dissertation for final publication in the Brill series 'Religions of the Graeco-Roman World' (expected date of publication next year), a collaborative project on constructions of Egyptian and foreign identity in Demotic fictional narratives and the publication of a hieratic-Demotic funerary manuscript, which is stored in the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna. He is also writing the chapter on Egyptian religion for the new handbook on ancient religions for Dutch students.
REFLECTIONS ON THE ARMENIAN APOSTOLIC
CHURCH AND A VISION FOR RENEWAL By Archbishop HOVNAN DERDERIAN, Primate of the Western Diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church, USA Wednesday, May 19, 2004 2:10PM – 1:30PM
POETRY READING
About Dr. Chetrit | Teacher, writer and activist. The author of numerous articles and books on culture, society, education and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The recent books: Poems in Ashdodian, poetry form 1982 to 2002, published by Andalus 2003; and The Mizrahi Struggle in Israel: 1948-2003 (Hebrew) was published in March 2004, by Am-Oved / Ofakim Series. Chetrit is the editor-in-chief of Kedma - Middle Eastern Gate to Israel, www.kedma.co.il. He teaches critical studies on culture, politics and society in Israel and the Middle East, (last semester he taught Israeli Political Poetry, at UC Berkeley). He is a research associate in the Center for the Study of Religion at UCLA, finishing a paper on Shas as part of the growing power of socio-religious movements in the Mead East. For more biography, articles and poetry, please visit: www.authorsden.com/sschetrit. About Dr. Gil Hochberg | Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, UCLA, specializes in contemporary Levantine literatures (North Africa, Israel, Palestine). Specific areas of interest include: Arab Jewish relationship post 1948; nationalism, immigration and exile. She has published on such issues as: Francophone North African literature, Palestinian writers of Hebrew, gender and nationalism, cultural memory and immigration. Her book-in-progress, "The Levant in Present Tense" is a comparative reading of contemporary novels written in Hebrew and Arabic about and "beyond" Arab Jewish relationship.
SECULARIZATION IN ANTIQUITY?
By:
Dr. KEES BOLLE, Professor Emeritus Department of History, UCLA
About Dr. Bolles | Dr. Kees Bolle, Professor Emeritus taught and
researched in the field of the History of Religion at UCLA during the
‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s and was a major force in the creation of UCLA’s
Center for the Study of Religion. His most recent publications
include: The Enticement of Religion (2002).
Discussant:
DAVID BLANK, Professor
UCLA Department of Classics About Professor Blank | David Blank has taught Classics and Ancient Philosophy at UCLA since 1980. He works on nearly all areas of Ancient Philosophy, with a particular emphasis on Hellenistic Philosophy and Philosophy of Language. He is currently editing the Herculaneum papyri containing Philodemus’ Rhetoric.
GOD OR MAMMON? THE HISTORICAL JESUS
About Dr. Oakman | Dr. Oakman is the author of
"Jesus and the Economic Questions of His Day" (Edwin Mellen, 1986) and
the award winning "Palestine in the Time of Jesus: Social Structures
and Social Conflicts" (Fortress Press, 1998) with K.C. Hanson. Dr.
Oakman is a graduate of the University of Iowa and Christ
Seminary-Seminex, and received his Ph.D. in New Testament from the
Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, CA.
Prior to his current appointment Pacific Lutheran, Dr. Oakman taught at Santa Clara University, the University of San Francisco, and San Francisco Theological Seminary. He was the Chair of Religion from 1996-2003, and recently been elected by colleagues to a three year term as Dean of Humanities. Dr. Douglas Oakman has published numerous articles applying the social sciences to biblical studies. During the 1990's, he participated in archaeological excavations at Jotapata and Cana in Galilee.
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