On April 12-14, Drake will host the 6th annual Iowa Interfaith Conference (IIC), this time in conjunction with the regional conference of the upper-Midwest American Academy of Religion (UWMAAR) on April 12-13. These conferences will feature site visits (on Friday evening, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning/afternoon) and panels and keynotes (on Friday afternoon and Saturday […]

On Sunday, April 14, we will celebrate the annual holiday of Vaisakhi from roughly 11:00 am to 1:00 pm with the Sikh gurdwara in West Des Moines, the Iowa Sikh Association (1115 Walnut St.). The service will include many of the elements of a typical Sunday worship service: the signing of hymns (kirtan), reading from

On Friday, April 5 from 7:30–9:00pm, we will attend a Ramadan prayer and iftar meal” at Ezan Islamic and Cultural Center, the Bosnian Islamic mosque at 6206 Douglas Ave in Des Moines. The event includes the sunset (maghrib) prayer, the breaking of the fast, and an iftar meal.    Please dress appropriately: women should be

On Sunday, March 24 from 11:00am–1:00pm (roughly), we will join the Hindu Temple and Cultural Center (33916 155th Lane, Madrid) in the annual celebration of Holi. Guests will be able to tour the temple, observe the Holi fire ritual (Holika Dahan), throw colored powered at one another, and dance. (Please dress accordingly if you are

On Sunday, February 18, from 3:00–5:00 pm, Drake University’s The Comparison Project, in conjunction with the “Iowa Interfaith Exchange,” hosts a “Roads to Religion” in the Olmsted Center (Parents Hall) on Drake’s campus. The event, which is free and open to the public, features dozens of local religious communities, collectively representing 10+ religious traditions. These

On Thursday, April 11 at 7:00pm in Sussman Theater (Olmsted Center, Drake University) Seth Villages, Postdoctoral Fellow for Boston University’s Computing and Data Sciences, will offer our “Comparative Philosophical Conclusions” Seth Villegas is a postdoctoral fellow for Boston University’s Spark! Program and the Computational Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences Initiative. In this role, Seth teaches

On Thursday, March 21 at 7:00pm in Sussman Theater (Olmsted Center, Drake University) Jennifer Huberman, Professor of Humanities and Social Sciences at University of Missouri-Kansas City, will speak on “The Magic, Science, and Religion of Pet Cloning: An Homage to Malinowski.” Jenny Huberman is a cultural anthropologist with wide-ranging research interests. Her first ethnography, Ambivalent Encounters:

On Thursday, February 22 at 7:00pm in Sussman Theater (Olmsted Center, Drake University) Phillip Reed-Butler, Assistant Professor of Theology and Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems at Iliff School of Theology, will speak on “Space Dust: Blackness, Its Expansion, and Transfinite Exploration.” Philip Butler is an international scholar whose work primarily focuses on the intersections of

On Thursday, December 7, at 7:00 pm, in Sussman Theater (Olmsted Center), Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Director of Jewish Studies and Irving and Miriam Lowe Professor of Modern Judaism at Arizona State University and author of “Transhumanism as Secularist Faith,” will speak about “The Preciousness of Being Human: A Judaic Perspective on Embodiment, Death, and Immortality.” Please find below

On Saturday, December 2, from 9:00 am – 12:00 pm, The Comparison Project hosts a “meditation workshop and dialogue” in Meredith Hall on Drake’s campus. The event, which is free and open to the public, features meditation instructors representing different religious and spiritual traditions and techniques. Light breakfast fare will be available.  Attendees will have