Our Meet My Religious Neighbor series resumes, this time in collaboration with the Des Moines Area Religious Council and Interfaith Alliance of Iowa.
Please join us on Saturday, September 14th at Masjid an-Noor, the mosque on 42nd Street just south of University Ave (1117 42nd St., Des Moines). Drop in any time between 10:00 am and 2:00 pm to tour the mosque, meet members of the community, learn about Islam in the prayer hall, and enjoy multi-cultural snacks in the fellowship hall. Modest dress is recommended.
Speakers: David L. Weddle, Professor Emeritus of Religion, Colorado College; Karen Zwier, Lecturer in Philosophy, Iowa State University
Thursday, May 9th, 7:00 p.m.; Cowles Library Reading Room
The Comparison Project has come to the end of its two-year series on miracles, in which we have heard diverse perspectives from a wide range of disciplines. It is now time to face the question that has haunted the entire series: if a miracle occurs, what does it prove? This is the dreaded “so what?” question. Professors Weddle and Zwier propose this evening to engage the “so what?” question. Please join us in this final conversation on miracles.
David L. Weddle is Professor Emeritus of Religion at Colorado College where he taught courses in comparative religion, ethics, and Christian thought, and is the author of Miracles: Wonder and Meaning in World Religions (2010) and Sacrifice in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (2017).
Karen Zwier is a lecturer in philosophy at Iowa State University. Her research deals with philosophical and scientific methodology as well as metaphysics of science. Her areas of specialty include philosophy of causation, history and philosophy of physics, and science and religion.
Please join us on Sunday, April 7th at 9:30 a.m. for a visit to St. Demetrius Serbian Orthodox Church (4655 NE 3rd St, Des Moines). Although the priest is ill and cannot perform the liturgy, lay members of the parish will be there to tell us about Serbain Orthodox Christianity in general and St. Demetrius’ Church in particular. Dress can be casual for this event.
Nehemia Polen, Professor of Jewish Thought, Hebrew College
Thursday, April 11th, 7:00 p.m.
Sussman Theater, Olmsted Center, Drake University
The founder of Hasidism,
Israel ben Eliezer (d. 1760), known as the Baal Shem Tov (“Master of the Good
Name”) gained his fame as healer, shamanic adept, and charismatic master. To
this day, Hasidic communities tell wondrous stories of their leaders, known as Rebbe
or Tsaddik (saint, righteous person). Yet Hasidic sources display a
curious ambivalence towards the miraculous, often disavowing the centrality and
significance of the paranormal in Hasidic life and thought. This
marginalization of the miraculous is often connected to a related theme:
appreciation of the wondrous nature of everyday life.
Dr. Nehemia Polen is Professor of Jewish Thought at Boston’s Hebrew College. He is the author of numerous books, among which are The Holy Fire: The Teachings of Rabbi Kalonymus Shapira, the Rebbe of the Warsaw Ghetto (Jason Aronson, 1994, 1999) and The Rebbe’s Daughter (Jewish Publication Society, 2002), recipient of a National Jewish Book Award. He is an ordained rabbi who has served a congregation for twenty-three years, and is a contributing commentator to My People’s Prayer Book, a multi-volume Siddur incorporating diverse perspectives on the liturgy (Jewish Lights).
Dr. Patton Burchett, Assistant Professor, College of William & Mary
Thursday, March 28th, 7:00 pm
Olmsted Center, Sussman Theater
This talk examines a series of miracle stories in the hagiographical literature of the Sufi and Hindu bhakti traditions of early modern north India in order to highlight some fascinating parallels between Sufi and Hindu bhakti religious attitudes. Dr. Burchett offers a provocative hypothesis: that the category of the “miracle”—broadly shared across the “Abrahamic” traditions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and defined in contradistinction to the category of “magic”—does not exist in the Hindu tradition until the influence of Islam on Hindu devotional communities in Mughal India. In exploring the miracles of Sufi and Hindu devotee-saints, this lecture investigates the role of ethics in categorizing different forms of wonder (e.g., as “miracle” versus “magic”) and examines the way that the specific narrative form of the miracle story often functions to cultivate virtues and ethical dispositions in its audiences.
Patton Burchett is Assistant Professor at the College of William & Mary. Prof. Burchett’s research focuses primarily on early modern devotional (bhakti) and tantric-yogic religiosity in north India. He is developing a new book project on yoga and the interrelations of magic, science, and religion in the rise of Indian and Western modernities. Burchett’s first book, A Genealogy of Devotion: Bhakti, Tantra, Yoga, and Sufism in North India, is forthcoming from Columbia University Press in May 2019.
