A SHORT HISTORY
We are a Drake University center for the practice of comparative philosophy of religion, the understanding of local lived religion, and the cultivation of interfaith literacy and leadership.
We began in 2012 as a Lecture & Dialogue Series in comparative philosophy of religion; over the years, we have published three collections from this series, with a fourth now in the works.
In 2013, we began creating on-line resources about local religious communities, also facilitating digital stories by their members.
From 2015–17 we collaborated with the Drake Community Press and photographer Bob Blanchard, with the Des Moines Area Religious Council as nonprofit beneficiary, to research and publish a student-written photo-narrative about fifteen religions of Des Moines. This was published in 2017 as A Spectrum of Faith: Religions of the World in the Heartland of America.
After Spectrum was published, we began the Meet My Religious Neighbor site-visit series and held our first Interfaith Youth Leadership camp.
Later, we collaborated with one of Drake University’s international partners, Minzu University of China, to research, write, and publish a student-written, bilingual photo-narrative about religion in Beijing, which was published by Bloomsbury in 2020 as Religions of Beijing.
Currently we are working on another collaborative, student-written photo-narrative, this time with Drake’s international partner University of KwaZulu-Natal, about religions in the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.
CURRENT PROGRAMMING
Our current programming consists primarily of two series and the interfaith camp.
The Lecture & Dialogue series occurs monthly, more or less, during the Fall and Spring academic semesters. It features scholar lectures and practitioner dialogues, always about a biennial them. (The theme for 2024–26 is “religion, disability, and work.”
Meet My Religious Neighbor is now (since 2020) a partnership with the Des Moines Area Religious Council, Interfaith Alliance of Iowa, and CultureALL. Each organization plans one site visit each semester (totaling four visits per semester).
The Interfaith Youth Leadership Camp, a partnership with Des Moines Area Religious Council, occurs each summer in the month of July.
CONTACT US
Tim Knepper, Director
comparisonproject@drake.edu
515-271-2167
The Comparison Project
Department of Philosophy and Religion
Drake University
2507 University Avenue
Des Moines, IA 50311-4505
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PHOTOS
Most of the photos on this site were taken by Bob Blanchard. Click here to see his website