On Sunday, March 16 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 going to participate in the throwing of colors.
Lunch is available for purchase from the temple.
This event is part of the “Meet My Religious Neighbor” series, which is co-programmed with CultureALL, the Des Moines Area Religious Council, and Interfaith Alliance of Iowa.
On Thursday, March 6, at 6:00 pm, in Drake’s Sussman Theater (lower level of Olmsted Center), Dr. Amy Donahue, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Kennesaw State University, will deliver a lecture on “The Bhagavad Gītā’s Yoga Model of Disability.”
Please see below for a audio + PPT recording of the lecture.
Contemporary medical models of disability assume notions of “normal” human embodiment and functioning that South Asia’s Hindu philosophical and religious traditions largely do not share and in many cases implicitly challenge. Rather than assuming normalcy and ability as default human conditions, Hindu traditions generally assume that human experience begins with ignorance and dysfunction. All persons, in other words, are in some state of “disability,” and overcoming our traumas takes work that no one initially wants to start. According to the Gītā, this work involves yoking reflexive tendencies, including deep-rooted habits of (mis)identification that distort a person’s authentic nature (svabhāva). Realization of our true selves requires, first, replacing attachments that lead to torpor, confusion, and conflict with habits leading to clarity and joy, and second, uprooting even these habits for the sake of a perfect harmony of all beings. This yoga model of disability found in the Gītā therefore contests contemporary medical accounts while offering critical guidance for contemporary cultural disability theorists.
On Sunday, February 23, from 3:00–5:00 pm, Drake University’s The Comparison Project, in conjunction with the “Iowa Interfaith Exchange,” hosts “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 at least a dozen religious traditions. These communities will be arranged throughout the hall as if on a map of the metro area. Visitors will receive a map to guide them in their exploration of them. Refreshments will be provided by Drake’s catering service, Sodexo.
The Comparison Project engages in the practice of comparative philosophy of religion, increases understanding of local-lived religion, and cultivates interfaith literacy and leadership. It is supported by Drake’s Center for the Humanities, Drake’s Slay Fund for Social Justice, Drake’s Stringfellow and Hay Lectureships, Humanities Iowa, and Cultivating Compassion: The Dr. Richard Deming Foundation.
The ”Iowa Interfaith Exchange” includes Drake’s The Comparison Project and three other local nonprofits: CultureALL, the Des Moines Area Religious Council, and Interfaith Alliance of Iowa.
