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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240124T153000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240124T164500
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SUMMARY:Colonial Encounters:  Sor Juana\, Guaman Poma\, and the Birth of the Brown Church
DESCRIPTION:In person (Kaplan 365)\n \nThis guest lecture examines the little known multicultural religious protests to the Spanish Conquest of colonial Latin America.  Such protests began in 1511 under the guidance of Dominican friar Antonio de Montesinos and led to “The Great Debate” in which\, for the first time in recorded human history\, an entire nation paused to reflect on the moral injustice of war and colonization.  In the decades and centuries to come\, mestizo\, black\, indigenous\, female\, Spanish\, and Asian voices would arise to challenge the perverted racial and sexist logic of the Spanish colonial project. This talk further examines the lives and voices of three of these diverse leaders—Garcilaso de la Vega el Inca\, Guaman Poma de Ayala\, and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.  Together\, these multicultural protests gave birth to the “Brown Church” and a 500 year tradition of Christian social justice in Latin America. \nRobert Chao Romero is an associate professor in the Chávez Department of Chicana/o Studies and Central America Studies.  Romero is the author of “Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice\, Theology\, and Identity\,” and co-author of “Christianity and Critical Race Theory” and “God’s Resistance: Mobilizing Faith to Defend Immigrants.”  Romero is also an ordained minister and faith rooted community organizer. \n[gravityform id=”147″ title=”true” description=”true”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/colonial-encounters-sor-juana-guaman-poma-and-the-birth-of-the-brown-church/
LOCATION:Kaplan 365
CATEGORIES:CSR
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240116T123000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20240116T134500
DTSTAMP:20240105T194353Z
CREATED:20231114T000846Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20240105T194353Z
UID:6310-1705408200-1705412700@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:How Archaeologists Study the People of the Gospels
DESCRIPTION:In Person (Royce 306) or on Zoom\nRegister here \nHow do archaeologists unearth the daily life of people from Jesus’s time? \nContrary to popular belief\, archaeology of first-century Roman Galilee is not about illustrating or proving the gospels\, drawing timelines\, or hunting treasure. Rather\, it is about understanding the lives of people\, just like us\, who lived in the time of Jesus. How do we conceive of Jesus and his mission as part of a larger world? How did different groups in Roman Galilee understand their identities and values? How do we interpret material culture in conjunction with textual evidence from the gospels? On a more basic level\, how do we know where and how to dig? \nCo-sponsored by the Kershaw Chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies  \nJames Riley Strange teaches how to address these problems in his book Excavating the Land of Jesus. Drawing on professional experience as a scientific archaeologist in Israel\, Strange explains current methodology for ground surveying\, excavating evidence\, and interpreting data. James Strange received the Charles Jackson Granade and Elizabeth Donald Granade Chair in New Testament in the fall of 2017. He is a 2015 recipient of the Dean’s Award for Research\, Howard College of Arts and Sciences\, and a member of Phi Kappa Phi honor society. Strange is Director of the Shikhin Excavation Project in Israel and researches archaeology of Palestine in the Hellenistic through Byzantine periods\, early Christianity and post-biblical Judaisms. He teaches courses in New Testament\, ancient Greco-Roman Religions\, and the archaeology of Palestine.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/excavating-the-land-of-jesus/
LOCATION:Royce 306
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231128T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231128T151500
DTSTAMP:20231016T213936Z
CREATED:20230918T221555Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231016T213936Z
UID:6232-1701180000-1701184500@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:The Formation of Classical Islam from Muhammad to the Abbasids
DESCRIPTION:In person (Haines 39) or on Zoom \nRegister here for both in-person or Zoom attendance \nReturning to UCLA by popular demand\, this lecture by Walid Saleh (University of Toronto) provides an overview of the major features of Classical Islam that solidified during the early Abbasid period. Such features include the  rise of major religious sciences and the textual tradition that became part of the scholarly and religious tradition. \nProfessor Walid A. Saleh is a specialist on the Qur’an\, the history of its interpretation (Tafsir)\, the Arabic manuscript tradition\, Islamic apocalyptic literature\, and the Muslim reception of the Bible. His first book The Formation of the Classical Tafsir Tradition (Brill\, 2004) was the first monograph length study of al-Thalabi (d. 1035) and his influence in the history of Qur’an commentary tradition.  His second monograph\, In Defense of the Bible (Brill\, 2008)\, is a detailed study and an edition of al-Biqa`i’s (d. 1480) Bible treatise\, “The Just Verdict on the Permissibility of Quoting from Old Scriptures\,” which is the most extensive discussion of the place of the Bible in the Islamic religious tradition. \nProfessor Saleh is the editor of the Routledge Qur’an Series. He is also on the editorial board of Journal of the American Academy of Religion\, and the Journal of Qur’anic Studies. \n 
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/the-formation-of-classical-islam-from-muhammad-to-the-abbasids/
LOCATION:Haines 39/Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
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ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231127T163000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231127T203000
DTSTAMP:20231124T201226Z
CREATED:20231115T153906Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231124T201226Z
UID:6334-1701102600-1701117000@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Teach-in for Peace
DESCRIPTION:ROOM FULL for in- person attendance. Accepting Zoom registration only.\nRSVP required. Register here \nExplore sources of peace and non-violence with leading teachers\, including: \n\nSalam Al-Marayati – Muslim Public Affairs Council\nProfessor Carol Bakhos – UCLA Center for the Study of Religion\nRabbi Sharon Brous – Ikar\nProf./Rabbi Aryeh Cohen – American Jewish University\nAziza Hasan – Executive Director\, NewGround\nAndrea Hodos – Associate Director\, NewGround\nRabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller – Director Emeritus\, UCLA Hillel\nRev. Dr. Najuma Smith – Word of Encouragement Community Church\nImam Dr. Jihad Turk – Bayan Islamic Graduate School\n\nModerated by Professor David Myers\, UCLA Distinguished Professor & Sady and Ludwig Kahn Chair in Jewish History \nSessions taught by text experts\, spiritual leaders\, historians\, peace activists & students. \nSchedule: \n\n4:30-4:45: Introduction (Prof. David Myers and poetry reading by Rachel Burnett)\n4:45-5:05: Rabbi Sharon Brous\n5:05-5:25: Imam Dr. Jihad Turk\n5:25-5:45: Prof. Carol Bakhos\n5:45-5:55: Break\n5:55-6:15: Salam Al-Marayati\n6:15-6:20: breathing exercise (Sharon Zelnick)\n6:20-6:40: Prof. Rabbi Aryeh Cohen\n6:40-6:50: Break\n6:50-7:10: Rev. Dr. Najuma Smith\n7:10-7:30: Aziza Hasan and Andrea Hodos\n7:30-7:50: Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller\n\n(Light refreshments provided) \nCo-sponsored by the UCLA Center for the Study of Religion and the New Coalition for Peace in the Middle East.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/teach-in-for-peace-in-the-middle-east/
LOCATION:6275 Bunche Hall
CATEGORIES:CSR
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ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231109T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231109T180000
DTSTAMP:20231030T172844Z
CREATED:20230926T195357Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231030T172844Z
UID:6190-1699545600-1699552800@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Shirdi Sai Baba's Presence: Mediums\, Mediations\, and Mobilities
DESCRIPTION:In-person and Zoom \nRegister here for both in-person or Zoom \nThe South Asian saint Shirdi Sai Baba has an ever-growing global diaspora. His inspiration and healing energies are boons reinforced for many by his defiance of religious communitarianism. In welcoming all castes\, creeds\, and nationalities\, Baba offers an alternative to the divisiveness of his time and ours. Although Baba left his body in 1918\, he is eternally present through two- and three-dimensional iconic images and figural sculptures that\, as his embodiments\, are found in innumerable temples\, home altars\, roadside and wayside shrines\, films\, websites\, and social media. Through a recently published volume\, Professors Srinivas and Roberts have explored the emergence of specific spaces\, practices\, selves\, presences\, and mobilities associated with Baba. Such presentations are often exegetical and are interesting unto themselves\, but they also offer opportunities to consider the dynamics of religious expression anywhere in the world. Haptic visualities\, spatial refabulations\, corporeal mobilities\, transmigrations\, universes of translation\, and positionalities in trans-Asian and Indian Ocean worlds are among theoretical perspectives addressed. An anthropology of credibility is espoused as Drs. Srinivas and Roberts seek to understand and\, to a degree\, participate in the truths lived by Baba and his devotees. \nCo-sponsored by the UCLA Center for India and South Asia \nAL Roberts in Tunis\, March 2023; photo by Amira Hassnaoui\nAllen F. Roberts is Distinguished Research Professor / Distinguished Professor Emeritus of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA and was trained in socio-cultural Anthropology (PhD 1980\, University of Chicago). He and his late spouse Mary “Polly” Nooter Roberts (d.2018)\, who was Professor of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA and Consulting Curator for African Arts at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art\, have undertaken research\, writing\, teaching\, and museum work together concerning arts and humanities of Africa and the Indian Ocean World. AL and Polly’s award-winning books and traveling exhibitions include Memory: Luba Art and the Making of History (1996) and A Saint in the City: Sufi Art of Urban Senegal (2003). Most recently and with Professor Smriti Srinivas of UC Davis\, AL has co-edited and contributed to Devotional Spaces of a Global Saint: Shirdi Sai Baba’s Presence (2023) as a volume dedicated to Polly Roberts’ memory. \nSmriti Srinivas is Professor of Anthropology at the University of California\, Davis\, USA. She explores regimes of spatial\, somatic\, and symbolic production\, particularly in cities and Indian Ocean worlds. Her most recent books include Devotional Spaces of a Global Saint: Shirdi Sai Baba’s Presence (2022)\, coedited with Allen F. Roberts and Neelima Jeychandran; Reimagining Indian Ocean Worlds (2020\, coedited); and A Place for Utopia: Urban Designs from South Asia (2015).
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/shirdi-sai-babas-presence-mediums-mediations-and-mobilities/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 306/Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231025T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231025T130000
DTSTAMP:20230926T203309Z
CREATED:20230912T203120Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230926T203309Z
UID:6182-1698235200-1698238800@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Righting the American Dream
DESCRIPTION:Zoom or In-Person event \nClick here to register \nIn this book talk\, author Diane Winston explores how after two years in the White House\, an aging and increasingly unpopular Ronald Reagan looked like a one-term president\, but something changed in 1983. Reagan spoke of his embattled agenda as a spiritual rather than a political project and cast his vision for limited government and market economics as the natural outworking of religious conviction. \nIn a provocative new history of how the news media facilitated the Reagan Revolution and the rise of the religious Right\, Winston reveals how support for Reagan emerged from a new religious vision of American identity circulating in the popular press. The news media broadcast this message with enthusiasm\, and white evangelicals rallied to the president’s cause. With their support\, Reagan won reelection and continued to dismantle the welfare state\, unraveling a political consensus that stood for half a century. \nDiane Winston spent over a decade as a journalist and is now associate professor of journalism and Knight Chair in Media and Religion at the University of Southern California. She is the author or editor of several books\, including Religion in Los Angeles: Religious Activism\, Innovation\, and Diversity in the Global City. Her newest book\, Righting the American Dream: How the Media Mainstreamed Reagan’s Evangelical Vision\, is available through University of Chicago Press. \nSmall bites and beverages will be provided. RSVP is required. Click here to register \nObtain a 30% discount on the book with promocode UCPNEW at the University of Chicago Press website.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/righting-the-american-dream/
LOCATION:Kaplan 365
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231018T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231018T160000
DTSTAMP:20231009T184207Z
CREATED:20230829T185840Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231009T184207Z
UID:6170-1697644800-1697644800@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah: David Reubeni's How-To Manual of Messianic Redemption
DESCRIPTION:In the 16th century\, a Hebrew-speaking\, battle-scarred\, Black-skinned Jew named David Reubeni appeared suddenly in Venice with a desperate plan to restore Jewish pride and political independence. Why did kings\, bishops\, rabbis\, bankers\, and even a pope\, open their homes and wallets for him? Some answers come from one of the weirdest documents in Jewish history\, Reubeni’s personal diary. Professor Alan Verskin will share insights from his book in this online event which is co-sponsored by the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies and the UCLA CMRS Center for Early Global Studies. \n  \nRegister here for your Zoom link. \n  \nBio: Alan Verskin is Samuel J. Zacks Chair of Jewish History at the University of Toronto. Prior to that\, he taught for a decade at the University of Rhode Island. His areas of research include religious\, legal\, and social history in both Jewish and Islamic contexts\, from the middle ages through the nineteenth century. He is particularly interested in travel\, translation\, and the migration of ideas between religious communities. His most recent book is Diary of a Black Jewish Messiah: The Sixteenth-Century Journey of David Reubeni through Africa\, the Middle East\, and Europe (Stanford University Press\, 2023).
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/diary-of-a-black-jewish-messiah-david-reubenis-how-to-manual-of-messianic-redemption/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231012T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231012T180000
DTSTAMP:20230926T195434Z
CREATED:20230829T173911Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230926T195434Z
UID:6167-1697126400-1697133600@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Welcome Reception - Fall 2023
DESCRIPTION:Please join us to welcome in the new academic year\, see old friends and meet new people. \nClick here to let us know that you will be coming by October 5th. Thank you!
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/welcome-reception-fall-2023/
LOCATION:Royce 306
CATEGORIES:CSR
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://religion.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/design.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231005T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20231005T173000
DTSTAMP:20230929T194853Z
CREATED:20230829T231653Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230929T194853Z
UID:6193-1696521600-1696527000@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:From Enchanted to Re-enchanted:  Trajectories of Vietnamese Buddhism in a Post-modern World
DESCRIPTION:Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies. It is co-sponsored by the Center for the Study of Religion and the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies. \nBuddhist modernity has often taken on the form of a secularized\, rationalist and democratic Buddhism that accentuates meditative techniques and a focus on psychology and salvation attained through individual endeavor. Non-rational\, devotional\, forms of Buddhism have\, at least rhetorically\, been painted as pre-modern\, backwards or superstition. Echoing the now debunked secularization theory of religion – that religion will diminish and be replaced by science – it has been assumed that the modernization of Buddhism would displace devotional forms of Buddhism with this rational and humanistic form of Buddhist modernism. This theory is now demonstrably proven false in many places\, but especially in Vietnam where there has been a resurgence of interest in devotional forms of Buddhism\, which focus on supernatural assistance in daily life and the potency of some monks to tell the future and alter fates (in essence\, the denying the secular division between the mundane and supernatural.) Professor Alexander Soucy (Saint Mary’s University)\, will posit that this is not a persistence nor resurgence of the pre-modern\, but instead needs to be understood as something new – as much owing to the structures and assumptions of modernity as to the power of the enchanted past. \nRegistration required. Click here. \nAlexander Soucy is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at Saint Mary’s University (Halifax\, Canada). His first monograph\, The Buddha Side: Gender\, Power and Buddhist Practice in Vietnam (2012) is the only English-language ethnography of Vietnamese Buddhism. He has co-edited two volumes on Buddhism in Canada\, Wild Geese: Buddhism in Canada (2010) and Flowers on the Rock: Global and Local Buddhisms in Canada (2014)\, and a volume on Buddhism and globalization\, called Buddhism in the Global Eye: Beyond East and West. He has published a number of essays on Vietnamese Buddhism in Vietnam and in the West.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/from-enchanted-to-re-enchanted-trajectories-of-vietnamese-buddhism-in-a-post-modern-world/
LOCATION:Royce 243
CATEGORIES:CSR
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230603T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230603T173000
DTSTAMP:20230601T171943Z
CREATED:20230329T214727Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230601T171943Z
UID:5937-1685800800-1685813400@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Different Roads\, One Goal: Gandhi and Jainism
DESCRIPTION:  \nThe nonviolent activism of Mahatma Gandhi\, one of the last century’s most revered figures\, has exerted enormous influence across the world. Gandhi was himself greatly influenced by Jainism\, an ancient religion whose practitioners\, many of whom live in Gandhi’s native state of Gujarat in north-western India\, are committed to minimizing harm to living beings. \nIn this symposium\, speakers will discuss connections between Gandhi and Jainism and parallels between Gandhian and Jain thought. \nSCHEDULE:\n2:00 – 2:45: Tara Sethia: “Gandhi\, Ahiṃsā and Jainism”\n2:45 – 3:30: Chris Chapple: “Jain and Gandhian Vows: Nonviolence\, Truth\, and Simplicity”\n3:30 – 3:45: Break\n3:45 – 4:30: Veena Howard: “Gandhi and his Practical Anekāntavāda for Sarvodaya”\n4:30 – 4:50: Response from Vinay Lal\n4:50 – 5:30: Concluding Discussion \nRSVP required for Zoom access. Click here \nSpeakers: \nChristopher Key Chapple is Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and founding director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles.  He has published more than twenty books including Karma and Creativity (1986)\, Nonviolence to Animals\, Earth\, and Self in Asian Traditions (1993)\, Reconciling Yogas (2003)\, Yoga and the Luminous (2008)\, Living Landscapes: Meditations on the Elements in Hindu\, Buddhist\, and Jain Yogas (2020)\, and several edited volumes on religion and ecology.  He has received numerous grants for his research\, including from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Fulbright Nehru Fellowship program. He serves on the advisory boards for the Forum on Religion and Ecology (Yale)\, the Ahimsa Center (Pomona)\, the Jaina Studies Centre (London)\, the Dharma Academy of North America (Berkeley)\, the Uberoi Foundation (Denver)\, the South Asia Studies Association (Los Angeles)\, the Center for Religions and Spirituality (LMU)\, and the International School for Jain Studies (Delhi). \n  \n  \nVeena R. Howard\, Ph.D.\, is Professor of Asian Religious Traditions in the Department of Philosophy at California State University\, Fresno She also holds the Endowed Chair in Jain and Hindu Dharma. She was recently appointed as the director of the M.K. Gandhi Center: Inner Peace and Sarvodaya. Her publications include the books\, Gandhi’s Global Legacy: Moral Methods and Moral Challenges (Lexington\, 2023); The Bloomsbury Research Handbook of Indian Philosophy and Gender (ed.)\, (Bloomsbury\, 2019); Dharma\, Hindu\, Jain\, Buddhist\, and Sikh Traditions of India (ed.) (IB Tauris\, 2017); and Gandhi’s Ascetic Activism: Renunciation and Social Action (SUNY Press\, 2013). She has also authored numerous peer-reviewed articles including\, “The Nonviolence Conundrum: Political Peace and Personal Karma in Jain and Hindu Traditions” (Religions\, 2023); “Oxford Bibliography Article: Mohandas K. Gandhi” (Oxford University Press\, 2019); “Divine Light and Melodies Lead the Way: The Santmat Tradition of Bihar”(Religions\, 2019); “The modern monastic Santmat movement of Bihar: building bridges between Sanātana Dharma and Sant-Mat (International Journal of Dharma Studies\, 2017);  “Lessons from ‘The Hawk and the Dove’: Reflections on the Mahabharata’s Animal Parables and Ethical Predicaments” (Sophia International Journal of Philosophy and Traditions\, 2016)\,  “Rethinking Gandhi’s Celibacy:  Ascetic Power and the Empowerment of Women” (The Journal of the American Academy of Religion\, 2013)\, She has also translated three books from the modern Sant tradition from Hindi into English. She has served on the Board of Trustees of the Parliament of the World’s Religions. \n  \nTara Sethia is the founder of Ahimsa Center for the Study of Nonviolence in Thought and Action at California State Polytechnic University\, Pomona where she held the inaugural the Shri Shantinath Endowed Chair in Ahimsa Studies. As Center-Director for nearly two decades she created an interdisciplinary Minor in Nonviolence Studies; directed summer institutes for K-12 educators; and hosted conferences\, lectures\, dialogues\, and workshops on nonviolence. Her publications include the following books: Gandhi: Pioneer of Nonviolent Social Change\, Living Gandhi\, and Ahimsa\, Anekanta and Jainism.  She teaches courses on India\, South Asia\, and Nonviolence and Social Change. Dr. Sethia is a recipient of many honors\, awards\, and grants\, and has been featured in the media\, including the Los Angeles Times. She received her Ph.D. in History from UCLA. Currently\, she is emerita professor of History. \n\nDiscussant: \nVinay Lal is a writer\, blogger\, cultural critic\, and Professor of History and Asian American Studies at the University of California\, Los Angeles (UCLA). He earned his BA and MA\, both in 1982\, from The Johns Hopkins University with concentration in literature\, history\, and philosophy\, and a PhD with Distinction from the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago in 1992.  He writes widely on Indian history\, historiography\, the Indian diaspora\, colonialism\, the architecture of nonviolence\, Gandhi\, American politics\, contemporary culture\, and the global politics of knowledge systems.  His 20 books include the two-volume Oxford Anthology of the Modern Indian City (2013); The Future of Knowledge and Culture:  A Dictionary for the Twenty-first Century\, co-edited with Ashis Nandy (Viking Penguin\, 2005); Of Cricket\, Guinness and Gandhi:  Essays on Indian History and Culture (Penguin\, 2005); The History of History:  Politics and Scholarship in Modern India (Oxford\, 2003); Empire of Knowledge:  Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy (Pluto Press\, 2002); India and Civilizational Futures:  Backwaters Collective on Metaphysics and Politics II (Oxford\, 2019); The Fury of Covid-19:  The Passions\, Histories\, and Unrequited Love of the Coronavirus (Pan Macmillan\, 2020); and\, most recently\, Insurgency and the Artist:  The Art of the Freedom Struggle in India (Roli Books\, 2022).  Two volumes of his collected papers on Gandhi are scheduled for publication in early 2024.  He blogs at abplive.in and maintains an extensive academic YouTube channel with over 300 lectures at youtube.com/user/dillichalo with nearly 33\,000 subscribers and 2.5 million views.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/different-roads-one-goal-gandhi-and-jainism/
LOCATION:314 Royce Hall
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230511T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230511T170000
DTSTAMP:20230509T232304Z
CREATED:20230329T215425Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230509T232304Z
UID:5931-1683820800-1683824400@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Ethics in Paul and Paul in Ethics
DESCRIPTION:  \nThis talk looks at a few examples of Paul’s ethical reasoning and then discusses how his ethical discourse compares with those of several types current today. \nRSVP required for Zoom access. Click here \n  \nAdela Yarbro Collins is the current president of the Society for Biblical Literature and an American author and academic who has served as the Buckingham Professor of New Testament Criticism and Interpretation at Yale Divinity School. Her research focuses on the New Testament\, especially the Gospel of Mark and the Book of Revelation\, and she has also written on early Christian apocalypticism and eschatology. Collins has also served as the President of the Society of New Testament Studies (2010–2011) and as the President of the New England Region of the Society of Biblical Literature (2004–2005). \n 
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/ethics-in-paul-and-paul-in-ethics/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230509T123000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230509T130000
DTSTAMP:20230406T182122Z
CREATED:20230329T215141Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230406T182122Z
UID:5946-1683635400-1683637200@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Mark of Contradictions: The Creation of Judah's History and the Case of Samson
DESCRIPTION:  \nIn biblical texts\, we find preserved the “mark of contradictions\, fragmentations\, and adjunctions\,” as intellectual historian Michel de Certeau once wrote (The Writing of History 1988: 313). This talk will explore the mark of contradictions in what may seem a peripheral set of texts within the broader biblical narrative\, the Samson stories of Judges 13-16. Buried in the book of Judges\, these quirky stories have consistently baffled scholars: where do they come from\, why were they preserved\, and what role do they serve? In the talk\, Mahri Leonard-Fleckman will trace shifting portrayals of Samson through different biblical witnesses and rewritings through the first century C.E. to demonstrate how Samson preserves an important mark of contradictions as he is drawn into the fabric of Judah’s history. In doing so\, her broader aim is to probe the relationship between fluidity and fixity in scribal production\, history writing\, and tradition itself. Moderated by William Schniedewind (UCLA). \nRSVP here \n  \nMahri Leonard-Fleckman is an assistant professor of Hebrew Bible in the Religious Studies Department at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester\, MA. She specializes in Iron Age history and the composition history of the Hebrew Bible\, and is the author of The House of David: Between Political Formation and Literary Revision (Fortress Press\, 2016) and co-author of The Book of Ruth in the Wisdom Commentary Series (Liturgical Press\, 2017). Her current book project\, provisionally titled Scribal Representations and Social Landscapes of the Iron Age Shephelah\, focuses on scribal representations of the “Other” in ancient Israel in relation to broader questions of identity in the Iron Age Levant\, and is under contract with Oxford University Press. Leonard-Fleckman has published numerous scholarly and public-facing books and articles\, is currently the Catholic Biblical Quarterly Book Review Editor for the Old Testament and Qumran\, and is active on numerous other editorial boards and professional committees. \n  \n  \nCo-sponsored with the lead sponsor UCLA Alan D Leve Center for Jewish Studies as part of their Bible and the Ancient Near East series\, in addition to and the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures \n 
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/mark-of-contradictions-the-creation-of-judahs-history-and-the-case-of-samson/
LOCATION:290 Royce Hall
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies":MAILTO:cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230508T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230508T170000
DTSTAMP:20230504T163212Z
CREATED:20230329T214919Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230504T163212Z
UID:5924-1683561600-1683565200@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:The Mothers\, the Mamzers\, and the Rabbis: Reconstructing Family and Community in Post-Holocaust Jewish Law
DESCRIPTION:  \nThis talk centers on the little-known story of the children of illicit unions that resulted from a highly unusual situation in post-Holocaust Munkacz\, a SubCarpathian town that had been a major Jewish center before World War II. A number of women who returned to Munkacz in 1945 believed their husbands had perished in the camps\, remarried\, had children\, and then saw their first husbands return. In 1965\, two major Eastern European Orthodox rabbis tried to find solutions to keep the children of these children from also being considered Mamzerim\, children of misbegotten unions who are considered outcasts in the Jewish community. In texts that at first glance appear highly formalistic and technical\, these Jewish legal decisors tackled many of the central dilemmas of postwar European Jewry\, and are thus illuminated by contemporary writings of policymakers\, international relief agencies\, novelists\, and historians. \nThis event is co-sponsored by the UCLA Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies. \n  \nEthan B. Katz is Associate Professor of History and Jewish Studies at the University of California-Berkeley\, where he has taught since the fall of 2018. He is an affiliate faculty of the Center for Middle East Studies\, the Institute of European Studies\, and the Center for the Study of Religion. Dr. Katz also serves as the Chair of the Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on Jewish Life and Campus Climate. Since the spring of 2019\, he has been the co-founder and co-director of the Antisemitism Education Initiative at Berkeley\, an effort that has received national attention and funding. \nRSVP required for Zoom access. Click here
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/the-mothers-the-mamzers-and-the-rabbis-reconstructing-family-and-community-in-post-holocaust-jewish-law/
LOCATION:Haines 39/Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230504T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230504T170000
DTSTAMP:20230406T181241Z
CREATED:20230329T214842Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230406T181241Z
UID:5944-1683216000-1683219600@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Lost Books: The Forgetfulness of Writing and the Forgetting of Jewish Pasts
DESCRIPTION:  \nIt is often noted how the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls transformed our understanding of ancient Judaism\, radically expanding our evidence for Jews and Judaism prior to the rise of Christianity. Yet this material also stands as a striking reminder of how much of the literary heritage of Jewish antiquity has been lost to us. How and why was this material lost to the Jewish tradition\, and what might its forgetting tell us about Jewish memory-making\, past and present? This lecture explores these questions with a focus on lost books\, real and imagined\, and the shifting meanings of writing within Jewish cultural history. \nRSVP here \n  \nAnnette Yoshiko Reed is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. She studies ancient Jews and Christians\, with a focus on questions of knowledge\, identity\, and difference. Her recent books include Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism and Christianity​ (2018 and Demons\, Angels\, and Writing in Ancient Judaism (2020). She is currently working on a book on the cultural power of forgetting\, focusing on the Jewish reception of the Second Temple past. \nThursday\, May 4\, 2023 • 314 Royce Hall • 4 PM \nAnnette Yoshiko Reed (Harvard University)\nModerator: Sarah Abrevaya Stein (UCLA)\nLost Books: The Forgetfulness of Writing and the Forgetting of Jewish Pasts\nEtta and Milton Leve Scholar-in-Residence \n  \nThis event is co-sponsored with lead sponsor UCLA Alan D Leve Center for Jewish Studies’ Etta and Milton Leve Scholar in Residence.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/lost-books-the-forgetfulness-of-writing-and-the-forgetting-of-jewish-pasts/
LOCATION:314 Royce Hall
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies":MAILTO:cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230502T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230502T150000
DTSTAMP:20230406T182247Z
CREATED:20230329T214816Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230406T182247Z
UID:5941-1683036000-1683039600@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Ancient Judaism between Christian Memory and Jewish Forgetting
DESCRIPTION:  \nDrawing on her in-progress book project on Forgetting\, this seminar will explore the place of memory and forgetting in the reception of Second Temple Judaism\, revisiting the supposed Rabbinic retreat from “history” after the Roman destruction of the Temple in 70 CE and exploring Christian and Jewish contestation over pre-70 Jewish pasts\, from antiquity to the present. \nRSVP here \n  \nAnnette Yoshiko Reed is Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School. She studies ancient Jews and Christians\, with a focus on questions of knowledge\, identity\, and difference. Her recent books include Jewish-Christianity and the History of Judaism and Christianity​ (2018 and Demons\, Angels\, and Writing in Ancient Judaism (2020). She is currently working on a book on the cultural power of forgetting\, focusing on the Jewish reception of the Second Temple past. \nTuesday\, May 2\, 2023 • 314 Royce • 2 PM \nAnnette Yoshiko Reed (Harvard University)\nModerator: Catherine Bonesho (UCLA)\nAncient Judaism between Christian Memory and Jewish Forgetting\nEtta and Milton Leve Scholar-in-Residence \n  \nThis event is co-sponsored with lead sponsor UCLA Alan D Leve Center for Jewish Studies’ Etta and Milton Leve Scholar in Residence.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/ancient-judaism-between-christian-memory-and-jewish-forgetting/
LOCATION:Royce Hall\, Rm 314
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies":MAILTO:cjsrsvp@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230427T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230427T170000
DTSTAMP:20230412T174547Z
CREATED:20230329T211205Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230412T174547Z
UID:5908-1682611200-1682614800@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:How the Forbidden Fruit Became an Apple
DESCRIPTION:With the exception of the cross\, the apple—as the forbidden fruit—may be the most widely-recognized biblical image. Yet the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew original does not name the species of fruit that caused the Fall of Man\, nor do any of its many translations. While early Christian and rabbinic commentators identify various species as the forbidden fruit—the fig\, the grape\, the citron—they never include the apple. How\, then\, did the forbidden fruit come to be identified as the apple? Examining the history of biblical translation and of the artistic representation of the Fall of Man\, the presentation offers a new explanation for the emergence of the apple as a symbol of temptation and forbidden knowledge. \nRSVP required for Zoom access. Click here \n  \nAzzan Yadin-Israel is professor of Jewish studies and classics at Rutgers University. He is the author of several books\, including Scripture and Tradition: Rabbi Akiva and the Triumph of Midrash and The Grace of God and the Grace of Man: The Theologies of Bruce Springsteen. \nThis event is co-sponsored by the Department of Art History and CMRS Center for Early Global Studies.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/how-the-forbidden-fruit-became-an-apple/
LOCATION:Haines 39/Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230427T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20230427T133000
DTSTAMP:20230417T164416Z
CREATED:20230329T211141Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230417T164416Z
UID:5918-1682596800-1682602200@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:History and Ideology: Is There A Second Temple Judaism?
DESCRIPTION:Periodization is a critical tool for historians\, but it is also practice fraught with difficulty. As scholars have come to recognize\, the division of historical narratives into broad analytic rubrics is anchored in the ideological commitments—often implicit and unrecognized—of their authors. A great deal of work has been devoted to examining these questions as they pertain to the assumptions informing modern history\, particularly in the fields such as colonial history and women’s history. And while the issue has received less attention among scholars of the ancient world\, it is no less pressing. This talk will address the broader theoretical question of periodization itself\, and provide a detailed discussion of one example—the assumption that there is a Second Temple period.  \n  \nAzzan Yadin-Israel is professor of Jewish studies and classics at Rutgers University. He is the author of several books\, including Scripture and Tradition: Rabbi Akiva and the Triumph of Midrash and The Grace of God and the Grace of Man: The Theologies of Bruce Springsteen. \nJoining us in-person? Registration is required in order to have lunch. Click here \nRegister here for Zoom link \nThis talk is co-sponsored by the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures. \n 
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/history-and-ideology-is-there-a-second-temple-judaism/
LOCATION:Haines 39/Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://religion.ucla.edu/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Chronicles-Image_cropped.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20221019T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20221019T170000
DTSTAMP:20221011T224224Z
CREATED:20220922T005749Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20221011T224224Z
UID:5735-1666195200-1666198800@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Tending the Garden: Ahimsa in the Early Indian Literature
DESCRIPTION:Source: Shakyamuni Buddha – Jataka (Previous Lives). 1800\, Zanabazar Mongolia National Museum\, Mongolia\, https://www.himalayanart.org/items/50191. Accessed 22 Sept. 2022. \n  \nThe practice of ahiṃsā (non-violence) has a long and illustrious history both in South Asia\, where it originated\, and elsewhere. This talk will tour a selection of the rich body of texts composed by Jains\, Buddhists and Hindus in premodern India that engage with the theme of ahiṃsā to non-humans. These works range from imperial propaganda to stories that illustrate with engaging vividness the karmic dangers of injuring other living beings\, the rewards earned by those who refrain from doing so and the relationship between ahiṃsā and the doctrine of reincarnation. \n  \nCo-sponsored by the Center for India and South Asia \n  \nDr. Anahita Hoose is a scholar of Indian languages\, texts and cultures. Originally from England\, she crossed the pond in 2016 to join the UCLA Program in Indo-European Studies as a PhD student and moved to the Center for the Study of Religion after graduating in 2022. In her PhD dissertation\, based on texts composed in Hindu\, Buddhist and Jain circles over a period of more than a thousand years\, she discusses the use of verbs in multiple premodern Indian languages. Her linguistic research is complemented by her interests in religion\, myth and literature and she has published articles on both linguistic and cultural topics. \n  \n  \nRSVP [gravityform id=”134″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/tending-the-garden-ahimsa-in-the-early-indian-literature/
LOCATION:314 Royce Hall/Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220518T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220518T170000
DTSTAMP:20220510T222915Z
CREATED:20220324T184948Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220510T222915Z
UID:5626-1652889600-1652893200@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Antisemitism in the Pagan World
DESCRIPTION:What counts as antisemitism? Did antisemitism exist among Greeks and Romans? How far and how deep did hostility to Jews extend in the pagan and pre-Christian world? What impact did it have on Jewish experience in the period of the Second Temple? In short\, was there a “Jewish problem” in Greco-Roman antiquity? \n  \nCo-sponsored by the Department of Classics\, History Department\, and the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies \n  \nErich Gruen is Gladys Rehard Wood Professor of History and Classics\, Emeritus\, University of California\, Berkeley. His research and writing have been primarily in Roman history\, Hellenistic history\, and Jews in the Greco-Roman world. He has published or edited 14 books\, the most recent of which is Ethnicity in the Ancient World – – Did it Matter? (2020). Most important\, he has supervised or served on the PhD dissertation committees of over 100 students\, most of whom are now teaching in various colleges and universities in this country and abroad. \n  \n  \n  \n  \n[gravityform id=”128″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/antisemitism-in-the-pagan-world/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 306/Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220517T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220517T170000
DTSTAMP:20220517T203750Z
CREATED:20220324T185054Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220517T203750Z
UID:5624-1652803200-1652806800@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Wolakota kagapi: The Study of Peace Making on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
DESCRIPTION:Unfortunately\, the Center for the Study of Religion must postpone this event due to extenuating circumstances. We apologize for the inconvenience\, and look forward to welcoming you at our next event. \n  \nThe Oglala Lakota Peace Making Team\, was instrumental in putting together a number of training sessions for community members to become Peace Makers. The tribe developed a Peace Making Room in the new court house. The Peace Making room is used for Peace Making for the community membership. \nA Peace Maker has a vision for the future\, knows traditional ways\, shares and develops leadership\, serves and protects the tribal community\, develops trust\, and shows respect for all tribal people. Native communities are centered on culture\, spirituality\, language\, and stories. They are not centered on financial profit\, politics\, or religion. These elements of culture are important for explaining the practice of (Wolakota) Peace making. \n  \nRichard Iron Cloud Ph.D.\, Oglala Lakota\, Richard is a founding member of the Oglala Lakota Peace-Making Team. A group of Oglala Lakota individuals who came together to look for alternatives to the Colonial System of Justice. Richard has been involved in social justice issues\, researching systems of oppression in its various forms. Richard believes in looking out for others needs rather than one’s own\, such behavior is salient in the Lakota (ounye) way of life. \n  \n  \n  \n  \n[gravityform id=”127″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/wolakota-kagapi-the-study-of-peace-making-on-the-pine-ridge-indian-reservation/
LOCATION:314 Royce Hall
CATEGORIES:CSR
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220512T170000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220512T180000
DTSTAMP:20220426T190500Z
CREATED:20220324T183321Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220426T190500Z
UID:5621-1652374800-1652378400@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Losing Control of the gods: How Religion Slipped Out of the Hands of Men in the Early Roman Empire
DESCRIPTION:The dignified and extravagant public rituals of Romans – ancestral institutions as the last generations of the Republic imagined them – definitively failed in the last century BCE. Future senatorial priests presided only over the cults of a city that was less and less a capital. In place of a narrative of early imperial religion that sets the worship of the emperors at its center\, I shall argue for a systemic shift in the religious order\, a disintegration of authority that reflected much wider changes in the nature of Roman culture. \n  \nReferences \nBeard\, Mary\, John North and Simon Price (1998). Religions of Rome. 2 volumes. Cambridge\, Cambridge University Press. \nFeeney\, Denis (1998). Literature and religion at Rome. Culture\, contexts and beliefs. Cambridge\, Cambridge University Press. \nFeeney\, Denis (2016). Beyond Greek. The beginnings of Latin literature. Cambridge MA\, Harvard University Press. \nGasparini\, Valentino\, et al. Eds. (2020). Lived Religion in the Ancient Mediterranean World. Berlin & Boston\, de Gruyter. \nMacRae\, Duncan (2016). Legible religion. Books\, gods\, and rituals in Roman culture Cambridge MA\, Harvard University Press. \nNongbri\, Brent (2013). Before Religion. A history of a modern concept. New Haven & London\, Yale University Press. \nRüpke\, Jörg (2018). Pantheon. A New History of Roman Religion. Princeton NJ\, Princeton University Press. \nRüpke\, Jörg and Greg Woolf\, Eds. (2021). Religion in the Roman Empire. Stuttgart\, Verlag W.Kohlhammer. \nScheid\, John (2016). The gods\, the state\, and the individual. Reflections on civic religion in Rome. Philadelphia\, University of Pennsylvania Press. \nVárhelyi\, Zsusanna (2010). The Religion of Senators in the Roman Empire. Power and the beyond. Cambridge\, Cambridge University Press. \n  \nCo-sponsored by the Department of Classics and the History Department \n  \nGreg Woolf arrived in UCLA in September 2021 to become the first Ronald J Mellor Professor of Ancient History. Before then he directed the Institute of Classical Studies in the School of Advanced Study in London for six years\, and before that was Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews. He is a Fellow of the British Academy and has held visiting appointments in Brazil\, France\, Germany\, Italy and Spain. His work straddles the fields of ancient history and archaeology\, and he has published on a range of cultural historical subjects from the history of libraries and the impact of Roman imperialism on ancient societies to (more recently) numerous studies of Roman religion and Roman urbanism. His most recent books are the second edition of Rome. An Empire’s Story (Oxford 2022) and (with his long term collaborator Jörg Rüpke the edited collection Religion in the Roman Empire.) He is a member of the Faculty Advisory Committee of the Center for the Study of Religion. \n  \n  \n  \n[gravityform id=”126″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/losing-control-of-the-gods-how-religion-slipped-out-of-the-hands-of-men-in-the-early-roman-empire/
LOCATION:Dodd Hall 248
CATEGORIES:CSR
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220511T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220511T130000
DTSTAMP:20220329T172533Z
CREATED:20220324T182523Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220329T172533Z
UID:5618-1652270400-1652274000@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:The Ten Commandments: Who What When Where Why
DESCRIPTION:For over two thousand years the Ten Commandments have been understood as the fundamental set of divine laws in the Hebrew Bible. Even for those who do not believe that Moses wrote the Pentateuch\, the Ten Commandments have retained their place as especially ancient\, and especially important in the religious and communal life of Israel. In this lecture\, Joel Baden will explain why this is\, essentially\, all wrong – and how we should understand\, and grapple with\, the true origins of these most famous words. \n  \nCo-sponsored by the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies and its Bible and the Ancient World Seminar Series \n  \nProf. Joel Baden works widely in the field of Hebrew Bible\, with special attention to the literary history of the Pentateuch. He is the author\, most recently\, of The Book of Exodus: A Biography (Princeton University Press\, 2019). His other books include J\, E\, and the Redaction of the Pentateuch (Mohr Siebeck\, 2009); The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis (Yale University Press\, 2012); The Promise to the Patriarchs (Oxford University Press\, 2013); The Historical David: The Real Life of an Invented Hero (HarperOne\, 2013); Reconceiving Infertility: Biblical Perspectives on Procreation and Childlessness (with Candida Moss; Princeton University Press\, 2015); and Bible Nation: The United States of Hobby Lobby (with Candida Moss; Princeton University Press\, 2017). He is the co-editor of the volumes The Strata of the Priestly Writings: Contemporary Debate and Future Directions (TVZ\, 2009)\, Sibyls\, Scriptures\, and Scrolls (Brill\, 2017)\, and The Oxford Handbook of the Pentateuch (with Jeffrey Stackert; Oxford University Press\, 2021).  \nCurrent projects include editing The Routledge Handbook of Marginalization in the Bible and a special issue of the journal Religions devoted to the Hebrew Bible\, race\, and racism\, along with writing forthcoming commentaries on Deuteronomy (IECOT)\, Exodus (Anchor)\, and Lamentations (Oxford). \nProf. Baden has published numerous scholarly articles and essays. He has also written widely for a popular audience\, in venues such as The New York Times\, The Washington Post\, The Atlantic Monthly\, Slate\, The Los Angeles Times\, Politico\, CNN\, and The Daily Beast.   \n  \n[gravityform id=”125″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/the-ten-commandments-who-what-when-where-why/
LOCATION:Kaplan 365
CATEGORIES:CSR
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220428T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20220428T170000
DTSTAMP:20220329T172510Z
CREATED:20220324T181426Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20220329T172510Z
UID:5613-1651161600-1651165200@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Song of Songs\, Time after Time
DESCRIPTION:The Song of Songs has been subject to numerous and varying interpretive approaches since its emergence. Drawing from her recently published book\, Perils of Wisdom: The Scriptural Solomon in Jewish Tradition\, Dr. Keiter will focus on varying Jewish interpretive strategies toward the Song\, highlighting the development of Jewish biblical exegesis and its impact on the King Solomon legend in Jewish thought. \n  \nCo-sponsored by the Alan D. Leve Center for Jewish Studies and its Bible and the Ancient World Seminar Series \n  \nDr. Sheila Keiter is a Near Eastern Languages and Cultures alumna and former Teaching Fellow in the UCLA English Department. She is currently an instructor at Shalhevet High School and a Regular Contributor for the “Table for Five” Torah panel column in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal. Keiter recently published\, Perils of Wisdom: The Scriptural Solomon in Jewish Tradition (2021). \n  \n  \n  \n  \n  \n[gravityform id=”124″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/song-of-songs-time-after-time/
LOCATION:Haines 39/Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211201T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211201T130000
DTSTAMP:20211115T231023Z
CREATED:20210813T211721Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211115T231023Z
UID:5438-1638360000-1638363600@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:“Surely There is No Fear of God in This Place” – The Biblical Plagues and OUR Plague:  An Anthropocentric “Theology” and a Lesson for Our Times
DESCRIPTION:**Please note this talk has been postponed to Wednesday\, December 1 at 12pm via Zoom**\n  \n\n  \nThe onset of the coronavirus brought with it a slew of perverse efforts to identify the ‘sinful’ behaviors for which the plague was God’s punishment. Through an analysis of “Vehaya im Shamoa”(Deut.11:13-21) I offer an alternative understanding of punishment as a disciplinary act attributed to God but\, actually\, the direct consequence of human conduct. Proceeding to outline the Pharoanic behavioral antecedents of the Egyptian plagues I move on to focus on the causal chain of human missteps that have led to the current crisis. In doing so I hope to diminish the degree of randomness with which we frame the pandemic and argue that this human induced ‘plague’ imposes on us a moral obligation to take corrective actions that could bring healing to our beleaguered planet. \n  \nChaim Seidler-Feller recently celebrated his fortieth year of working with students and faculty as the Executive Director of the Yitzhak Rabin Hillel Center for Jewish Life at UCLA. He is currently Director Emeritus. He was ordained in 1971 at Yeshiva University where he completed a Masters in Rabbinic Literature. Chaim has been a lecturer in the Departments of Sociology and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at UCLA and in the Department of Theological Studies at Loyola Marymount University. He is currently a faculty member of the Shalom Hartman Institute\,North America and of the Wexner Heritage Foundation. He was the founding director of the Hartman Fellowship for Campus Professionals and a founding member of Americans for Peace Now. In 2014 he initiated a fact finding mission for non-Jewish student leaders to Israel and the Palestine Authority which is now offered on ninety campuses. In 2020 a Festschrift entitled Swimming Against the Current: Reimagining Jewish Tradition in the 21st Century was published in Chaim’s honor. He is married to Dr. Doreen Seidler-Feller\, a clinical psychologist\, and is the father of Shulie\, a photojournalist and Shaul\, an ordained rabbi who is currently serving as a Judaica consultant at Sotheby’s while pursuing a doctorate in Jewish History at the Hebrew University.\n \n  \nEvent Flyer\n  \nRSVP Required for Zoom Access:\n  \n[gravityform id=”116″ title=”true” description=”true”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/surely-there-is-no-fear-of-god-in-this-place-the-biblical-plagues-and-our-plague-an-anthropocentric-theology-and-a-lesson-for-our-times/
CATEGORIES:CSR
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211028T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211028T170000
DTSTAMP:20211012T173444Z
CREATED:20210813T205948Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20211012T173444Z
UID:5432-1635436800-1635440400@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:The Constantinian Compromise:  Senators\, Bishops and the Emperor in Late Antique Rome
DESCRIPTION:Given the historic role played by the victorious Constantine in spreading Christianity\, it is ironic that senatorial aristocrats were more cooperative with Constantine than were the early fourth-century bishops of the city. Although the bishops of Rome and the clergy\, along with other Christians\, benefitted greatly from the restoration of their property and the recognition of their legal standing under Constantine\, their resistance to imperial intervention in the Donatist controversy marginalized the bishop of Rome for centuries to come\, as I demonstrate based on a range of texts and documents from the fourth-fifth centuries. \n  \nEvent Co-Sponsored by the UCLA Department of Classics and the UCLA Department of History \n  \nMichele Renee Salzman is Professor and Chair of History at the University of California at Riverside. Her research focuses on the religious and social history of late antiquity. She is the author of numerous books and articles\, including The Making of a Christian Aristocracy (Harvard University Press\, 2002); and The Letters of Symmachus: Book 1 Translation with Michael Roberts\, Introduction and Commentary by Michele Renee Salzman\, (Society of Biblical Literatures\, 2011; Brill Press\, 2012). Her new book\, The Falls of Rome: Crises\, Resilience and Resurgence in Late Antiquity (Cambridge University Press\, 2021)\, offers a new perspective on the fate of this vast city and the remarkable families who returned again and again to renew it in the last three centuries of its empire. She is the recipient of numerous awards\, with Fellowships from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton\, the NEH\, the American Academy in Rome\, and the Bogliasco Foundation.\n \n  \nEvent Flyer\n  \nRSVP Required for Zoom Access:\nThe event will be offered via Zoom only. \n[gravityform id=”114″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/the-constantinian-compromise-senators-bishops-and-the-emperor-in-late-antique-rome/
CATEGORIES:CSR
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211014T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20211014T180000
DTSTAMP:20210817T162754Z
CREATED:20210817T162622Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210817T162754Z
UID:5443-1634227200-1634234400@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Fall 2021 Welcome Reception
DESCRIPTION:You are cordially invited to attend the Center for the Study of Religion Fall 2021 Welcome Reception. We look forward to seeing you there!\n  \nEvent Flyer\nRSVP Below:\n[gravityform id=”115″ title=”false” description=”true”]\n  \n 
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/fall-2021-welcome-reception/
LOCATION:Haines 39/Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210519T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210519T130000
DTSTAMP:20210421T151115Z
CREATED:20210416T152330Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210421T151115Z
UID:5403-1621425600-1621429200@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Bodily Sacrifice for a Single True Verse: Implications  of a Cluster of the Buddha’s Past-Life Stories
DESCRIPTION:Across various Buddhist texts we find\, again and again\, a story of how the Buddha in a past life (as Bodhisattva) made a great sacrifice in exchange for a single verse of true teaching. Although we can interpret such stories as simply glorifications of Buddha or dharma\, more interesting questions also arise\, such as: How can the Bodhisattva access properly true teachings before he has realised the dharma for himself and made it available to others as the Buddha? If there is dharma available\, is it a properly Buddhist dharma\, or just a pithy generic well-spoken verse\, and is it there independently of buddhas? How does the Bodhisattva’s sacrifice – of wealth\, body\, life and family – in exchange for a verse of teaching relate to other stories in which he makes similar sacrifices for other reasons? Why is no such story found in the huge Pali Jataka collection? In this paper I will offer some preliminary answers to these questions\, and explore the implications of this cluster of stories for our understandings of the relationship between the dharma and buddhahood. \n  \nEvent Co-Sponsored by the UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies \n  \nNaomi Appleton is Senior Lecturer in Asian Religions at the University of Edinburgh. Her primary research interest is the role of stories in the construction\, communication and challenge of religious ideas in early India. She has a particular passion for jātaka stories (stories of the Buddha’s past lives) but also enjoys exploring the ways in which the narrative traditions of Buddhist\, Jain and Hindu traditions interact. She is the author of three monographs and many other articles and books on related themes\, including translations of Pali and Sanskrit narrative texts. \n  \nEvent Flyer\n  \nRSVP Required for Zoom Access:\n[gravityform id=”113″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/bodily-sacrifice-for-a-single-true-verse-implications-of-a-cluster-of-the-buddhas-past-life-stories/
LOCATION:Online on Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210518T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210518T150000
DTSTAMP:20210504T181723Z
CREATED:20210413T235516Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210504T181723Z
UID:5395-1621346400-1621350000@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Dangerous Children: The Role of Children in Ancient Near Eastern Household Religion
DESCRIPTION:Dr. Kristine Henriksen Garroway will present on the place of children in the household religions of the Ancient Near East. She will explore the delicate balance between a child’s life and the forces out to destroy it. Topics addressed include dangers posed to a child in the womb\, infancy\, early years\, and beyond and how caregivers tried to successfully navigate everything from diseases to demons. The talk will conclude with a discussion of enculturation and ways in which children would come to emulate the rituals modeled for them. \n  \nEvent Co-Sponsored by the UCLA Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures \n  \nKristine Henriksen Garroway was appointed Visiting Assistant Professor of Bible at the HUC-JIR’s Skirball Campus in Los Angeles in 2011. She received her doctorate in Hebrew Bible and Cognate Studies at the HUC-JIR/Cincinnati in 2009. She has spent time studying and researching in Israel and has participated in excavations at Ashkelon\, Tel Dor\, and Tel Dan. Garroway’s scholarship focuses on children using archaeology and texts of ancient Israel and Mesopotamia. She has published in various scholarly journals and is a regular contributor to thetorah.com. Garroway’s books include: Children in the Ancient Near Eastern Household (Eisenbrauns 2014) and Growing Up in Ancient Israel: Children in Material Culture and Biblical Texts (Society of Biblical Literature 2018)\, and co-edited with John Martens Children and Methods: Listening To and Learning From Children in the Biblical World (Bril\, 2020). She is the recipient of the Biblical Archaeological Society’s 2019 Publication Award for Best Book Relating to Hebrew Bible. \n  \nEvent Flyer\n  \nRSVP Required for Zoom Access:\n[gravityform id=”112″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/dangerous-children-the-role-of-children-in-ane-household-religion/
CATEGORIES:CSR
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210421T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210421T130000
DTSTAMP:20210419T180337Z
CREATED:20210402T221239Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210419T180337Z
UID:5390-1619006400-1619010000@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Acquiescing to Necropolitics? The Church and Same Sex Relations in Africa
DESCRIPTION:In this lecture I offer provisional perspectives on the question\, acquiescing in necropolitics? In the first part of the lecture I highlight some of the debates on same sex relations in Cameroon. In the second part of the lecture I discuss the recent genealogy of necropolitics in Michele Foucault and Achille Mbembe. This will lead me to the major part of the essay where I argue that by advocating for death sentences for members of the LGBTQI persons as some Africans have done\, they are reverting to necropolitics to solve what they think is a problem as it was during the reign Kabaka Mwanga of Uganda when he resorted to necropolitics to punish the male pages who rejected his sexual advances. My goal in this short thought experiment is to demonstrate that some of the positions taken by members of different churches\, and articulated largely by leading church men and women\, amounts to acquiescing to necropolitics in African societies. \n  \nEvent Co-Sponsored by the UCLA African Studies Center and LGBTQ Studies \n  \nElias Kifon Bongmba is Chair of the Department of Religion at Rice University. He earned his PhD from the University of Denver and the Iliff School of Theology and was awarded the DTheo. h.c. from Lund University. Bongmba studied African Religions and the Social Sciences in Africa at the University of Iowa with Professor Allen Roberts. Bongmba’s scholarship covers religion\, philosophy\, and theology. His book The Dialectics of Transformation in Africa won the Franz Fanon Award from the Caribbean Philosophical Association. Bongmba is the 2020 recipient of the Ray Hart Service Award from the American Academy of Religion. \n  \nEvent Flyer\n  \nRSVP Required for Zoom Access:\n[gravityform id=”111″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/acquiescing-to-necropolitics-the-church-and-same-sex-relations-in-africa/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210420T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20210420T130000
DTSTAMP:20210330T154439Z
CREATED:20210329T210617Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20210330T154439Z
UID:5367-1618920000-1618923600@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:Identity through Diversity: Classical Jain Philosophical Responses to Religious Difference
DESCRIPTION:In South Asia’s distinctive history of religious diversity\, the Jains stand out as a perpetual but prominent minority especially attentive to the range of doctrinal options surrounding them. This talk will delineate some classical Jain philosophical efforts to conceptualize differences\, navigate disagreements\, and seek agreement with others as exemplified in the emblematic and transformative figure of Haribhadrasūri. Thought to have been born a Brahmin in the eighth century CE\, this scholar-monk is credited with ushering Jain commentarial literature into the lingua franca of Sanskrit\, initiating a doxographical tradition of cataloguing the doctrinal landscape\, and setting the terms for the famously enigmatic Jain theory of non-one-sidedness (anekāntavāda). A survey of each of these phases displays some critical ways in which a marginalized but important group of intellectuals has carved out its own identity–not through retreat into insularity\, but through active engagement with the diversity in their midst. \nEvent Co-Sponsored by the UCLA Department of Asian Languages and Cultures \n  \nAnil Mundra is a PhD candidate in the Philosophy of Religions program at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His work has appeared in the journal Religions and the Journal of Ecumenical Studies\, and is forthcoming in the Georgetown Companion to Interreligious Studies and Routledge’s Contemplative Studies & Jainism: Meditation\, Devotion\, Prayer\, and Worship. \n  \nEvent Flyer\nRSVP Required for Zoom Access:\n[gravityform id=”110″ title=”false” description=”false”]
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/identity-through-diversity-classical-jain-philosophical-responses-to-religious-difference/
LOCATION:Zoom
CATEGORIES:CSR
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