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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260529T140000
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SUMMARY:Gods and the Abyss: Encountering Oceanic Agency at the Edge of the Ancient World
DESCRIPTION:This presentation examines how coastal communities in antiquity conceived of the sea not merely as a physical environment\, but as a powerful\, living force endowed with agency. Such perceptions became especially vivid in the aftermath of coastal catastrophes. The Gulf of Cádiz\, on the southwestern edge of the Iberian Peninsula\, serves as the primary case study. Its broad floodplains and pronounced tidal regimes made it highly vulnerable to extreme events\, including storm surges and tsunamis\, which repeatedly reshaped both the landscape and human experience. By tracing how societies from antiquity to the present have responded to episodes of catastrophic marine flooding through religious practice and ritualized forms of engagement\, the paper explores the complex interplay between human action and the more-than-human agency of the sea. \nManuel Álvarez-Martí-Aguilar is Professor of Ancient History at the University of Málaga (Spain) and currently a Getty Villa Scholar. His research interests include modern historiography of the ancient world and the cultural intersections between local Iberian communities—especially Tartessos—and the Phoenicians. His recent work focuses on the impact of earthquakes and tsunamis on coastal communities of the Iberian Peninsula\, as well as their resilient responses to these kinds of environmental shocks with often catastrophic consequences. He has co-edited\, with Francisco Machuca Prieto\, the volume Historical Earthquakes\, Tsunamis and Archaeology in the Iberian Peninsula (Springer\, 2022) and co-organised the workshop Fluid Horizons: Charting Ancient Environmental History and Blue Humanities (University of London\, 2024). \nCo-sponsored with the Department of Near Eastern Languages & Cultures and the Kershaw Chair of Ancient Eastern Mediterranean Studies \n 
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/gods-and-the-abyss-encountering-oceanic-agency-at-the-edge-of-the-ancient-world/
LOCATION:Kaplan 365
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260531T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20260531T160000
DTSTAMP:20260413T202533Z
CREATED:20260413T201623Z
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SUMMARY:(De)medicalization and the Dying Body: Sallekhanā\, Kinship\, and the Limits of Liberal Bioethics
DESCRIPTION:In this talk\, Miki Chase (U of Wisconsin-Madison) explores how trajectories of illness and care\, such as terminal cancer or anticipated cognitive decline\, are reinterpreted through Jain doctrinal frameworks in the narratives of adult children of women who undertake the Jain ritual fast to death (sallekhanā or santhāra). Drawing on ethnographic accounts of women’s deaths in contemporary urban Jain households\, Chase traces how narratives of bodily decline are reframed not as losses to be managed through medical intervention but as conditions of spiritual possibility that invite ascetic detachment and renunciation. Rather than resisting biomedical or bioethical paradigms outright\, these narratives inhabit a complex zone of overlap where cognitive clarity is both a medical and religious ideal; the attenuation of pain is karmically elevated rather than clinically managed; and the logic of institutionalized care is subtly displaced not by the absence of obligation but by alternate forms of care. In tracing the limits of bioethical paradigms that presume the necessity of medicalization and institutional oversight\, this talk describes how “illness narratives” and “santhāra narratives” coalesce to challenge prevailing understandings of what it means to die well\, and how suffering\, pain\, and the medicalized body is accounted for in the lives—and deaths—of Jain women. \nRSVP here to attend in person \n(Parking information for Royce Hall) \nRegister here for Zoom link \nMiki Chase is Assistant Professor in South Asian Studies and holds the Śrī Anantnāth Endowed Chair in Jain Studies. Her research and teaching focuses on intersections of religion\, law\, and gender in questions of care around death and dying in India\, with a specific focus on Jainism. \nDr. Chase received her PhD from the Department of Anthropology at Johns Hopkins University\, and her doctoral work received the Mohini Jain Presidential Chair in Jain Studies Best Dissertation Prize (2024). Her research focuses on the contemporary practice of the legally contested Jain voluntary ritual fast until death known variably as sallekhanā\, santhāra\, or samādhi-maraṇa\, examining how lay Jains reconcile ideals and concepts outlined in scripture with the interreligious pressures of urban life and modernization of death\, foregrounding the centrality of women’s moral subjectivities in such negotiations. Her research has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the American Institute for Indian Studies (AIIS)\, including the Rachel F. and Scott McDermott Junior Research Fellowship. Her book in progress is tentatively titled The Ambiguity of the Vow: Law\, Kinship\, and Gender in Pathologizing the Jain Fast Until Death. \n 
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/demedicalization-and-the-dying-body-sallekhana-kinship-and-the-limits-of-liberal-bioethics/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 306
ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261015T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261015T173000
DTSTAMP:20260812T183937Z
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SUMMARY:Study of Religion Welcome Reception
DESCRIPTION:Lift a glass to the new academic year and meet friends old and new! \nWelcome remarks by Dean Stern and Professor Bakhos at 4:30p. \nRSVP required by October 11. See you there!
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/study-of-religion-welcome-reception/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 306
CATEGORIES:CSR
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ORGANIZER;CN="Center for the Study of Religion":MAILTO:csr@humnet.ucla.edu
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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261026T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20261026T171500
DTSTAMP:20260814T170818Z
CREATED:20260812T184127Z
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UID:7157-1793030400-1793034900@religion.ucla.edu
SUMMARY:The Paradox of Pointless Suffering
DESCRIPTION:Why do we suffer? Why do people die young? Is there any point to our excessive pain\, physical or emotional? This talk explores the ways that we have tried to minimize or eliminate suffering\, and examines people’s attempts to find ways to live with pointless suffering. Ultimately\, to be fully human—and to have healthy culture—means to acknowledge a mysterious paradox: we must simultaneously accept suffering and oppose it. \nRSVP to attend in person \nRegister for Zoom link \nScott Samuelson studied philosophy at Grinnell College (BA\, 1995\, valedictorian) and Emory University (PhD\, 2001).  He is currently a Professor of Practice in the Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies at Iowa State University. In 2014\, he was named Distinguished Humanities Educator by the Community College Humanities Association.  Inspired by his students\, he wrote his first book The Deepest Human Life: An Introduction to Philosophy for Everyone (University of Chicago Press\, 2014)\, which has been well received not just by prominent reviewers but by numerous non-philosophers who found their philosophical voice with its help.  The book has been translated into Chinese and Portuguese.  Samuelson has published articles in the Wall Street Journal\, the Huffington Post\, the Chronicle of Higher Education\, The Philosopher’s Magazine\, and Christian Century.  His article “Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers” in The Atlantic has been widely circulated.  He’s been interviewed on NPR and given various public lectures and talks\, including a TEDx talk “How Philosophy Can Save Your Life.” \nScott Samuelson was the recipient of the 2015 Hiett Prize in the Humanities. \nCo-sponsored by the UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies.
URL:https://religion.ucla.edu/event/the-paradox-of-pointless-suffering/
LOCATION:Royce Hall 306
CATEGORIES:CSR
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