Thinking About Religion: Langston Hughes and a Literary Approach to the Study of African American Religious History
Haines 39/ZoomAfrican American religious history has largely been written from the perspective of believers and belief. But what about the religious perspectives of skeptics, the doubtful, and unbelievers? What value can...
Religion(s) in State(s) of Crisis
ZoomScholars of religion are not in the fortune telling business, but the comparative study of religion does provide multiple examples of how social, economic, and political crises have contributed to...
Take Shelter: Teaching and Learning about the End Times, from Late Antiquity to Our Times
ZoomIn Jeff Nichols’s 2011 film Take Shelter, Michael Shannon portrays Curtis, a blue-collar family man who is haunted by terrifying prophetic visions of the end of the world. As he...
Religion is Physics: A Different Kind of Theory. A Different Kind of Everything.
Zoom(Fear not! No math is required for this talk!) Religion is accused of being many things, but how could Religion be Physics? Physics aims to understand everything with the most...
The Talmud Talks and We Listen: How the Talmud Became the Authoritative Voice in Jewish Life
ZoomThe Talmud is an obscure, elitist document that emerged from a small community of scholars who held no recognized authority, living as a minority in a land not their own....
Religion in a Time of Crisis: In the Shadow of the Holocaust
ZoomDuring the latest installment of the Center for the Study of Religion’s “Religion in a Time of Crisis” series, panelists Dr. Michael Berenbaum and Dr. Aaron Hass will discuss Susan...
Organs for Sale: Markets, Motives, and the Spirit of Medicine
ZoomThis talk is based on my forthcoming book, Organs for Sale, which is an extended case study of the bioethical question of how to increase human organ supply, focusing on...
Music and Hebrew Infusion
ZoomJoin Sarah Bunin Benor, Co-Author of Hebrew Infusion: Language and Community at American Jewish Summer Camps (2020), and sociologist Dan Lainer-Vos as they discuss the role of music in how camps infuse...
Reading the Story of Dinah in Context and in the Age of #MeToo
ZoomDinah, the only (mentioned) daughter of the patriarch Jacob, emerges in Genesis 34, only to disappear from the text. Dinah goes out to visit the women of the land. She...
Can Sacrifice be Literary? Ritual and Narrative in the Priestly Inauguration Day Episode
ZoomOne of the most enduring conclusions in pentateuchal studies is that the legal and narrative elements of the Pentateuch have distinct origins. Yet this argument is based more on outdated...