As more Americans become nonreligious, life-cycle rituals and other ceremonies that religious experts once performed are increasingly the responsibility of everyday people and ritual experts for hire. Very secular people avoid rituals or work hard to minimize their resemblance to religion. Secular people who have left strict religious groups often rebel by inverting the rituals...

Schedule: 8am-9am: Light breakfast 9am-12:30pm: Morning Session: The Movement of the Báb Welcome by Dr. Simon Joseph (UCLA) Moderated by Dr. Nahid Pirnazar (UCLA) Performance by Dr. Manouchehr Sadeghi Introduced by Dr. Latifeh Hagigi (UCLA) Presentations by Dr. Sholeh Quinn (UC Merced), Dr. Abbas Amanat (Yale University), and Dr. Janet Afary (UC Santa Barbara) 12:30pm-2pm:...

CHICAGO, Illinois – The height of the Civil Rights era merges with the hauntingly beautiful swinging sounds of Chicago jazz in award-winning reporter and psychologist Jean K. Carney’s debut novel, “Blackbird Blues” (Oct. 1, 2019, Bedazzled Ink Publishing). Following the death of her teacher and mentor Sister Michaeline, aspiring jazz singer Mary Kaye meets Lucius,...

Byzantine prayer books (euchologia) contain—in addition to the eucharistic and other sacramental liturgies— a vast number of short prayers pronounced by the clergy on particular occasions in the life of a person or in the annual cycle of a community. Although these prayers address the concerns of all levels of society, regardless of social and...

According to classic Islamic law and historical memory, Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule are governed according to a set of rules authorized by the great `Umar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb, the second caliph and the noble conqueror who carved out the imposing empire of Islam. These rules established legal status for monotheistic religious minorities, but...

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Who were the “Puritans”? The short answer is, a party within the two state churches (Scotland and England) dissatisfied with anything short of a “thorough” or “perfect” Protestantism that eliminated every trace of “idolatry,” curtailed the authority of the monarchy in matters of religion, and set a high standard for being a “sincere” Christian. A...

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Genesis 3 is classically understood in Christian tradition as the biblical account of the Fall of humanity from divine grace, resulting in humanity’s general sinful condition. As John Milton began his epic poem, Paradise Lost: "Of Mans First Disobedience, and the Fruit/ of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal tast/Brought Death into the World, and all...