COMPARATIVE RELIGION NEWS & EVENTS

Comparative Religion sponsored, co-sponsored events AND events of interest on campus.

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ATTENTION GRADUATE STUDENTS

FLAS
In-coming and continuing graduate students are eligible for the FLAS. January 15, 2010 is the deadline for these Foreign Language and Area Studies scholarships. For application materials

For more information please contact:
Mary Ann Curtis, Coordinator of FLAS
Phone: 206-616-8679
 

CRITICAL LANGUAGE STUDY SCHOLARSHIPS 
CLS Program provides fully-funded seven to ten week group-based intensive language instruction and extensive cultural enrichment experiences held overseas at the beginning, intermediate and advanced levels of Arabic, Azerbaijani, Bangla/Bengali, Chinese, Hindi, Korean, Persian, Punjabi, Russian, Turkish, and Urdu.

Complete details about the CLAS are at https://clscholarship.org/home.php,

Orientation and application meetings:
Monday, October 19, 12:30-1:20pm in MGH 120 - This is a "brown bag" discussion session for students interested in study abroad scholarships & language scholarships generally, about CLS, Boren, Fulbright, Gilman, and others. Several current UW students who participated in CLS during summer 2008 & 2009 will be on-hand to share their experiences.
Thursday, October 22, 2:30-3:20pm in MGH 120 - An information session covering both the CLS and the Boren scholarships specifically. Several current UW students who participated in CLS during summer 2008 & 2009 will be on-hand to share their experiences.
Tuesday, November 3, 3:30-4:20pm in MGH 120 - an information session covering both the CLS and the Boren scholarships specifically.
Applications for the CLS program should be available shortly online at https://clscholarship.org/home.php. The deadline is typically mid-November, but has not yet been set for this year.

THE BOREN SCHOLARSHIP
Provides up to $20,000 for up to a year of language study abroad and supports a much wider range of languages and countries (any except Western Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand). Funded by the National Security Education Program, which focuses on geographic areas, languages, and fields of study deemed critical to U.S. national security. Includes a federal service requirement (1 year of scholarship = 1 year of work in a federal agency), but could provide a helpful foot in the federal door for those interested in the challenges of global society, including sustainable development, environmental degradation, global disease and hunger, population growth and migration, and economic competitiveness.

Students must apply through the UW campus application process. Additional upcoming information sessions on the Boren are:
Wednesday, November 18, 2:30-3:20pm in MGH 120
Monday, December 7, 3:30-4:20pm in MGH 120

For more information about all language scholarships, please contact:

Robin Chang
Assistant Director
Office of Merit Scholarships, Fellowships & Awards
Center for Experiential Learning
University of Washington
120 Mary Gates Hall, Box 352803
Seattle, WA 98195-2803
206-543-2603 FAX: 206-616-4389
http://www.washington.edu/students/ugrad/scholar/
 

Events to come

Thursday, November 12, 2009
The Dream of a Philologist: Deciphering the Buddhist Legend of Manicuda"
Professor Michael Hahn, Philipps-University of Marburg, Germany
3:30-5:00 in Thomson 317.  Sponsor: South Asia Center, 206.543.4800.
      In 1948, the Italian scholar Giuseppe Tucci photographed in a Tibetan monastery an Indian manuscript written in a rather unusual script, the so-called arrow-headed script. According to the colophon, the manuscript contains the Buddhist legend of prince Manicuda who excelled in acts of generosity. Misplaced for a long time, the photographs were rediscovered only in 1999 and then given to Michael Hahn (Marburg, Germany) because of his interest in the Manicuda legend. Hahn's student Dr. Albrecht Hanisch transcribed the manuscript, and he and Hahn translated it into English. The manuscript contains the first complete work written in this rare script and is also the first specimen of a hitherto unknown middle Indic dialect that was most likely the literary version of the canonical language of the school of the Sammitiyas. The fact that the text was composed by Sarvaraksita, a famous Buddhist poet and grammarian and is complete and practically free of mistakes allows us to give a fairly reliable description of this new middle Indic language. Moreover, the work is a remarkable piece of literature that demonstrates the unbroken creativity of Indian Buddhism even on the eve of its destruction by foreign invaders.

Sunday November 22, 2009
"Blood and Soil: Genocide in World History"
Ben Kiernan, A. Whitney Griswold Professor of History, Professor of International and Area Studies, and Director of the Genocide Studies Program at Yale University (www.yale.edu/gsp ) and founder of the award-winning Cambodian Genocide Program at Yale in 1994 speaks at 4:00pm - 5:30pm in Thomson Hall, Room 317.
     This illustrated lecture examines the ideologies behind outbreaks of mass violence from the classical era to the present, focusing on worldwide colonial exterminations from the Caribbean to Korea, and twentieth-century casestudies including the Nazi Holocaust and genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, and Darfur. He will identify connections, patterns, and recurring features that often provide early warning of the catastrophe to come: racism or religious prejudice, territorial expansionism, and cults of antiquity and agrarianism. A range of historical evidence suggests telltale signs for predicting and preventing
future genocides

January 12, 2010
“History of the Great Separation: Church and State” (Luce Lecture)
Prof. Mark Lilla, Columbia University speaks in Kane Hall room 210 at 7:30 PM
Public Luce Lectures in Global Religion and Human Security. Co-sponsor: Center for Global Studies.
     Mark Lilla was trained at the University of Michigan and Harvard University, where he received his PhD in 1990. He has held positions at New York University, Oxford University (visitor), and most recently in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. His work ranges widely in the history of ideas, though his central concerns have been the relation between religion and politics and the legacy of the modern Western enlightenment. His books include G.B. Vico: The Making of an Anti-Modern (1993), The Reckless Mind: Intellectuals in Politics (2001), and, most recently, The Stillborn God: Religion, Politics, and the Modern West (2007). His current research focuses on the religious concepts of conversion and innocence. A frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, and the New York Times, he lectures widely and has delivered the Weizmann Memorial Lecture in Israel and the Carlyle Lectures at Oxford University. Co-sponsored by the Center for Global Studies.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010
"Christians and Manichaeans on the South China Coast in the Era of Marco Polo"
Visit by Prof. Samuel N.C. Lieu, Professor of Ancient History and Co-Director Ancient History Documentary Research Centre McQuarie University, Australia, 4 - 6:30 PM.

Thursday, April 8
Prof. Samuel Lieu presents an informal brown-bag lunch talk discussing the development and evolution of his 30 plus year career in the field of Manichaean Studies. Noon-1:30 PM either at the UW Club or the Center for the Humanities. Lunch to be provided for registerants with priority for faculty and grad. students in CRP.

Thursday, April 8
Prof. Judith Lieu, Lady Margaret's Professor of Divinity, Cambridge University.
Evening lecture title and location to be announced.

April 8, 2010
Professor Vijay Pinch, History, Wesleyan. "The 'Suspicious Fakeer' of Meerut and the Civil War of 1857."
     In early April of 1857 a ‘suspicious fakeer’ with sixty or so followers, an elephant, and horses, set up camp on the edge of the Meerut cantonment, even residing for a time among the sepoys of the 20th Bengal Native Infantry. This individual was suspected of disseminating rumors about the notorious ‘greased cartridges’ and fomenting a hatred of the British. He was ordered to leave in late April. For writers seeking to narrate the unfolding events of 1857, the existence of the ‘suspicious fakeer’ hinted at a widespread conspiracy lurking beneath and contributing to the mutiny, a conspiracy that extended well beyond the ranks of the Bengal Army and deep into Indian society. For those writers who were British, whether the genre was history or historical fiction, the ‘suspicious fakeer’ also represented a veil through which only a few select Britons could see, and then only barely and at the risk of great moral peril. For most Indian writers, especially the nationalist Savarkar and those who followed in his wake, the ‘suspicious fakeer’ was confirmation that a silent Hindu nation was waiting patiently in the wings, ready to reclaim its ancient patrimony.
     These were, of course, ideologically contrived positions. The easy civilizational associations conjured up by the 'suspicious fakeer' mask the complex social, religious, and historical reality on the ground in northern India in mid-century. The world of asceticism was not an Indian racial-ontological preserve, and while it did possess strong links with a pre-modern religious past, it was also shaped by an all-too-modern religious present – both British and Indian. And when examined in detail, the figure of the 'suspicious fakeer' reveals a picture of the Mutiny-Rebellion that is more "Civil War" than "First War of Independence

May 6, 2010 (Venue and Details to come.)
Professor Anne Feldhaus, Religious Studies, Arizona State University. "Mahanubhav Pilgrimage Traditions and the Religious Archaeology of Maharashtra"
The holy places of the Mahānubhāvs are by no means exempt from the processes that erase, change, or blur the physical remains of the past. The Mahanubhāvs’ precise focus on particular places, however, and on the recollecting of particular things that were said or done in those places, gives the Mahānubhāvs’ pilgrimage traditions a concreteness that seems to me to make the 13th century come alive. Focusing on the Old-Marathi text Sthānpothī and on statements made by contemporary Mahānubhāv monks and lay people, I will explain those pilgrimage traditions and the literature associated with them, and show some ways they can help us to learn about what Maharashtra was like in the 13th century.

 

ARCHIVED NEWS AND EVENTS

Link to King 5 NEWS piece on Sarah Stroup www.king5.com/video/featured-index.html
Link to Seattle Times article on Tel Dor dig find: seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/education/2009873857_alexander16m.html
 

September 17, 2009
Rare portrait of Alexander the Great found at Tel Dor Excavations
Comparative Religion faculty member, Sarah Stroup, was on hand at the Tel Dor archaeological excavation this summer when a UW student unearthed an engraved gem that was probably part of a signet ring. “This was a very exciting year, this time around,” said Stroup, "we found this great gemstone, a molded Egyptian glass bead of the deity Harpocrates, coins, curse tablets, and more.” Dor – located between Tel Aviv and Haifa –is directed by Dr. Ayelet Gilboa of Haifa University and Dr. Ilan Sharon of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Dr. Sarah Stroup of the University of Washington directed operations in area D4, where the gem was found.

September 1, 2009
For podcasts of Religion and the US Presidential Election lectures click here and type "religion" in the "Search" box in the upper right-hand corner. More information on the Islamic Law Workshop of which the Luce Foundation was one of several co-sponsors can be found by clicking here.
 

June 2009
Islamic Law Workshop: Judicial Interpretation of Shari’a in Modern Muslim. Sponsors: The Carnegie Corporation of New York, The UWLS Foundation: Ted Stein Memorial Fund. The Center for Global Studies, Middle East Center, South Asia Center, South East Asia Center, The Comparative Religion Program, Asian Law Center, National University of Singapore: Asia Research Institute, Luce Foundation: Henry R. Luce Initiative on Religion and International Affairs

MAY 10, 2009
The Ernest Becker Foundation presents “A day-long Symposium on Technology, Distraction, and Immortality” at The University of Washington, Mary Gates Hall Room 241. Registration @ 9 AM; Program starts @ 9:30 AM. For cost and information: (206) 232-2994. The symposium will feature six speakers:
• Hilarie Cash, a psychotherapist specializing in video game and Internet addictions
• Sheldon Solomon, an experimental existential social psychologist at Skidmore
• Marcel O'Gorman, a media theorist at the University of Waterloo
• Jason Hawreliak, a PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo
• David Levy, a computer scientist at the University of Washington
• Daniel Liechty, a social work professor and Becker scholar with doctorates in both religion and philosophy

MAY 7, 2009
Walter Rusell Mead, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy, Council on Foreign Relations and author of "God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World", presents the Luce Symposium lecture, "After Fukuyama and Huntington: Prospects for American Power". Kane Hall 220 @ 7:30 PM. To hear a live interview with Mr. Mead on the topic of Religion and Foreign Policy please go the link: http://www.cfr.org/publication/14555/religion_and_foreign_policy_conference_call_with_walter_russell_mead.html

MAY 6, 7, 8, 2009
The Luce Symposium in Global Religions and Human Security
Co-sponsors: the Comparative Religion Program and The Center for Global Studies.

MAY 6, 2009
Luce Public Lecture
“Pakistani Attitudes Towards Militancy In and Beyond Pakistan”
Kane 220@ 7:30 PM
Prof. Christine Fair, Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation. Fair earned a B.S. in Biological Chemistry in 1991, an M.A. from the Harris School of Public Policy as well as an M.A in South Asian Languages and Civilizations in 1997. In 2004, she received a PhD in South Asian Languages and Civilizations. She has extensive experience in the areas of military manpower as well as issues pertaining to women and children. She is fluent in Urdu, Hindi, Punjabi, and Persian. Much of her research concerns security competition between India and Pakistan, analyses of the causes of terrorism, and U.S. strategic relations with India and Pakistan. She has conducted an examination of political Islam and its recent developments in Pakistan and Iran; and a comparative study of urban terrorism and state responses in Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and India.

APRIL 28, 2009
Lunch and Launch: Christian Novetzke’s new book “Religion and Public Memory."
12:30, Thomson Hall 317. Please join the Comparative Religion Program and Center for Global Studies as we celebrate Christian Lee Novetzke's new book which vividly illustrates how religious communities in India preserve their pasts and, in turn, create their own historical narratives. Please RSVP if you plan to attend by April 22, 2009 to lpaxton@u.washington.edu Christian Lee Novetzke is assistant professor at the University of Washington's Jackson School of International Studies in the South Asia Program and Comparative Religion Program. For review: Chronicle of Higher Education (Dec. 12, 2008)

APRIL 8, 2009
Former UW Comparative Religion graduate student, Lucas John Mix, speaks about his book, "Life in Space: Astrobiology for Everyone" , Elliott Bay Book Company, 7:30 PM
For more: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/MIXLIF.html And the review in the Seattle Times:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/books/2008786225_br01astrobiology. Details on the bookstore at http://www.elliottbaybook.com/ Mix received his PhD in biology from Harvard and now teaches courses on science and religion while working as a priest in the Episcopal Church.

FEB. 17, 2009
History Lecture Series: The Vatican in the 20th Century: 2005 to the Present—Benedict XVI Kane Hall Room 130 @ 7 PM, UW Seattle Campus Tickets required. Online RSVP www.washington.edu Phone RSVP 1-800-AUW-ALUM or (206) 543-0540

FEB. 3, 2009
"Has Biblical Research Killed the Bible?" Kane Hall, Room 120, UW Seattle campus @ 6:30 PMProf. James Kugel, Director, Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible, Bar Ilan, Israel http://www.jameskugel.com/

FEB. 3, 2009
History Lecture Series: The Vatican in the 20th Century: 1958-1978—John XXIII and Paul VI Kane Hall Room 130 @ 7 PM, UW Seattle Campus Tickets required. Online RSVP www.washington.edu Phone RSVP 1-800-AUW-ALUM or (206) 543-0540
Host(s) UW Alumni Association and the College of Arts & Sciences

JAN. 27, 2009
History Lecture Series: "The Vatican in the 20th Century: 1939-1958—Pius XII", Kane Hall Room 130 @ 7 PM UW Seattle Campus Tickets required. Online RSVP www.washington.edu Phone RSVP 1-800-AUW-ALUM or (206) 543-0540\ Host(s) The UW Alumni Association and the UW College of Arts & Sciences

JAN. 24, 2009
Prof. Anthony Gill (Political Science Dept., UW) "Contemporary Threats to Religious Liberty in the U.S." (Luce Lecture) Kane 220 @ 7:30 PM Co-sponsored by the Center for Global Studies. The First Amendment of the US Constitution declares that "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." While much of the debate over religious freedom has focused on whether prayer in school or Christmas trees on city hall lawns constitute "establishment," governments have increasingly used property rights regulations and zoning laws to inhibit the construction and expansion of houses of worship. Professor Gill examines why this trend has increased in recent years. His talk will situate the issue in historical and cross-national perspective. Sponsors: Comparative Religion Program and The Center for Global Studies. Contact information. 206 543 4835.

JAN. 20, 2009
"Islam in Europe: Integration and Radicalization, Two Faces of the Same Coin?"
Henry Art Gallery Auditorium @ 2:30 - 3:45 PM Prof. Olivier Roy, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, French National Centre for Scientific Research. Co-sponsors: The Center for West European Studies Politics and Society Colloquium, the Middle East Center and the Comparative Religion Program. Olivier Roy is a political scientist and scholar of Persian language and civilization. During 2008-09, he will be a Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley’s Political Science Department. Professor Roy was a consultant to UNOCA (United Nations Office of the Coordinator for Afghanistan) in 1988; in the same year he organized and accompanied a special UN team to Afghanistan. In 1993, he was special envoy for the OSCE in Tajikistan and in the following year
 

2008

DEC. 4, 2008
Religions as Promoters of Human Rights and Peace: Panel Discussion
Rabbi David Rosen, International Director of Interreligious Affairs, American Jewish Committee; Imam Yahya Hendi, Georgetown University, Clergy Beyond Borders, Founder and Secretary General and Imams for Human rights and dialogue, Chairman; Professor James Perkinson, Oakland University (Michigan); Moderators: Prof. Gad Barzilai, JSIS; LSJ; Chair, Jewish Studies; Prof. James Wellman, JSIS; Chair, Comparative Religion. Sponsors: Greater Seattle Chapter of the American Jewish Committee, the UW Comparative Religion Program the Center for Global Studies of the Jackson School of International Studies, the Henry M. Luce Foundation, and Hillel UW.
 

THE LUCE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SERIES 2008
(Co-sponsors - Center for Global Studies, Founders Endowed Lectures in religion and Contemporary Life, Departments of History, Middle East Studies, Near Eastern Languages and Civilization, UW Bookstore, and Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies)

OCT. 9, 2008
Prof. David Domke, UW, School of Communications, “Religious Politics in America: Why the 2008 Presidential Election May Change Everything for Everyone.”

OCT. 27, 2008
Prof. Vali Nasr, The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, “Shi’I Politics in the Middle East.”

OCT. 28, 2008
Prof. Hubert Locke, Evans School of Public Affairs, UW, “A Nation Within: Black Religion, the Black Church, and the National Election.”

OCT. 31, 2008
Prof. Juan Cole, University of Michigan, “Iraq and the US Presidential Election”
 

APRIL 28, 2008
Prof. Ian Harris, Professor Buddhist Studies, Davison of Religion and Philosophy, University of Cumbria, UK, “Buddhism under Pol Pot”. Co-sponsored with Southeast Asia Center, JSIS

APRIL 10, 2008
Prof. A.R. Norton, Boston University, “The Shi’I Crescent? Discordant Notes from the Field”

APRIL 8, 2008
Prof. Martin Putna, Charles University, Czechoslovakia, "Czech Catholicism and American Catholicism: A Comparison of their Social, Cultural, and Political Situation and Impact". Co-sponsored with Departments of History and Slavic Languages and Literature

FEB. 7, 2008
Prof. Martin Riesebrodt, University of Chicago,” Globalization, Religion, and the ‘Clash of Civilizations’”. Co-sponsored with Departments of Sociology, Center for Global Studies.

JAN.14, 2008
"Online Buddhist Community, Authority and Identity: a case study on how the process of spiritualizing technology impact religious identity and authority in a Buddhist Web forum." Mary Gates Hall 241 @ 4 PMLecturer Laura Busch (UW Dept. of Communications) Center for Information and Society. First lecture in a series. Format includes presentation by a UW researcher accompanied by two panel members from other disciplines. This study analyzes the Buddhist message forum E-sangha, to determine how this forum’s founder and moderators ‘spiritualized the Internet’. This study demonstrates how narratives of a religious community provide Web producers and forum moderators an opportunity to frame Web environments as sacred community spaces thus determining who takes part in the community.
 

FACULTY NEWS 2009

June 2009
Heidi Pauwels will deliver an invited talk, "Bhakti for upwardly mobile warlords in the new Mughal imperial formation" to be presented at the "Oxford Early Modern South Asia Workshop: Religious Cultures in South Asia, c. 1500-1800," organized by Polly O'Hanlon of Oxford and David Washbrook of Cambridge at the Faculty of Oriental Studies and St Anthony’s College, U.K. June 5-6, 2009.

Monday, May 18
Professor Cabeiri Robinson has been awarded a fellowship at Stanford Humanities Center for the 2009-10 academic year. As a fellow at the Center, she will be completing a book manuscript entitled ‘Body of the Victim, Body or the Warrior: Refugees and the Kashmir Jihad’.

Friday, May 15
Two faculty have forth-coming books: Professor Jonathan Brown's, "Hadith: An Introduction" and Arzoo Osanloo, "The Politics of Women's Rights". Congratulations to both!

Thursday, May 13
The Program extends congratulations to Heidi Pauwels who will be promoted to full Professor beginning this September.
Wednesday, May 12 Congratulations to Martin Jaffee! iUniverse publishers announces publication of his book " The End of Jewish Radar: Snapshots of a Post-Ethnic American Judaism." The book is available as an E-book and in Perfect Bound Softcover. For more information: http://www.iuniverse.com/Bookstore/BookDetail.aspx?BookId=SKU-000115763
 

STUDENT AND PROGRAM NEWS

Tuesday, May 11
We are delighted to congratulate Comparative Religion majors Rachel Tweet and Miloud Tais who have been invited to join Phi Beta Kappa in the 2008-2009 academic year. This invitation is based upon the students’ excellent academic record and interest in the liberal arts. The initiation ceremony for new members will be held on Thursday, June 11, 2009 at 7:30 PM in the Henry Auditorium, preceded by bell ringing on Red Square at 6:30pm.

Tuesday, April 21
The 2009 Eugene and Marilyn Domoto Webb Scholarships were made to Sasha Prevost and Alex Kocar. Congratulations!

Monday, April 13
UW graduate student in Comparative Religion, Jacob Rennaker, will attend Claremont Graduate University's School of Religion this fall. The Hebrew Bible program will be the focus for his PhD Well done, Jacob!

Wednesday, April 8
Comparative Religion graduate Student, Sasha Prevost, has been admitted to Harvard University's M.Div program with a full scholarship. Congratulations to Sahsa!I She plans to move to Boston this summer or early fall....very exciting!

Monday, March 30
Comparative Religion Program graduate student, Alex Kocar, has been accepted to Princeton University's Religion Department - specifically its Religions in Antiquity sub-division. He has been awarded a full stipend through the Program for the study of the Ancient World as well as a fellowship through the Hellenic program. The fellowship is the Stanley J. Seeger fellowship and is for five years of study.