Past News and Events:
Ecology and Spirituality Conference on Consumption
April 18-19
Law School
How much will people, communities and cities have to change to help save the planet? Will policymakers have to push people, for the first time, to limit what and how much they consume? These are some of the big issues leading experts in environmental law, the humanities and natural, social and behavioral sciences will discuss at the Climate Change and Consumption Conference being held at Vanderbilt University Law School April 18-19.
Experts from across the country will examine how laws, policies, values, social factors and information impact changes in individual and community greenhouse gas emissions. They will also discuss voter pressure for policy changes and political action.
The keynote speaker Michael Maniates, professor of political science and environmental science at Allegheny College, will speak at 1:30 p.m. Friday, April 18. Nashville Mayor Karl Dean will give the closing address at the conference at 12:15 p.m. on Saturday, April 19. Both will speak in Flynn Auditorium at Vanderbilt Law School (Google map of this location).
The conference is free and open to the public, but registration is required. For more information on the conference, a schedule of events and to register, log onto http://www.vanderbilt.edu/csrc/religion-consumption/index.html.
Location: Law School Building, Hyatt Room (Google map of this location)
For more information, visit The Center for the Study of Religion and Culture Web site, http://www.vanderbilt.edu/csrc
Interfaith Chocolate Seder
Thursday, April 17
Ben Schulman Center for Jewish Life
Join Vanderbilt Hillel and the Interfaith Council in this annual tradition of telling the story of Passover and experience the ritual of the Jewish seder meal with chocolate replacing the more common menu items. Free!
For more information on this and upcoming traditional Passover seders visit Vanderbilt Hillel
Monday, April 7
Featheringill Hall, Rm 134
The U.S. Constitution provides for a separation of Church and State but is the United States truly independent from Christianity? Can the dominant religion in America peacefully influence its believers without claiming rule over this nation?
Panelists:
Kathleen Flake, Ph.D, J.D - Vanderbilt Divinity School
Rabbi Cliff Fiedler - Americans United For Separation of Church & State
Brian Miller, Ph.D - Every Nation Ministries
Sponsored by: Project Dialogue
Saturday, April 5
Join the United Methodist campus ministry on a trip to the nearby Kentucky monastery,, the Abbey of Gethsemani. This is a Trappist Order of working and contemplative monks who now allow the public to visit for the sake of prayer, learning and the simple enjoyment of nature surrounding their property.
Departure will be 9 AM from the Tarpley parking lot and participants should arrive at the monestary around noon. There will be a packed lunch provided. Upon entrance to the monestary, the group will meet one of the monks and be escorted into the woods and sit on the small Hermitage occupied for years by Thomas Merton (a mystic and published author of great significance).
There will also be a chapel visit, the group will sit in on one of the Hours of Prayer, visit the gift store, where you can buy fudge and cheese made by the monks, then go into nearby Bardstown, KY, for dinner.
Saturday, April 5
6 PM
Sarratt Cinema
Free and open to the public!
World on Wednesdays
Wednesday, March 26
Presented by the Muslim Students Association & International Student and Scholar Services.
Academy Award winner of Best Live Action Short Film
Wednesday, March 26
After a showing of the film, its director, Ari Sandel, discussed his broader work and specific intentions behind this film.
Sponsored by Vanderbilt Hillel
Co-Sponsored by: Vanderbilt Hillel, CAMERA, and Interfaith Council.
Thursday, March 20
For an event flyer, click MESA 2008
 Lecture by: Dr. Jack Shaheen
Dr. Shaheen is the author of the award-winning books, Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People; Arab and Muslim Stereotyping in American Popular Culture; Nuclear War Films, and The TV Arab. His writings include more than 300 essays in publications such as Newsweek, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post and chapters on media stereotypes in 40 college textbooks.
Professor Shaheen consults with the United Nations, the United States Information Agency, the Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations, and New York City's Commission on Civil Rights.
AND:
Comedians from The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour!
Four of the best Arab American stand up comedians visit Vanderbilt for Project Dialogue and the Middle Eastern Student Associaton's "MESA Night!" Dean Obeidallah's comedy comes in large part from his unique background of being the only son of a Palestinian father and a Sicilian mother. "Both my parents have provided me with an enormous amount of material, usually unintentionally." Egyptian-born Ahmed Ahmed takes over talking about Airplanes, Dubai, hypocrites and then Aaron Kader would like to thank his Palestinian father and Mormon mother for giving him so many reasons to be a comedian. Negin Farsad offers a Persian female's comedic perspective that the Wall Street Journal describes as, "smart, funny and fascinating."
Listen to the National Public Radio report on The Axis of Evil's recent tour of the Middle East.
Read The New York Times article, Comedians as Activists, Challenging Prejudice
Sponsored by: The Middle Eastern Students Association and Project Dialogue
Co-sponsors: Hillel, International Awareness Committee, Model United Nations, Office of Dean of Students, and International Student and Scholar Services.
A 'New' Spiritual Perspective on the Challenge of Consumerism"
David Loy
Tuesday, March 18, 7 PM
Benton Chapel
Loy poster
Buddhist Scholar David Loy, Besl Family Professor of Ethics, Religion and Society at Xavier University, will discuss how Buddhist religious tradition offers a fresh spiritual perspective on consumerism and ecology. The lecture will serve as both the spring lecture of Vanderbilt’s Center for the Study of Religion and Culture and Vanderbilt Divinity School’s annual Howard L. Harrod Lecture.
Live video of this event will be streamed from VUCast: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/news
The CSRC Annual Spring Lecture brings to campus scholars doing creative and distinguished work at the intersections of religion and culture. Howard L. Harrod was the Oberlin Alumni Professor of Social Ethics and Sociology of Religion at Vanderbilt Divinity School. He taught for more than 30 years at Vanderbilt, and the annual Howard L. Harrod lecture was established to honor his distinguished legacy of scholarship and university service.
Sexuality and the Bible
March 11, 2008
Amy –Jill Levine
E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies
Ben Witherington
Professor of New Testament Interpretation, Asbury Theological Seminary
Sponsored by:
Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality & The Office of Religious Life
7th Annual Interfaith Panel
"How Does Your Faith Change the World?"
Thursday, February 2
Representatives from ten different faith traditions responded to the question, "How does your faith change the world."
For more information: Interfaith Council.
Co-sponsored by: Project Dialogue
Friday, February 22
7 PM
The Race Show
(Co-sponsored by the Office of Leadership Development and Multicultural Affairs)
Miles Gregley, Rafael Agustin and Allan Axibal wrote N*W*C* while at UCLA. The trio, tired of being typecast because of the color of their skin, created the play as an outlet to offer a voice beyond the societal barriers of being seen as, "the other."
Now on tour for three years. N*GGER, WETB*CK, CH*NK has been extremely successful at employing its humor to discuss stereotyping of race, gender, sexual orientation and the power of self-awareness.
Check out a brief YouTube show.
Serve God, Save the Planet
Lecture by J. Matthew Sleeth, MD
Wednesday, February 6
Five years ago, Dr. J. Matthew Sleeth and his family lived in a big house on the coast, had two luxury cars and many material possessions. As chief of the medical staff at a large hospital, Sleeth was living the American dream—until he realized that something was terribly wrong. Ashe saw patient after patient suffering from cancer, asthma, and other chronic diseases, he began to understand that the earth and its inhabitants were in trouble. Feeling helpless, he turned to his faith for guidance. He discovered how the Scriptural lessons of personal responsibility, simplicity, and stewardship could be applied to modern life. The Sleeths have since sold their big home and given away more than half of what they once owned.
Presented by the Center for the Study of Religion and Culture's Ecology and Spirituality Project.
Wednesday, January 23
“A Recipe for Equal Justice in Today’s Society.”
Constance Slaughter-Harvey
Vanderbilt University Law School
Constance Slaughter-Harvey gave a lecture entitled “A Recipe for Equal Justice in Today’s Society.” She was the first African American woman to graduate from the University of Mississippi’s Law School and to integrate the Mississippi Bar Association. She faced prejudice and discrimination from the all-white, all-male law students. She went on to become Assistant Secretary of State in Mississippi and also was appointed to the Presidential Scholars Commission by President Carter. She currently runs her own law firm specializing in civil rights cases.
For a complete Series listing: MLK 2008
WHY WE HATE
Tuesday, January 22
 Missed it? Listen to the Podcast!
JACK LEVIN, Ph.D. is the Brudnick Professor of Sociology and Criminology at Northeastern University in Boston, where he co-directs its Center on Violence and Conflict and teaches courses in the sociology of violence and hate.
He appears frequently on national television programs, including 48 Hours, 20/20, Dateline NBC, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Oprah, The O’Reilly Factor, Larry King Live, and all network newscasts.
Dr. Levin was honored by the Massachusetts Council for Advancement and Support of Education as its “Professor of the Year.” He has spoken to a wide variety of community, academic, and professional groups, including the White House Conference on Hate Crimes, the Department of Justice, the Department of Education, OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and the International Association of Chiefs of Police.
Project Dialogue
Jack Levin on Violence
Sponsored by: The Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center, Project Dialogue and the Holocaust Lecture Series
African American students (part of the Clinton 12) walk down the middle of the street to Clinton High School, despite demonstrations regarding the school intergration issue. (Photo: Howard Sochurek/Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Monday, November 12, 2007
The Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center
Director Keith McDaniel’s powerful documentary tells the little-known story of the integration of Tennessee’s Clinton High School in the 1950s through the footage and personal interviews that depict the raw humanity of the civil rights movement, as well as showing these students, and other young people, carrying the burden of moving America towards equality. This film, which places these young people alongside their contemporary counterparts in such locales as Little Rock, Arkansas, is a moving testament to the human spirit.
"Children of Hitler’s War"
Nicholas Stargardt
Thursday, November 1
The Nazis put children at the heart of their racial war; German and Jewish, Polish and Czech, Sinti and disabled children were all to be separated along racial lines, ultimately, between those who were to live and those who were to die. At the same time, children fell prey to bombing, mechanised warfare, starvation policies and mass flight. But children were not only passive victims; they became active participants, going out to smuggle food, ply the black market, and care for sick parents and siblings. As they absorbed the brutal new realities of German occupation, they acted it out in their games: Polish boys playing at being Gestapo interrogators and Jewish children at being ghetto guards or the SS. Drawing on a wide range of new sources, from welfare and medical files to private diaries, letters and drawings, Professor Nicholas Stargardt evokes the individual voices of children under Nazi rule and brings their experiences of the war together. Professor Stargardt has written extensively about modern German history and the Holocaust, most notably in his acclaimed Witnesses of War: Children’s Lives under the Nazis (2006 and 2007). He is a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, where he teaches modern European History.
Deep Good and Deep Evil: Human Nature Confronts the Holocaust
Michael Bess
Sunday, October 28, 2007
Ben Schulman Center for Jewish Life
7:00 PM
Sponsored by the Holocaust Lecture Series and Project Dialogue
Between June 1942 and May 1943, a battalion of some five hundred German reserve police officers, many working-class family men, made their way through occupied Poland killing 38,000 Jews, one-by-one, face-to-face. During these same months on the other side of Europe, the villagers of the southern French town of Le Chambon-sur-Lignon secretly took in thousands of Jewish refugees, hid them on outlying farms, fed them and clothed them, and arranged for their escape to neutral Switzerland. Professor Michael Bess examines the various strategies that have been followed by historians, psychologists, social scientists, and philosophers, in the effort to explain the chasm that separates the wartime behaviour of such seemingly “ordinary" groups of Europeans. Professor Bess is the Chancellor's Professor of History at Vanderbilt University specializing in twentieth century Europe. He is the author of three books including Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II (2006).
Michael Bess, Chancellor's Professor of History, is a specialist in twentieth-century Europe, with a particular interest in the social and cultural impacts of technological change. He is the author of three books: Choices Under Fire: Moral Dimensions of World War II (Knopf, 2006); The Light-Green Society: Ecology and Technological Modernity in France, 1960-2000 (2003), which won the George Perkins Marsh prize (2004) of the American Society for Environmental History and an Honorable Mention (2004) from the Pinkney Prize committee of the Society for French Historical Studies; and Realism, Utopia, and the Mushroom Cloud: Four Activist Intellectuals and Their Strategies for Peace, 1945-1989 (1993).
He is currently writing a research monograph entitled Icarus 2.0: Technology, Ethics, and the Quest to Build a Better Human.
Click HERE for Professor Bess' website.
Trip to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Fall Break
Friday- Sunday, October 19-21
Join other Vandy students on a tour of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. Student co-pay is $75 and will cover roundtrip airfare, two nights in a D.C. hotel, guided tour of the museum and a lunch. There is ample free time following the tour to explore more of the nation's capitol.
Sponsored by Vanderbilt's Holocaust Lecture Series
Tuesday, October 16, 6:30 PM
Abraham’s Bridge is a dialogue about Jewish-Muslim relations, both historical and contemporary, that aims to bridge the antagonism dividing the two communities. Led by Jewish and Muslim community activists and educators, Jacob Bender and Saeed Khan.
In their dramatic and engaging 60-minute presentation, Bender and Khan include the following topics:
- The religious and intellectual cross-fertilization, lasting hundreds of years,
between Jewish and Muslim civilization
- Parallels between Islamic and Jewish beliefs and practices
- Patterns of Jewish and Muslim immigration to America
- Nonviolent paths to Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation
- Strategies for contemporary cooperatio
Sponsored by: The Office of Religious Life, Project Dialogue and Vanderbilt Visions.
Gandhi Week is an annual event at Vanderbilt University commemorating the legacy of Mahatma Gandhi. Students at Vanderbilt will join other college campuses and cities in a nationwide event known as Be The Change. The event draws individuals who are attracted to the values espoused by Gandhi and other leaders who devoted their lives to public service and engagement in their communities.
Schedule of Events:
The Legacy of Our Faith Heroes
Wednesday, October 3
 Jenan is the Education Outreach Associate for the Interfaith Youth Core. The IFYC is an organization that strives to build mutual respect and pluralism among youth from different religious traditions by empowering them to work together to serve others.
'Gandhian Philosophies and its relevance in the 21st Century'
A Panel Discussion
Thursday, October 4, 6 PM
The panel will include Rev. James Lawson, Dr. John Thatamanil, Dr. Richard McGregor, student leaders, and other scholars in the Nashville community.
 Indian Cultural Festival at Sri Ganesha Temple
Saturday, October 6, 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM
Vanderbilt students will board a bus for the Sri Ganesha Temple for a tour of the Temple and lunch while they join members of the community in celebrating Indian culture.
Gore Vidal
Tuesday, September 11
Frank Wcislo, Vanderbilt dean and associate professor of history, will interview and converse with legendary essayist, author, social and political critic, Gore Vidal on the topic, "Why We Hate" at 8 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 11, in Benton Chapel. The event is free and open to the public.
Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Muhammad Yunus
Gay Welch, Muhammad Yunus and Gary White celebrate Senior Day
"[T]he ultimate fact is the world cannot remain as it is. It is our job - your job - to change the way you want it to be. If you don't want to change it, it will never get changed."
- Muhammad Yunus
Religious Life
2417 West End Avenue
Nashville, TN 37240
Phone: 615-322-2457
Fax: 615-343-8355
Email: gay.h.welch@vanderbilt.edu
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