Spring Semester Begins at the Center

January 26, 2016
CSWR courtyard in the snow

 

 

Dear Friends of CSWR:

We are in the midst of winter, there is snow on the ground, and it is still very early in 2016. But the beginning of the spring semester bodes well: the welcome return of students and professors to campus, the start this week of a fascinating array of courses, amidst all the other events, possibilities, and challenges of academic life; and the sun seems slightly brighter each morning. The Center itself is springing back to life, after a very quiet six weeks of holiday, restoration, and planning. Our residents have returned, after family visits, travel and study abroad. I myself was in New York at Christmas for a few days to visit family, and in mid-January taught a mini-course on interreligious understanding, to the Jesuit novices in Culver City, California.

I am pleased to say that we have a very good semester before us at the Center. If the Center flourishes due to the good will and energy of the communities amidst which it dwells, then we are in good shape. The online calendar will give you all the events, of course, but here I highlight just a few. Three of our annual endowed lectures occur this spring. On March 3, Marianne Moyaert (VU University, Amsterdam) will give our Comparative Theology Lecture, "Towards a liturgical turn in comparative theology? Opportunities, challenges and problems." On March 8, Don Baker (University of British Columbia) will give the annual Korean Buddhism Lecture, "From the Mountains into the Cities: The Transformation of Buddhism in Modern Korea." On April 14, Vasudha Narayanan (Center resident 1975-77, while studying with Wilfred Cantwell Smith and John Carman) will give the first Hindu View of Life Lecture, made possible by the generous gift of Mr. Akhilesh Gupta, recently an Advanced Leadership Fellow here at Harvard.

Other lectures also will be of great interest. On February 17, in our contribution to the many interfaith activities occurring at Harvard in February, we are hosting a lecture, "The Four Noble Truths of Christianity," by the Venerable Alex Bruce, a Tibetan monk who is also a law professor at the prestigious Australian National University. On April 20, we will also be happy to host a special lecture by another former resident and old friend of the Center, when Joseph Roccasalvo (PhD 1978; Center resident 1971-74) will give a lecture, "Fiction Writing & the Religious Imagination, or, How to Write a Spiritual Thriller."

At least three book events celebrating the publications of our faculty will take place this spring: February 9: Aisha Beliso-De Jesus, Electric Santería: Racial and Sexual Assemblages of Transnational Religion; February 23: Giovanni Bazzana, Kingdom of Bureaucracy: The Political Theology of Village Scribes in the Sayings Gospel Q; March 22: Janet Gyatso, Being Human in a Buddhist World: An Intellectual History of Medicine in Early Modern Tibet. More information on these book events, all occurring at 5:15 pm in the Center's Common Room, will be found at the events section of our website.

Other events take a more conversational form, smaller groups gathered around the table. Our first Religion in the News lunch is on February 11. This opens a year-long (on again, off again) series on religion in this election cycle, with a basic question, "Religion and the Elections: Does It Matter in 2016?" As in 2012, we will surely host a more events on this topic between now and November. So too, our regular in-house reading groups and colloquia — Theology; Orientalism and Religion; Comparative Studies; Material Religion — will continue; I regularly participate in several of them, and learn so much just by doing the readings and hearing the observations made around the table.

We are happy to have two new Center Fellows join us this semester: Professor Chris Hackett from the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne campus) and Professor Hans Malmström from the University of Gothenburg/Chalmers in Sweden. Professors Dong, Hernandez, and Hintersteiner, will be staying on for this semester too. I am happy also to report that two of last year's visiting fellows have published books. Professor Renaud Fabbri recently sent me his Éric Voelgelin et L’ Orient: Millenarisme et religons politiques de l’Antiquité à Daech (L'Harmattan, 2015). Professor Ben Hubbard (Cal State, Fullerton) sent me the welcome news that A Battlefield of Values: America's Left, Right, and Endangered Center (Praeger, 2015) has just appeared in print; this is the book he co-authored with Stephen Burgard (Northeastern), our visiting fellow who sadly died after a brief illness in October, 2014. Both books will be added to our library collection.

Of course too, our in-house community is even now springing back into life, as our more than twenty residents get back to work, to the common goal of building community among us, and to fostering the intellectual-spiritual practice that has always characterized the Center. Wednesday evening discussions of work in progress; morning meditation; weekend yoga classes; shared meals — all make the community, and thus the Center, a vital environment. In an age when there is no single way to study religions, and no religious tradition reveals to us a single essence, the Center is what the Center does: reflecting, researching, teaching, living religions in manifold ways.

Please do come and see us, when you are in the area. If you would like to be added to the Center's weekly events newsletter, visit Join Our Mailing List.

Francis X. Clooney, SJ

Director

See also: Yes