Spring 2023
2023 Moseley Prizes Invitation
Saturday, March 25 1:00 - 3:00 Majors Fair
Balloons and Students at the Religion Department table!
Wednesday, March 8 4:30 Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather-115)
The 2023 Annual Willis D. Wood Lecture
Dr. Laurie Patton, President, Middlebury College
(click on image for full view)
Wednesday, March 8 5:30 PM Herter Hall- 601, UMass AmherstThe
Five College Faculty Seminar in Late Antiquity
Ecology and Citizenship in Antiquity
Kevin Corrigan, Emory University
Monday, March 6 4:30 PM Pemberton Lounge (Chapin-108)
Cookies and the Religion Major
(click on image for full view)
Wednesday, February 22 4:30 Paino Lecture Hall (Beneski - 107)
Increasing Inclusivity in Philosophy: Let's Finish the Job!
Jay Garfield, Smith College
(click on image for full view)
Reception to follow.
Wednesday, February 8 5:30 - 7:00 Paino Lecture Hall (Beneski -107)
Our Noonday Demon
Niki Kasumi Clements, Rice University
(click on the image for full view)
Fall 2022
Friday, September 2 4:30 - 5:30 Pemberton Lounge (Chapin-108)
Religion Department Open House
(click on image to enlarge)
Spring 2022
Tuesday, May 3 4:30 PM Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115)
Ethnic Identity: Developing a Latina/o Identity
Silvia Pedraza, University of Michigan
(click on image for full view)
Thursday, March 31 4:30 PM Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather 115)
Edward Blum, San Diego State University
"War is all hell," claimed a Civil War general years after the war. But what made it hell? Or who made it hell? Professor Edward J. Blum explores visualizations of evil during the era of the Civil War to show how all types of Americans martialed evil to make their most poignant political and racial points.
Thursday, March 3 4:30 PM Pruyne Lecture Hall (Fayerweather-115)
The 2022 Willis D. Wood Lecture
Guest speaker: Duncan Ryūken Williams, author of American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War
View the video recording of this lecture.
Past Lectures
Spring 2020
This event has been canceled.
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 11 5:15 PM AMHERST COLLEGE, FAYERWEATHER 115 (PRUYNE)
Ethnic Identity: Developing a Latina/o Identity
Silvia Pedraza, University of Michigan
Though Latinas/os are now 18 % of the U. S. population, only recently have they come to the national spotlight, in the midst of a climate of hostility.
MONDAY, APRIL 6 7:00 PM AMHERST COLLEGE, BENESKI 107 (PAINO LECTURE HALL)
Eating the Flesh of our Mothers: Tibetan Buddhist Perspectives on Vegetarianism and Animal Ethics
Geoffrey Barstow, Oregon State University
Drawing on the idea of reincarnation—that we have all had an essentially infinite number of past lives—Tibetan Buddhists often claim that every creature you may meet was, at one point or another, your parent. At that time they treated you kindly, keeping you safe, fed, and warm. Now, they suggest, we should repay this kindness by treating all creatures with generosity and compassion.
Arguments like these would seem to suggest that Tibetan Buddhists should be, almost by default, vegetarian. And yet this is not the case. While some Tibetans were vegetarian, most were not. Further, just as in the contemporary United States, the debates between anti-meat and pro-meat Tibetans could be fierce and acrimonious. In this talk, Dr. Geoffrey Barstow will discuss Tibetan perspectives on meat-eating and animal ethics, exploring the reasons Tibetans gave for adopting vegetarianism, why those arguments didn’t always work, and some ways in which these Tibetan perspectives might influence contemporary debates over meat-eating around the world.
MONDAY, MARCH 2 4:30 PM AMHERST COLLEGE, FAYERWEATHER 115 (PRUYNE)
Fall 2019
Spring 2019
