2006-2007 Events

Colloquium: "Muslims and the State in the Post-9/11 West"
Robert A. Jones House
Friday and Saturday, April 20 and 21, 2007
Twenty scholars and policymakers will address the following questions: What have been the effects of post-9/11 security measures in Europe and the United States on Muslim communities and on their relations with states and other parts of civil society? Are states treating Muslims differently in comparison to pre-9/11 and in comparison to other groups? What impact are state actions having on the integration of Muslims? Please call the Rohaytn Center for International Affairs for a complete program, 443-5324.

"Islam: A Truly American Religion?"
lecture by Jane Smith, Ph.D.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
4:30 p.m.
Robert A. Jones House

Ms. Jones is professor of Islamic Studies and co-director of the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary. She has written extensively on Muslim communities in America. Professor Smith has co-authored Muslim Women in America (Oxford, 2006), Islam and the West Post 9/11 (Ashgate, 2005), among others. She is also author of Islam in America (Columbia University Press, 1999). Sponsored by the Department of Religion and the Charles P. Scott Lecture Series Fund.

Holocaust Remembrance Day events:

Yom Ha Shoah Memorial Service 
Sunday April 15
7:00 p.m.
Mead Chapel

Film Screening:  "Fateless" 
3:00 p.m. and 8:00 pm.
Dana Auditorium
From the novel by Nobel Prize Laureate Imre Kertész (adapted for the screen by the author), Fateless follows young György Köves (Marcell Nagy) as he comes of age within the Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II. Filled with startling images woven in sepia, black-and-white, and color photography, cinematographer Lajos Koltai's (Being Julia) directorial debut explores a young boy's ascension to manhood in the direst circumstances. As such, it shows how a Holocaust survivor can look back on the horror through a glass of nostalgia. "This unconventional treatment of the Holocaust is an almost unbearably moving film." - Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian. Winner of the Golden Swan for best cinematography, Copenhagen International Film Festival. In Hungarian with English subtitles. 2005, 140 minutes.

"Islamic Law and International
Non-governmental Organizations"
lecture by Naz Modirzadeh
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
4:30 p.m.
Robert A. Jones House

Lecture by Naz Modirzadeh, Program on Humanitarian Policy and Conflict Research, Harvard School of Public Health. Ms. Modirzadeh previously worked for Human Rights Watch, and later served as Assistant Professor and Director of the International Human Rights Law M.A. Program at the American University in Cairo. She has carried out field research and trainings in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and has spoken at various academic and professional conferences focusing on the intersections between Islamic law, International human rights and humanitarian law, and post-conflict legal reform. Ms. Modirzadeh has published policy and monitoring reports on torture of political dissidents, the application of IHL in Iraq, and legal reform, Islamic law, and human rights in post-war Afghanistan. Modirzadeh received her BA from the University of California, Berkeley with Highest Distinction and her J.D.
cum laude from Harvard Law School. While at Harvard, she served as the Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard Human Rights Journal. Her most recent publication is “Taking Islamic Law Seriously: INGOs and the Battle for Muslim Hearts and Minds,” in the Harvard Human Rights Journal.
Sponsored by the Rohatyn Center for Interntional Affairs, International Studies Program, Departments of Philosophy and Religion, and Wonnacott Commons.

The Development of an American Hinduism"
lecture by Prema Kurien, Ph.D.
Monday, April 9, 2007
4:30 p.m.
Robert A. Jones House

Prema Kurien is Associate Professor of Sociology at Syracuse University. She has published Kaleidoscopic Ethnicity: International Migration and the Reconstruction of Community Identities in India (Rutgers, 2002) and her Multiculturalism and Immigrant Religion: The Development of American Hinduism is forthcoming (Rutgers, 2007).
Part of the Middlebury College Religion Department's 2007 Charles P. Scott Lecture Series on Immigrant Religions.

Easter Sunrise Service
Sunday, April 8, 2007
6:30 a.m.
Alumni Stadium


Ecumenical Christian service led by Chaplain Laurie Jordan.

Passover Seder 
Monday, April 2, 2007
6:00-9:00 p.m.
Freeman Dining Room

RSVP's required; please call Ellen McKay at 802-443-5626. Presented by Middlebury College Hillel, The Chaplain's Office, and Havurah--The Jewish Community of Middlebury.








(right: The Feast of the Passover by Dieric Bouts the Elder, ca. 1467)

"Living with Grief: Before and After the Death"
Thursday, March 22, 2007
1:30-4:00 P.M.
Dana Auditorium

Hospice Foundation of America’s annual live-via satellite and webcast educational program, moderated by Middlebury alum Frank Sesno, Professor of Media and Public Affairs at George Washington University and Special Correspondent with CNN.

Provides an educational forum in which a multidisciplinary panel of experts will explore the most current theoretical perspectives on loss and grief as experienced by persons throughout a life-limiting illness and by survivors after the death. The panel will focus on areas where understandings of grief have been challenged.

After the national telecast, this event will conclude with a 30 minute panel of local resource people who will speak about and answer questions related to grief support in Addison County. Local panelists are Sara Audet, MSW (hospice social worker, Addison County Home Health and Hospice), Laura Basili, PhD (local psychotherapist bringing many years of experience working with grieving children and families at Boston Children’s Hospital), Rabbi Ira Schiffer, (associate chaplain, Middlebury College), David White (bereavement specialist at Hospice Volunteer Services).

For more information or to register for this teleconference, contact Hospice Volunteer Services at 388-4111 or pdunn@hospicevs.org

Sponsored by the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life at Middlebury College, and Hospice Volunteer Services. Free and open to the public. This teleconference has been approved for 3 contact hours of Continuing Education credit.

"The Pluralism Project of Distortion:
What do Asian Americans
Really Believe?"
lecture by Fenggang Yang, Ph.D.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
4:30 p.m., Robert A. Jones House

Fenggang Yang is Associate Professor of Sociology at Purdue University. He has written extensively on Chinese Christian immigrants. He is author of Chinese Christians in America: Conversion, Assimilation, and Adhesive Identities (Penn State University Press, 1999). He is also co-author of Asian American Religions: The Making and Remaking of Borders and Boundaries (NYU, 2000), and State Market and Religions in Chinese Societies (Brill Academic Publishers, 2005).
Part of the Middlebury College Religion Department's 2007 Charles P. Scott Lecture Series on Immigrant Religions.

"Religion, Immigrants, and the Quest for a 
Self: An Examination of Contemporary
Korean American Buddhism"
lecture by Sharon Suh
Friday, March 9, 2007
12:15 p.m., Robert A. Jones House

Sharon Suh is Associate Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Seattle University. Her research on the Korean Buddhist community in Los Angeles is the basis of her book Being Buddhist in a Christian World (University of Washington Press, 2004).
Part of the Middlebury College Religion Department's 2007 Charles P. Scott Lecture Series on Immigrant Religions.

"Separation of Church and State: 
Roger Williams and the Birth of an American Ideal"
by James Calvin Davis, Ph.D.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
4:30 p.m.
Redfield Proctor Dining Room

James Davis is an assistant professor of religion at Middlebury College. He joined the faculty in 2001 and teaches courses on ethics, American religion, and Christian thought. His main interests include religion in American politics, ethics, bioethics, American Puritanism and the history of Christian theology. He has published "The Moral Theology of Roger Williams: Christian Conviction and Public Ethics" (2004), and is working on a collection of Roger Williams' writings and a book on biotechnology and public moral discourse in the United States. He has written articles on a wide range of ethical topics, including cloning, organ donation, civility in politics, just war, forgiveness, and freedom of conscience.

"Religion, Science and Ethics: 
Mapping the Territories"
lecture by Peter Kreeft, Ph.D
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
4:30 p.m., Robert A. Jones House

Peter Kreeft (Ph.D. 1965, Fordham University) is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. He is a regular contributor to several Christian publications, is in wide demand as a speaker at conferences, and is the author of over 45 books.
A featured event in "Pathways to Flourishing: A Dialogue of Science, Religion and Politics at Middlebury College," sponsored by the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life.

Theatrical Performance: 
"Darwin in Malibu"
by Crispin Whittell
Friday, March 2, 2007
7:00 p.m.
Center for the Arts room 232


“Malibu, California. Believing that all the heated debate about The Origin of the Species is far behind him, Charles Darwin has wound up in a beach house overlooking the Pacific with a girl young enough to be his daughter. But when his old friend Thomas Huxley turns up with the Bishop of Oxford he finds himself entangled in a life-and-death comedy about God and science, love, loss and the sex life of barnacles” (from the book’s back cover).
A featured event in "Pathways to Flourishing: A Dialogue of Science, Religion and Politics at Middlebury College," and co-sponsored by the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life, and the Department of Theater.

War in Iraq:  Conscience and Activism 
Vermont Veterans Speaking Out
about War and
Working Our
Way to Peace

Friday, March 2, 2007
4:00 PM
Kirk Alumni Center
Vans for students will begin
leaving Adirondack Circle at 3:15

Three Vermont veterans, two of whom saw tours of duty in Iraq, will be joined by activist Cindy Sheehan, journalist John Nichols and Newfane selectman and anti-war activist Dan DeWalt.

"Islam, Human Rights, and Constitutionalism"
by Nathan Brown, Ph.D.
Friday, March 2, 2007
12:15 p.m.
Robert A. Jones House

International Studies Colloquium lunchtime presentation by Nathan Brown, Professor of Political Science and International Affairs Professor, George Washington University. Mr. Brown is author of four well-received books on Arab politics and an expert on Palestinian reform and Arab constitutionalism. His research interests also include Egyptian and Palestinian politics, legal reform in the modern Middle East, as well as democratization. Brown’s most recent book, Resuming Arab Palestine, presents research on Palestinian society and governance after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority. Brown was previously a scholar in residence at the Middle East Institute. He has recently been a member of the international advisory committee on drafting the Palestinian constitution and consultant to the UNDP's program on governance in the Arab world.
Lunch will be available throughout. RESERVATIONS ARE ESSENTIAL. STUDENTS RSVP WITH ID NUMBER. RSVP by Monday, 2/26 to Martha Baldwin at baldwin@middlebury.edu or 443-5324. Sponsored by Rohatyn Center for International Affairs, and the Departments of History and Religion.

"Transnational Religions and American Identities"
lecture by Raymond Williams, Ph.D.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
4:30 p.m., Robert A. Jones House

Raymond Williams is Charles D. and Elizabeth S. Follette Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Emeritus, Wabash College. Professor Williams is a pioneer in the area of immigrant religions, having written the widely respected Religions of Immigrants from India and Pakistan (Cambridge University Press, 1988). He has also published Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs in the United States (co-authored, Oxford, 2001), An Introduction to Swaminarayan Hinduism (Cambridge, 2001), and Christian Pluralism in the United States: The Indian Immigrant Experience (Cambridge, 1996).
Part of the Middlebury College Religion Department's 2007 Charles P. Scott Lecture Series on Immigrant Religions.

Ash Wednesday Chapel Service
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
5:15 p.m.
Mead Memorial Chapel

Chaplain Laurie Jordan will lead an ecumenical service, holy communion, and imposition of ashes.

"Gender and The Bible"
lecture by Mardi Keyes
Thursday, Jan. 4, 2007
9:00 p.m., Ross B11

This talk will explore, from a Biblical perspective, the debate between the ideas that men and women are essentially "alike" vs. "different" as it has played out in the West and motivated the birth of 19th- and 20th-century feminisms. We will see that the Bible does not reduce gender to one paradigm; rather, it portrays men and women as simultaneously "alike," "different," and "complementary," and includes metaphors of "union."

Mardi Keyes graduated from Wellesley College with a degree in Biblical History in 1968. After working with L'Abri Fellowship (a residential Christian study center/community) in Switzerland and England from 1970 to 1979, she and her husband Dick Keyes moved to Southborough, Mass., where they opened the first residential branch of L'Abri in the United States.

"Is Cynicism Honest?" 
lecture by Dick Keyes
Friday, Jan. 5, 2007
4:30 p.m.
McCardell Bicentennial Hall 216

Suspicion is a necessary part of life. Cynicism is in the air we breathe and has a reputation for honesty and courage, but its reliability is not often questioned. A greater honesty might be to be suspicious of our suspicions. We can be cynical about people, institutions, and God. Where does it take us?
Dick Keyes is the author of several books including, most recently, Seeing Through Cynicism: A Reconsideration of the Power of Suspicion (Intervarsity Press). He is the director of L'Abri Fellowship (a residential Christian study center) in Southborough, Mass.

Ecology and The Christian Imagination
Friday, Jan. 26, 2007
2:00 – 6:00 p.m.
McCardell Bicentennial Hall 216
Sponsored by INTD 1059, The Environmental Studies Program, Ross Commons, and the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life

• 2:00 PM: “Long Live the Weeds and the Wilderness Yet”: Nature and Christian Spirituality from the Psalmists to Hopkins (and Beyond)" by Robert Siegel, professor of English, emeritus, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

• 3:15 PM: “The Shape and Shaping of J.R.R.Tolkien’s Middle-earth Ecology” by Matthew Dickerson, professor of computer science, Middlebury College

• 4:30 PM: “Bergson or Bernardus?: C. S. Lewis' Philosophy of Nature” by David O’Hara, professor of religion, philosophy, and classics, Augustana College.
David O’Hara is a professor at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, where he teaches Philosophy and Classical Greek in the Department of Religion, Philosophy, and Classics. He graduated from Middlebury College in the class of 1991, and has since received a masters in Liberal Arts (Great Books) from St. Johns in Santa Fe, and a Ph.D in Philosophy from Pennsylvania State University where he wrote his dissertation on The Development of Charles S. Peirce’s Platonistic Realism. He won both the 2004 Joseph Blau prize for the best historical research in American Philosophy and also the 2004 Douglas Greenlee Prize for the best paper by a graduate student or recent Ph.D. He has taught “Philosophy of Environment and Nature” at Penn State is teaching a class at Augustana College on the Philosophy of C.S.Lewis and J.R.R.Tolkien. He recently published his first book, From Homer to Harry Potter: a Handbook on Myth and Fantasy (co-authored with Prof. Dickerson from Middlebury College).

Sponsored by The Environmental Studies Program, Ross Commons, and the Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life. Free and open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

Fireside Chats at The Scott Center

4:30 p.m. on one Monday and three Tuesdays in January
135 So. Main Street

Come warm up by the fireplace, enjoy a hot drink, and listen to campus luminaries speak on the subject, "My Personal Journey: How I Became Passionate About . . ."

Monday, Jan. 8: Martin Beatty, Track Coach

Tuesday, Jan. 16: Peggy Nelson, Hepburn Professor of Sociology and Women's and Gender Studies

Tuesday, Jan. 23: David Edelson, Dean of Cook Commons

Tuesday, Jan. 30: Andrea Olsen, Professor of Dance

Lessons and Carols for Advent and Christmas
Sunday, December 10, 2006
4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.
Mead Memorial Chapel

Laurel Macaulay Jordan '79, College Chaplain, presiding
Middlebury College Chamber Singers, Jeff Rehbach, conductor
Emory Fanning, organ
This traditional program combines choral music, congregational singing, and biblical texts of the season. Free. Donations collected for local charities.

Celtic Mass for Peace
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
7:00 p.m.
Mead Chapel

"We live in the midst of a new awareness of the oneness of the earth. We live also in the midst of terrible brokennesses between nations and religious traditions. The Celtic Mass for Peace is an expression of the deep longing for peace that is stirring in the human soul today."--J. Philip Newell. The poetry of this Mass was written by J. Philip Newell, author in spirituality living in Scotland, and the music was composed by native Vermont musician, Sam Guarnaccia. They preside over and direct this live performance of their work. Sponsored by the the Charles P. Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life and the Department of Music. Free.

Homecoming Weekend Chapel Service
October 22, 2006 Sunday, October 22, 2006
10:00 a.m., Mead Chapel
Ecumenical Christian Service led by Chaplain Laurel Macaulay Jordan '79.

"Biocultural Evolution in the 21st Century: The Evolutionary Role of Religion"
William Grassie. ‘79, Ph.D.
Wednesday, October 11, 2006 
7:00 PM Robert A. Jones House

We live at an extraordinary moment in the natural history of our planet and the cultural evolution of our species. Human population has soared in the last century to over six billion. Every bioregional ecosystem in the world has been significantly altered by humans. We are about to embark upon large-scale genetic engineering of other species and ourselves. Humans are a Lamarckian wild card in the epic of evolution. Increasingly, it is not the material basis that determines civilization, but our culturally transmitted belief systems, for better or worse, that will direct the future evolution of both the planet and our species.

William Grassie is founder and former executive director of the Metanexus Institute on Religion and Science. He is the recipient of a number of academic awards and grants from the American Friends Service Committee, the Roothbert Fellowship, and the John Templeton Foundation. He is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Metanexus currently runs some 300 projects at universities in 37 countries. Dr. Grassie graduated from Middlebury College in 1979.

"Serve God, Save The Planet"

Fall Family Weekend Chapel Service and
Bagel Brunch
Sunday, October 8
10:00 a.m., Mead Chapel
Ecumenical Christian Worship, Chaplain Laurel Macaulay Jordan '79 presiding. Prof. James Davis, preaching.

11:00 a.m., Jewish Center at Freeman International Center
Bagel Brunch for Hillel students and their families .

September-October 2006

Selihot
Friday, Sept. 15
6:15 p.m. at Havurah House

Rosh Hashanah
Friday, September 22
7:00 p.m. Evening Service at Mead Chapel
Babysitting space in Hepburn Lounge*
8:30 p.m. “Apples and Honey” Reception in Redfield Procter

Saturday, September 23
9:30 a.m. Shacharit – Morning services at Mead Chapel
Babysitting space in Hepburn Lounge *

Sunday, September 24
9:30 a.m. Shacharit – Morning Services and babysitting space at Havurah House*
5:00 p.m. Tashlich Service at Otter Creek Footbridge, Marble Works side

Yom Kippur
Sunday, October 1
6:30 p.m. Kol Nidre at Mead Chapel
Babysitting space in Hepburn Lounge *

Monday, October 2
9:30 a.m. Shacharit – Morning Service at Mead Chapel
Babysitting space in Hepburn Lounge *
11:15 a.m. Yizkor – Memorial Service at Mead Chapel
5:00 p.m. Minchah – Afternoon Service and Ne’ilah – Concluding Services at Mead Chapel
6:45 p.m. Shofar Blowing and Havdalah at Mead Chapel
7:00 p.m. Break-the-Fast in Freeman Dining Hall attached to Hillel Jewish Center (RSVP's required; call 443-5626 to make a reservation)

* Babysitting space is being offered in Hepburn Lounge. If interested in sharing a babysitter, please call Karen Lefkoe, at 388-3105. Havurah is not providing babysitters.

Addison County CROPWalk
Sunday, October 1, 2006
1:00 p.m. start at Middlebury Town Green

Join us for the 29th annual Addison County CROPWalk to raise money for both local food shelves and for the international relief work of Church World Service. Please go to
http://cropwalk.kintera.org . to start raising funds on-line. To pick up a walker's packet and register to participate in the event, please contact Ellen McKay at the Chaplain's Office, 443-5626.
As of November 13, our total amount raised is over $17,200!