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Toby Braden Johnson, PhD Lecture: Knowing Guru Nanak: the Janam-Sakhi Narratives and Sikh Pedagogy

Sponsored by:
Religion
The founder of the Sikh Panth (community), Guru Nanak (1469-1539), wrote songs of devotion to express his mission of faith and charity to his early followers. He did not write an autobiography. Therefore, Sikhs learn about Guru Nanak and relate to his life story through a corpus of janam-sakhi (birth stories) narratives that present his life’s story but are not part of the scriptural canon.

Munroe 217

Scott Symposium Visiting Lecturer Mayanthi Fernando

Sponsored by:
Religion
Secularism is often understood as the separation of religion and politics, and France is usually upheld as a model secular nation. But how does French secularism work in practice? Is separation ever possible? Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Paris, Professor Mayanthi Fernando examines recent attempts by the French state to secularize Islam by dividing it into “religion” and “culture.” She shows how this is ultimately an impossible task, and how that might reveal something about the nature of secularism itself.

Franklin Environmental Center, The Orchard-Hillcrest 103

Open to the Public

Scott Symposium Talk: Leigh Schmidt, Visualizing Secularism

Sponsored by:
Religion
This lecture examines the formation of American secularism through the art of cartoonist Watson Heston. Looking at Heston’s iconic images provides an opportunity to assess the contours of both secularism and secular studies.

Axinn Center 229

Open to the Public

Scott Symposium Talk: Joseph Blankholm

Sponsored by:
Religion
Is secularism the separation of church and state? Is secularism the absence of religion? What does it mean to be secular? Professor Joseph Blankholm will answer these and other questions as he explains the many meanings of secularism and why they matter for anyone trying to understand the future of American religion—and nonreligion.

Axinn Center 229

Open to the Public

Scott Symposium on Secularism

Sponsored by:
Religion
The Religion Department at Middlebury College will present the Scott Symposium on Secularism on the afternoon of Friday, January 25th, at the Robert A. Jones ’59 House Conference Room, with panels at 1:00, 2:30, and 4 p.m. Community members are welcome.
The symposium consists of Middlebury faculty members from a variety of departments discussing secularism in their teaching and research.

Robert A. Jones '59 Conference Room

Open to the Public

RCGA Conference Anxieties of Empire: New Contexts, Shifting Perspectives

Sponsored by:
Brainerd Commons, International Programs & Off Campus Study, Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs, Geography, Religion, and Department of English
This is part of the RCGA Annual Conference “Anxieties of Empire: New Contexts, Shifting Perspectives”

10:00 a.m. –12:00 p.m.
Session 2: Epistemology and Imperial Reproduction
• The Populist West: Critical subjectivity and the politics of counter-terrorism in Nigeria: Temitope Ogungbemi, McPherson University, Nigeria
• Examining the Co-production of the “Imperial” University in Lahore and New York City: Mariam Durrani, Hamilton College
• Empire’s Anxiety and Indigeneity: Recent American studies critiques of U.S. empire: Max Clayton, Yale University

Robert A. Jones '59 Conference Room

Open to the Public

Jewish Refugees in Israeli Camps: Iraqi Jews in the 1950s

Sponsored by:
Arabic, Religion, Charles P. Scott Center for Spiritual and Religious Life, and Jewish Studies
Professor Orit Bashkin (University of Chicago) will discuss her new book Impossible Exodus: Iraqi Jews in Israel (Stanford University Press, 2017). Professor Bashkin’s book is co-winner of the 2018 Nikki Keddie Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association. The lecture will relate the experience of tens of thousands of Arabic-speaking Iraqi Jews who migrated to Israel between 1949-1951, and will survey their struggle for resettlement and civil rights during the 1950s, as well as the discrimination they faced from the Israeli government and Ashkenazi Jews.

Axinn Center 229

Open to the Public

Clifford Symposium: Workshops

Sponsored by:
Religion
Members of Middlebury’s faculty and guests will lead a coordinated series of short workshops on and discussions of The Origin of Others. Some of these workshops will be planned in advance; others will respond to questions and comments that have been submitted during or otherwise grow out of the sessions of the Symposium.