Religion And Spirituality (audio)

Rabbi Prof. Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi is an award-winning editor, author, and biblical scholar. She is the Chief Editor of The Torah: A Women’s Commentary, the winner (with Dr. Andrea Weiss) of the 2008 Jewish Book of the Year Award. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33661]

Rev. Traci Blackmon is the Executive Minister of Justice & Local Church Ministries for the United Church of Christ and Senior Pastor of Christ The King United Church of Christ in Florissant, MO. A featured voice with many regional, national, & international media outlets and contributor to print publications, her communal leadership & healing work in the aftermath of the killing of Michael Brown, Jr., in Ferguson, MO has gained her both national & international recognition and audiences, from the White House to the Carter Center to the Vatican. She was appointed to the Ferguson Commission by Missouri Governor Jay Nixon & to the President's Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships for the White House by President Barack Obama. Rev Blackmon's mission is an expanded understanding of church as a sacred launching pad of community engagement and change. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 33456]

What is spirituality and spiritual health? How can we effectively assess our own spirituality and identify spiritual distress in ourselves and others? Douglas Ziedonis, MD, MPH, Associate Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences and Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego, discusses the link between healthy aging and spirituality. Series: "Stein Institute for Research on Aging" [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 33227]

Part of the Humanities as Vocation event at UCSB, features two UCSB alumni talking about their work after their humanities studies. Reza Aslan is a producer and author. He addresses his training, the inspiration behind his creative work and the role the university can play in preparing the next generation of scholars. Tim Kring is a screenwriter and television producer. He tells how his religious studies background influences his productions. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33469]

Father Gregory Boyle, Jesuit priest and bestselling author of Tattoos on the Heart, is the founder of Homeboy Industries in Los Angeles. He shares what three decades of working with gang members has taught him about faith, compassion, and the enduring power of kinship. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32868]

Author, Tova Mirvis, discusses her book, The Book of Separation, which describes a woman who leaves her Orthodox Jewish faith and her marriage and sets out to navigate the terrifying, liberating terrain of a newly mapless world. She is the author of three novels and her essays have appeared in various anthologies and newspapers. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 33053]

Renowned Tibetan Buddhist scholar and Columbia University Professor Robert A.F. Thurman is joined in conversation by his colleague Isa Gucciardi and UCSF's Eve Ekman and David Bullard. They explore Buddhist understandings about consciousness and death. Series: "Wellbeing " [Health and Medicine] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32673]

David Murphy is Executive Director of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) San Diego office. In this lecture Murphy shares his insights into the moral and logistical challenges posed by the current world-wide refugee crisis, based on his extensive experience working with the IRC in Africa and Afghanistan. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 32144]

For 15 years, Edina Lekovic has served as a leading voice on American Muslims and an inter-community builder between diverse faith traditions. She explores the negative portrayal of American Muslims in the Media. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 32401]

For 15 years, Edina Lekovic has served as a leading voice on American Muslims and an inter-community builder between diverse faith traditions. She explores the way in which the treatment of American Muslims under the Trump administration could serve as an advanced warning of danger to our very democracy. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 32099]

Bernard-Henri Levy visited the UCSB campus to discuss his new book The Genius of Judaism. In this provocative book he demonstrates that anti-Semitism, constitutes the greatest danger to Jews and non-Jews alike, and to liberal democracies. And, at the same time he offers a challenging argument that the nature or essence of Judaism is located in Talmud and its interpreters, not as an on-going discourse about norms of behavior and structures of belief, but of critical engagement, on-going inquiry, of intellectual, philosophical, and moral challenges, in which Judaism and Jewish identity is to be realized in an obligation to the other, to the dispossessed, to the marginalized. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31923]

How did Zionist immigrants to early 20th century Palestine conceive of their new Arab neighbors, and how did the Arab natives make sense of the Jews arriving on Palestine’s shores? Drawing on his book Defining Neighbors: Religion, Race, and the Early Zionist-Arab Encounter, Jonathan Marc Gribetz argues that this fateful encounter was initially imagined very differently from the way it ultimately developed. The Late Ottoman period in Palestine was no utopia, but exploring this moment reveals that today’s hardened dividing lines are far from timeless; they have a fascinating history. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 31660]

Robert Jones, Director of the Public Religion Research Institute in Washington, D.C., is a well-known commentator on religion and politics. He discusses the upcoming presidential election. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Public Affairs] [Show ID: 31622]

Author Zohreh Ghahremani talks with Babak Rahimi, associate professor of Communication, Culture and Religion at UC San Diego about the novel, "Sky of Red Poppies," the 2012 selection for One Book, One San Diego. Series: "Writers" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31539]

The multimedia Journey of the Universe project explores some of mankind's most persistent existential questions: What is our purpose? How have the universe, our planet and humanity evolved? Mary Evelyn Tucker proposes that cosmology is the necessary basis for an in-depth examination of the human condition and that useful tools may be found at the intersection of science, art, and humanities, where recent scientific discoveries are leavened and informed with wisdom gleaned through the ages. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31039]

Bashar Matti Warda, a Chaldean Catholic cleric and the current Archbishop of Erbil, speaks on the role that the Christians of northern Iraq are playing in removing ISIS and fostering peace and forgiveness in this long-troubled region. Archbishop Warda is presented by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice at the University of San Diego. Series: "Peace exChange -- Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 31463]

One of the few constants throughout Jewish history is that Jewish identity has never been simple, and the answer to the question of “Who is a Jew?” – far from clear-cut. Rabbi Donniel Hartman, President of the Shalom Hartman Institute in Israel, says that at key moments over the last 3,000 years, Jews have reinvented or reimagined themselves in the context of their unique reality. Due to the cultural, historical, and psychological transformations that have taken place in the 20th and 21st centuries, this identity is once again at a crossroads. He explores how individual and collective identities throughout the millennia have been understood; how these earlier conceptions shape our understanding of who we are now and who we ought to be in the 21st century. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31308]

Back in 2005, Thomas J. Reese -- who is both a distinguished journalist and a Roman Catholic priest -- lost his job as the editor-in-chief of a leading Jesuit magazine after the Vatican concluded that under his leadership the publication was too often running afoul of official Church doctrine. But that, of course, was before Pope Francis came along who over the last three years has inspired a whole new generation of reform-minded Catholics. In this edition of "Up Next," Reese ponders both the future of his church and the challenges that this 79-year-old pope now faces. Series: "Up Next: Perspectives on the Future of Everything" [Humanities] [Show ID: 31478]

Anat Hoffman, Executive Director of the Israeli Religious Action Center, was a founding member of Women of the Wall as well as a Board member of the Israel Women’s Network, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and many other Israeli organizations for social change. This talk touches on several issues that pertain to the struggle between narrow-minded Judaism and pluralistic Judaism and to the contribution of the Israel Religious Action Center (IRAC) to advance a pluralistic living environment in Jerusalem. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30704]

Islam is a great religious tradition, the second largest and fastest growing of the World’s Religions, embracing some 57 Muslim countries and is the second or third largest religion in Europe and America. Despite the global achievements of Islam as a faith and civilization, since the Iranian Revolution, Islam has been viewed through the lens violence and the actions of militant terrorists. John Esposito, Professor of Religion and International Affairs and of Islamic Studies at Georgetown, addresses the questions: Who are Muslims and what do they believe? What do Islam, Judaism and Christianity share in common? Why does it matter? Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30579]