Religion And Spirituality (audio)

Award-winning actor Michael Douglas and Jewish Agency head Natan Sharansky explore the role that faith, religious pluralism and human rights have played in their personal journeys. They discuss their relationship with Judaism to an audience at UC Santa Barbara. Series: "Carsey-Wolf Center" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30807]

Renowned scientist with the Scripps Institution of Oceanography describes how to find areas of agreement between governments, religious leaders and researchers on difficult issues such as the need to address climate change. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Science] [Show ID: 30184]

Twenty years after the tragic death of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Yoram Peri reflects upon his life as politician, statesman and general, his dedication to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, his leadership in signing the Oslo Accords, and his assassination by a right-wing Jewish extremist. Rabin’s deeply contested legacy – hero versus traitor – reflects the mounting cultural war between liberal, secular Israelis who place great emphasis on Western, democratic values and religious Israelis who believe the Torah and traditional values should guide everyday life. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 30268]

The Egyptians believed Pharaoh to be a god on earth who after his death would fly up to heaven and unite with the sun, his father. After the collapse of the Old Kingdom, this idea of royal immortality became accessible for non-royal persons but dependent on justification before a divine tribunal, the judgment of the dead. Immortality became a question, not of royalty but of morals. Jan Assmann, Professor Emeritus of Egyptology, University of Heidelberg, explores the origins and evolution of these concepts. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30174]

Dr. Carter is Associate Professor of Systematic Theology and Black Church Studies at Duke Divinity School. Prof. Carter teaches courses in both theology and black church studies. His research focuses on issues of race and religion in modern American life. Dr. Carter’s book is entitled Race: A Theological Account, published by Oxford University Press in 2008. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29972]

Robert Pogue Harrison is the chairman of the Department of French and Italian at Stanford University, and the author of several critically acclaimed books, including "The Dominion of the Dead," which examines the complicated ways that the living relate to the dead. In this edition of "Up Next," Harrison discusses the declining fortunes of the dead in modern society and what that decline says about our future. Series: "Up Next: Perspectives on the Future of Everything" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30068]

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Jan Assmann, Honorary Professor of Cultural and Religious Studies at the University of Constance, for a discussion of his career as a Egyptologist and scholar of comparative religions. After reflections on his formative years in a German medieval town suffering from the ravages of World War II and its aftermath, Assmann describes the community of Egyptologists and the intellectual influences that shaped his scholarship. He also characterizes the intellectual joys and hardships of field research in ancient tombs. Finally, he touches on some of the themes of his scholarship including the evolution of ideas that characterize religious change; comparison of Moses and Akhenaten; and the importance of writing, canonization, and exegesis to cultural memory and the resilience and survival of religions. Series: "Conversations with History" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30173]

Leon Wieseltier discusses the remarks he made at an international conference on “Zionism in the 21st Century: Contemporary Perspectives From and About Israel” that had brought together many scholars to discuss the topic. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 30024]

M. Hakan Yavuz is a professor of political science at the University of Utah. His current academic work focuses on transnational Islamic networks in Central Asia and Turkey; the role of Islam in state-building and nationalism; ethnic cleansing and genocide; and ethno-religious conflict management. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29163]

Out of all the figures in the Bible, David is one of the most perplexing and enigmatic. Rabbi David Wolpe takes a fresh look at the biblical David in an attempt to find coherence in his seemingly contradictory actions and impulses. David Wolpe, Rabbi of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, California is the author of national best-sellers such as “Why Faith Matters” and “Making Loss Matter: Creating Meaning in Difficult Times.” Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 29249]

Richard Gaillardetz is an American theologian specializing in questions relating to Catholic ecclesiology and the structures of authority in the Roman Catholic Church. In 2000 Dr. Gaillardetz received the Sophia Award from the faculty of the Washington Theological Union in recognition of “theological excellence in service to ministry,” and he has received numerous awards from the Catholic Press Association for his occasional pieces. He is currently the Joseph Professor of Catholic Systematic Theology at Boston College. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28828]

Peter Brown is the Rollins Professor of History Emeritus at Princeton and the leading historian of the early history of Christianity in late antiquity. His Burke Lecture, "Constantine, Eusebius, and the Future of Christianity," delves, with surprising results, into the thinking of the first Christian Roman emperor and his theological advisor on how church and state should relate. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28510]

The Holocaust claimed anywhere between 500,000 and 1.5 million Romani lives, a tragedy the Romani people and Sinti refer to as the Porrajmos, or “the Devouring.” Notwithstanding the scope of the catastrophe, the Romani genocide was often ignored or minimized until Ian Hancock and others exposed this misfortune. A Romani-born British citizen, activist, and scholar, Hancock has done more than anyone to raise awareness about the Romani people during World War II. Now a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, Hancock is presented here as part of the Holocaust Living History Workshop, a partnership between Judaic Studies at UCSD and the UC San Diego Library. Series: "Library Channel" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 28100]

Are all religions simply different ways up the same mountain? Or is the key to religious tolerance found in better understanding differences? In “God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World,” New York Times best-selling author and religion scholar Stephen Prothero argues that persistent attempts to portray all religions as different paths to the same God overlook the distinct problem that each tradition seeks to solve. Delving into the different problems and solutions that Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, Judaism, Confucianism, Yoruba Religion, Daoism and Atheism strive to combat, provides a guide to the questions human beings have asked for millennia—and to the disparate paths we are taking to answer them today. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 28045]

Scott Appleby, the director of the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame, examines the roots of religious violence and the potential of religious peace-building in this talk presented by the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace & Justice at the University of San Diego. Religious scholars Linelle Cady and Joseph Montville follow with commentary on Appleby’s presentation Series: "Peace exChange -- Kroc School of Peace Studies, University of San Diego" [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 27748]

Drawing on fieldwork in new charismatic evangelicals churches in the Bay Area and in Accra, Ghana, Tanya Luhrmann, Stanford University, explores the way that cultural ideas about mind and person alter prayer practice and the experience of God. Luhrmann's work focuses on the way that objects without material presence come to seem real to people, and the way that ideas about the mind affect mental experience. Series: "UC Berkeley Graduate Lectures" [Humanities] [Show ID: 26087]

On the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council, John Connelly, author of “From Enemy to Brother: The Revolution in Catholic Teaching on the Jews, 1933-1965,” and David Nirenberg, author of “Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition” explore the character of medieval anti-Judaism and the historical changes within Catholic Christianity prior to the mid-twentieth century. They also assess the significance of the Council and its impact on Catholic and Jewish relations to the present. John Connelly is professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley and David Nirenberg is distinguished professor of Medieval History and Social Thought at The University of Chicago. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 25433]

Performance of the exorcism rite has been on the rise in recent years. Thomas Csordas endeavors to to understand this development on the level of therapeutic process in terms of how it may genuinely relieve affliction, and on the level of culture as a conservative discourse on evil at large in the contemporary world. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series" [Humanities] [Show ID: 25301]

James Kugel, director of the Institute for the History of the Jewish Bible at Bar Ilan University, argues that the Hebrew Bible was, from the beginning, the Interpreted Bible. In the third and second centuries B.C.E. – well before the last books of the Bible were written – groups of interpreters were puzzling over the stories of Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Esau, and other ancient figures. Their interpretations were often fanciful, and sometimes wildly inventive, but their grasp of the very idea of the Bible is still with us and continues to influence today’s readers. Series: "Burke Lectureship on Religion and Society" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24917]

For Jews and for Judaism the twentieth century brought unprecedented suffering and incredible achievements – but as a new century gets going, their role in the future is up for grabs. Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregation of the Commonwealth, refutes the arguments for isolationism and the self-sufficiency of “people that dwell alone” that have proven so tempting through history, instead making the case that Jews and Judaism must renew their sense of hope and purpose to engage positively with the developing global culture. Series: "Taubman Symposia in Jewish Studies" [Humanities] [Show ID: 24414]