Public Lectures Archive

To request a copy of any of the recordings (both video and audio) listed below, please email religion@osu.edu

2010 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016


2010 Lectures

Robert N McCauley (Emory), October 21, 2010 video
The Role of Maturationally Natural Cognition in Science and Religion


2013 Lectures

Laura Olson (Clemson), September 19, 2013 video
R & P in a New Key: The Politics of Religiously Progressive and Unaffiliated Americans


Shahzad Bashir (Stanford), January 17, 2013 audio
Ink and Blood: Producing the Past in Persianate Islamic Societies


Nicola Denzey Lewis (Brown), October 24, 2013
Lived Religion in the City of the Dead: Fourth-Century Christianity in the Roman Catacombs

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2014 Lectures

David Brakke (History), January 22, 2014
The First Early Christian Heretics?: Why the Church Did Not Reject Gnosticism


Susan Huntington (History of Art), February 26, 2014 video
Seeing the Divine: Understanding Hinduism Through Art


Tom Kasulis (Comparative Studies), March 19, 2014
Japanese Shinto: Nature, Nation, and Creativity


Dan Reff (Comparative Studies), September 17, 2014
Why Mexico and Not Japan: Jesuit Missionaries and Conversion to Christianity During the Sixteenth Century


Joshua Dubler (U. of Rochester), October 2, 2014
Prisoners, Religion, and the Cultural Logic of Mass Incarceration


Wendy Doniger (University of Chicago), December 3, 2014
Skepticism and Materialism in Ancient India


Tom Kasulis (Comparative Studies), December 3, 2014
Zen Buddhism as Creativity

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2015 Lectures

Isaac Weiner (Comparative Studies), January 21, 2015
Evolution v. Creationism: A Short History


Peter van der Veer (Max Planck Institute, Göttingen), February 3, 2015
Urban Religion in Asia: A Comparative Perspective


Sarah Iles Johnston (Classics), February 18, 2015
There and Back Again: Constructing the Story World of Ancient Greek Myth


Navtej Purewal (University of London), February 26, 2015
Religion Beyond the Iconic: Exploring the Shared Ownership of Nanak


John Bowen (Washington University in St. Louis), March 5, 2015
How and Why Islamic Institutions Differ Across Western Europe


Hugh Urban (Comparative Studies), March 11, 2015
New Religious Movements: Testing the Limits of 'Religion' in Contemporary America


Hannibal Hamlin (English), September 16, 2015
Exploding the Sacred-Secular Divide in English Renaissance Literature


Cynthia Hahn (Hunter College - CUNY), September 22, 2015
Seeking Fragments of the Divine: The Lure of Passion Relics, the Power of the Cross


Cynthia Burack (Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies), October 7, 2015
"The Persecuted Church" and LGBTQ Human Rights Abroad


Barbara Haeger (History of Art), December 9, 2015
In the Wake of Iconoclasm: Justifying the Use of the Images in Christian Worship


2016 Lectures

Katherine Borland (Comparative Studies), February 17, 2016
"Miracle Stories and Material Signs: Everyday Discourses on Belief"

Peter Gottschalk (Wesleyan University), March 3, 2016
"Sidestepping Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism: Resetting the Terms of Secular Description"

David Brakke (History), April 13, 2016
"The Gospel of Judas: Gnostic Truth and Apostolic Heresy in Early Christianity"

Timothy Renick (Georgia State University), Keynote Lecture, "The Critical Study of Religion and the Future of the Humanities" Conference, April 28, 2016
"Why Study Religion? Rethinking the Value of the Religious Studies Major"

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