Sunday Lectures

Schedule

Samuel Huntington's famous "clash of civilizations" thesis claims that future global society will be marked by inevitable and violent conflict between people of different "civilizations", and that identity at this level of civilization will be the way most people prefer to define themselves.  For many, his thesis has come true—a quick reading of any newspaper’s headlines indicates deadly conflict along broad and deep lines of cultural identity.  But, is this inevitable?  Must this necessarily be the case?  Can there not be a dialogue of civilizations, or a relationship between civilizations, as well?  We will address this question in the lecture, drawing from Dr. Carroll's new book A Dialogue of Civilizations: Gulen's Islamic Ideals and Humanistic Discourse (Light, 2007), which will also be available for purchase and signing. 

Developmental psychology teaches that there are “developmental stages” through which each of us goes—infancy, childhood, adolescence, etc.  And, so it is with religious faith.  In this lecture we will look at the different stages in faith development and the parallel psychodynamic at the same stage of psychological development.  We will also draw implications from observations made on how religious institutions contribute to or impede one’s healthy growth to maturity.

About 250,000 German-speaking Jews left for the United States in the 1800s.  This was a very small number compared to their more than two million co-religionists from Eastern Europe who flocked to America at the end of the 19th century.  But it was the Jews from Germany and the Austrian Empire who played a crucial role in the formative period of American Jewry.  They laid down the foundation on which the later arriving immigrants could build.  A great part of what to this day constitutes the social character, the religious life, and institutional framework of American Jewish society was created by German-speaking Jews and their descendants.  Their impact on the general American society, especially in the economic field, was equally decisive. “Saks Fifth Avenue,” “Bloomingdale’s,” “Macy’s,” “Levi’s” as well as “Goldman & Sachs” or the “Lehman Brothers,” only to name a few, all had one thing in common: their founders had been born on German soil.  Proportionately speaking, in no other immigrant group have so many men ever achieved prominence so rapidly.  Ursula Gehring-Müenzel will explore what enticed them to leave their native country and what was behind their success story.

Joseph Mallord William Turner (1775-1851), considered the greatest British painter, is the subject of a February 10—May 18 exhibit at the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts.  This most comprehensive exhibition of his works ever to be shown in America includes some 140 oils and paper works that encompass all aspects of Turner’s protean output—landscape, seascape, historical and mythological subjects, and his unparalleled watercolors.  Many of the included works are on exhibit for the first time in American museums.  Organized by the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts in conjunction with the Tate Gallery, London, which has lent some 86 works from its Turner bequest, the exhibit will subsequently travel to the National Gallery, Washington, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.  These two Sunday lectures will cover the diversity of Turner’s vision and examine the complex character of this great artist, famous from his own lifetime to the present day.  (Note: There are two individual, different lectures in this series.  Participants may sign up for one or both.  Each is $25.) 

The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston will host a comprehensive exhibition from March 2 to June 28, 2008, that reviews the latest findings of the most famous of disasters, Pompeii.  Groups of the plaster casts of bodies and the objects found with them, brooches, rings, and other artifacts will be shown along with statues, mosaics, and frescos found on the site.  Pompeii is one of the longest excavated sites in the world yielding not only enormous amounts of objects illustrative of Roman daily life but also reflecting on the differing responses to disaster from the 18th century to the present day.  These two lectures will focus not only on the event and the site, but its influence on images and ideas from the 18th century Enlightenment to our own time, which has its own worldview concerning natural disasters and the human condition.  (Note: There are two individual, different lectures in this series.  Participants may sign up for one or both.  Each is $25.)   

Based on a lifetime of professional observations, research, and personal experience, Dr. Roberta Diddel long ago became fascinated with the question of why some people press on despite illness and disability, while others become stalled, inert, disconnected from and uncommitted to the future.  She has dedicated her career to figuring out why some people get stuck and what they might be able to do to change their behavior.  In her search, she discovered the work of a group of researchers in Positive Psychology, people such as Martin Seligman, C. R.  Snyder, and Howard Gardner, who have inspired a generation of researchers to study people who do well, rather than traditional psychological methods that focus on why people fail to thrive.  In this lecture, Dr. Diddel will use these studies as well as her personal experience and research to examine the effects of positive thinking.