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Strategies for ‘Negro Advancement’: Booker T. Washington’s Up from Slavery vs. W.E.B. DuBois’s The Souls of Black Folk

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Although often pigeonholed as “African-American intellectuals”, Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. DuBois thought deeply about the nature of man and America when developing their programs for “Negro advancement”. This lecture will examine their analyses and conclusions as reflected in their two best-known works, Up from Slavery and The Souls of Black Folk, as well as consider how and why they arrived at what are often understood as diametrically-opposed and mutually-exclusive perspectives and programs — for African-Americans in particular and human beings in general Continue reading →

The Book of Job and the Invention of Faith

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This lecture will explore how the Book of Job transforms the Hebrew Bible’s concept of God (from a large-but-finite and explicable deity to an infinite and fundamentally inexplicable one) and therefore, the proper behavior of both humans and God in the relationship they share and the possibility of a covenant between them. Continue reading →

East is East and West is West? The Bible as an ‘Asian Classic’

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Despite its Eastern origins, the Bible is widely accepted as a foundational text of Western civilization. This lecture will uncover the Eastern roots of a “Western” classic and challenge common misconceptions about the Bible. What are the underlying assumptions that cause people to think of the Bible as a “Western” work? What problems do these assumptions create when we seek to understand the Bible and other texts related to it, such as the Qur’an? This lecture is an opportunity to explore a familiar text from a fresh perspective. Continue reading →

“Twin Sons of Different Mothers”: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict in Historical Perspective

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Despite occasional claims to the contrary, the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians (or, more generally, between Jews and Arabs or even between Jews and Muslims) is not ancient in origin. Rather, it is the modern product of the rise of conflicting Jewish and Palestinian nationalisms. In this absorbing presentation, Adam Rose will take you back in time to the origins of this modern conflict as he discusses the history of the region and traces the development of various forms of Jewish and Arab nationalism in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. You’ll be fascinated as Mr. Rose chronicles the major events in the conflict and presents different interpretations of “what happened and why.” And you’ll gain greater insights into the 1990s peace process that was supposed to end the conflict as Rose discusses what went wrong and how it led to the subsequent intifadas, as well as the state of the conflict today. If you’ve ever wished you had a clearer understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, this is one lecture you won’t want to miss. Continue reading →

The State(s) of the Union: Evolving Notions of ‘Nation’ in America’s Founding Documents

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Although there is a long tradition of projecting contemporary understandings of the American polity back onto its beginnings, a close examination of America’s “Founding Documents” reveals a range of notions about the nature of “America”. This lecture will survey some of the key documents and notions in an attempt to understand the documents themselves, the evolution of the concept of “America” and the vestiges of these various notions that survive to this day. Continue reading →

The Many Meanings of Meekness; Or, Taking the ‘Uncle Tom’ Out of Uncle Tom’s Cabin

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Despite the fact that “Uncle Tom” has become a negative cultural stereotype connoting a Black who is abjectly servile to Whites, a close reading of Uncle Tom’s Cabin suggests that Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom was no “Uncle Tom”. Indeed, imposing such a characterization on the novel’s protagonist undermines one of the central messages of the book. This lecture will examine the novel and the history of its interpretation as a means of deriving a fair reading of both the text and its key character. Continue reading →

Shakespeare’s ‘Letter to the Romans’: ‘Anti-Judaism’ (Not ‘Anti-Semitism’) in The Merchant of Venice

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Although The Merchant of Venice is today often perceived as “anti-Semitic”, a careful consideration of both the play and the label suggests that this is not so. Rather, Shakespeare’s play dramatizes both a critique of “legalistic Judaism” similar to the one made by Paul (who arguably lived and died a Jew) in his “Letter to the Romans” and an exaltation of “graceful Christianity”. As such, The Merchant of Venice can be properly understood as the “anti-Judaic comedy of Antonio” rather than as the “anti-Semitic tragedy of Shylock”. Continue reading →

Agent in Athens, Patient in Jerusalem: The Cosmic (Sense of) Self in Ancient Greek and Judaic Cultures

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One of the great insights of the modern era is that notions of what a “person” is, as well as notions about the “cosmos” those persons inhabit, vary from culture to culture. Indeed the two are linked. In this talk, we will explore the interconnections between cultural notions of “self’ and “cosmos” by considering the cases of ancient Greek culture on the one hand and ancient Judaic culture on the other. In each case, notions of creation were correlated with notions of the cosmos that in turn were correlated with notions of the nature of man and the nature of wisdom. In Athens, the cosmic (sense of) self was that of a cosmic agent, while in Jerusalem it was that of a cosmic patient. Continue reading →