Janet Bennion of Lyndon State College discusses changing attitudes toward polygamy in a March 20 “Unusual Positions” lecture.

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ lecture series Unusual Positions: Controversial Approaches to the Study of Religion and Sexuality continues with Refusing Redemption: Making Catholic Sex Abuse ‘Our’ Story, a talk by Kent Brintnall of the University of North Carolina Charlotte, at noon Wednesday, March 4, in Room 221-222, Commons, 136 Central Ave.

Kent Brintnall of the University of North Carolina Charlotte.

Presented by the religious studies department, the women and gender studies program and the humanities division at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½, the lectures are open to the public at no cost. Attendees are welcome to bring a lunch to the noontime events. For more information, please call 207-786-8204 or visit .

In the third event of the series, Janet Bennion of Lyndon State College discusses changing attitudes toward polygamy in Progressive Polygamy in North America: Is Plural Marriage the New Civil Rights Frontier? at noon Friday, March 20, in Room 226, Commons.

Concluding the series is Christine Hoff Kraemer of Cherry Hill Seminary with the lecture Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective: Loving Touch as Divine Birthright at noon Wednesday, April 8, in Room 221-222, Commons.

“The relationship between religion and sexuality is complex, seemingly contradictory, often tense, yet full of possibility,” says series organizer Megan Goodwin, lecturer in religious studies and Mellon postdoctoral fellow in the humanities at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½. “Our speakers address religious traditions and sexual practices on the margins of conventional scholarship.”

Goodwin adds, “These aren’t formal lectures — instead, we’re hosting conversations on very interesting topics. It might not occur to people to use the Bible to think about the role of sexuality in contemporary international conflicts, or to think about consent by exploring Neopagan theology, but the series looks at exactly those sorts of issues.

“Our speakers are doing incredibly smart work and are wonderful conversation partners.”

An associate professor of religious studies at UNC Charlotte, Brintnall will examine the case of Paul Shanley, the most notorious defendant in the Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal, and ways the conversation about the scandal could be reoriented. Brintnall is an associate professor of religious studies at UNC Charlotte. He is the author of Ecce Homo: The Male-Body-in-Pain as Redemptive Figure (University Of Chicago Press, 2012).

Bennion will discuss her research among progressive polygamous families. In these women-centered Mormon fundamentalist households, the wives are well-educated and career-oriented, and the families follow a theology less focused on male supremacy. A professor of anthropology at Lyndon State, Bennion is the author of Polygamy in Primetime (Brandeis University Press, 2011).

Christine Hoff Kraemer speaks on April 8.

Kraemer argues that sexual desire is a powerful moral force that can anchor ethical systems. She combines queer theology, therapeutic bodywork and LGBTQ social justice advocacy to conceptualize the right to pleasure as a social justice issue. Kraemer is an instructor in the theology and religious history department at Cherry Hill and is the author of Eros and Touch from a Pagan Perspective (Routledge, 2013).

Unusual Positions is designed not only to support ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ classes and engage the local community, but also to broaden conversations about gender equality. “At a time when colleges and universities are so vocal about wanting to promote gender equality and consent on campuses, we need to be thinking better and smarter about sex,” says Goodwin.

“This series can, I hope, play a small part in pushing that thinking forward.”

The 2007–08 ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Lecture Series opens with a discussion of Africa in the modern world by sociologist Tukufu Zuberi at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 3, in ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½’ Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

The event is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call at 207-786-8293.

Zuberi is Lasry Family Professor of Race Relations, chair of the sociology department and director of the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. He has been a visiting professor at Makerere University in Uganda and at the University of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania.

An expert in African American history and U.S. society, Zuberi is also a co-host and investigator on the PBS television program “History Detectives,” a nationally broadcast series that uncovers mysteries of America’s past.

He has spearheaded a variety of major research projects including the African Census Analysis Project, which aims to increase the usefulness and availability of census data to promote a better understanding of African demography. He edited Demography of South Africa, the first volume of the series A General Demography of Africa.

An outspoken literary theorist and controversial critic of university politics, Stanley Fish will challenge the value of a liberal arts education in a talk titled Why Liberal Arts Education Cannot Be Justified at 4:15 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave., ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College. Sponsored by the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College Lecture Committee, the talk is open to the public free of charge.“We are always looking for speakers whose written work suggests that they are both provocative and serious,” says lecture committee member Michael Sargent, assistant professor of psychology. Fish’s writing indicates that he easily meets those two criteria. Following his talk, the committee hopes that a lively conversation will ensue.

For example, says Sargent, in a New York Times op-ed piece, “Why We Built The Ivory Tower,” Fish “contends that college and university faculty have no business attempting to mold student character nor to cultivate citizenship; instead, we should stick to what we as academics are trained to do: teaching and research.” Fish presents this position as a critique of the stance taken by many high-profile college administrators (such as former Harvard President Derek Bok), and then proceeds to make a case for it that is, in Sargent’s judgment, “clear and thoughtful.”

A widely recognized analyst of contemporary literature, Fish is considered a leading scholar of Milton. He has also written about legal theory, interdisciplinarity and issues pertaining to free speech and hate speech. Fish writes a monthly column on campus politics and academic careers for The Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Careers” section.

Fish’s work includes Doing What Comes Naturally: Change, Rhetoric and the Practice of Theory in Literary and Legal Studies, There’s No Such Thing as Free Speech: And It’s a Good Thing, Too and The Trouble With Principle.

Fish earned his Ph.D. from Yale University, taught English at the University of California at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University, and served as Arts and Science Professor of English and professor of law at Duke University from 1986 to 1998. He recently stepped down from his position as dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

The Fish lecture is the first event in a three-part series co-sponsored by the lecture committee. Next up is a talk called Globalization: Why It Has a Human Face, by Columbia University economist Jagdish Bhagwati at 7 p.m. Wednesday, March, 2, to be followed by a lecture titled Abrupt Climate Change, The Greenhouse Effect, and How We Can Make Money Cleaning Up After Ourselves by Penn State geoscientist Richard Alley at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 10. These lectures will be held in Chase Hall Lounge.

The academic-year series has featured individuals who represent a variety of religious traditions, disciplines and professions such as psychology, dance, peace activism and education. Speakers lead participants through a brief encounter with a spiritual practice or experience that has been important in their own lives.

For more information about the series, call 207-786-8272.