乐播传媒 is welcoming a large group of new faculty this year. Seventeen tenured or tenure-track professors will join the college over the course of the 2025-2026 academic year. 乐播传媒 News will introduce them in groups over this semester.  

Ifrah Shahi, assistant professor of biology

Focus of teaching and scholarship:

I will be teaching microbiology classes, and my research focuses primarily on bacteriology. In particular, my lab will be researching the bacteria Kingella kingae, which causes bone and joint infections in children. I, along with students in my lab, will be investigating how K. kingae responds to and behaves in the presence of factors it might encounter in the human body during the course of infection 鈥� factors such as components of blood and the extracellular matrix. In addition to working on these questions in the lab, students in my 鈥淟ab-Based Biological Inquiry鈥� classes will also start playing around with these ideas as part of their class research projects! 

What are you most looking forward to in the coming year at 乐播传媒?

I’m really looking forward to teaching new classes and new materials, as well as working with students in my lab and getting some fun research done. But more than that, I鈥檓 really excited about being a part of the 乐播传媒 community. Being at 乐播传媒 is a real throwback to my own time as an undergraduate in a small liberal arts New England college (Mount Holyoke College), and I鈥檓 thoroughly exhilarated about the opportunity to be for my students the same kind of a mentor that my undergraduate professors were for me.

What is your favorite part of teaching?

First and foremost, the best part about teaching is getting to meet new students 鈥� I always come out of a semester feeling invigorated by all the amazing student interactions, learning new things, and creating long-lasting connections with the students. Secondly, I always love the active part of teaching: figuring out new ways to teach science that interests, excites, and intrigues students. I am very fond of bacteria, and imparting that affection for microbes and microbial research to students is always a wonderful full-circle moment for me.

Anderson C. Moss-Weaver, assistant professor of religious studies

Focus of teaching and scholarship:

My teaching and scholarship are relatively wide. My research focuses on how 20th-century African American poets and novelists create Black religious worlds that are grounded in the creation of sacred Black collective memory and the mystical sensations and experiences of freedom. I often joke that I am really interested in how Black people imagine what liberation feels like, smells like, tastes, and sounds like. My research is partially interested in African-American uses of East and South Asian religious and philosophical thought for the purposes of thinking through liberation from unique and alternative angles apart from the standard Western canon.

Here at 乐播传媒, I鈥檓 excited to teach courses in African American religious traditions and a course on the concept of 鈥渟piritual but not religious.鈥� I also hope to develop a seminar that helps students think critically about the complex and intertwined history of American evangelicalism and Christian nationalism. Finally, I hope to integrate my passion for TTRPGs (tabletop role-playing games) and fantasy/sci-fi into a class focused on religion, worldbuilding, and speculative fiction. I hope that students can work together to build their own fantasy world while learning how authors, from J.R.R. Tolkien to Octavia Butler, created their literary worlds by drawing on mythology and religions from our own world.

What are you most looking forward to in the coming year at 乐播传媒?

You know, I went to a small liberal arts college when I was in undergrad, and I loved it whenever a professor would come to campus events and lectures; their presence really made the small college environment feel unified. So, I really look forward to doing the same for students here at 乐播传媒 College. In that sense, I鈥檓 excited to contribute to the unique intellectual and creative reciprocity between faculty, students, and staff that can be cultivated in a small college setting.

What is your favorite part of teaching?

Learning is a transformational experience; I really mean that! But that experience we call learning, genuine learning, is challenging to provoke, and I think the best way to do it is to think alongside my students. Where are they coming from? What are they bringing to the table? Excellent pedagogy requires a dedication to understanding your students’ interests, strengths, and areas where they need improvement.

When I know my students well enough, I can ask them a question in a way that I know will push them specifically to think outside their comfort zone or really boost their confidence. By getting to know my students 鈥攖hat is, by thinking and teaching alongside them 鈥� I can see those moments of learning. They’re striking. Moments that I might call epiphanic, or someone else might call a 鈥渆ureka!鈥� moment, or what most often creates the 鈥渙h wow!鈥� expression in the classroom. So, my favorite part of teaching, really, is learning.

Robin B. McDowell, assistant professor of environmental studies

Focus of teaching and scholarship:

My teaching and scholarship live at the intersections of several fields (environmental history, Black studies, and art and design) that, taken together, animate the dynamic space of environmental studies. My work explores historical dimensions of environmental racism and environmental justice for Black communities in south Louisiana, inspired by years of community organizing and work as a walking tour guide in New Orleans鈥� French Quarter. My source base is vast 鈥� archives, oral histories, earth sciences, graphic design, and multimedia art 鈥� and I try to share as much of that material as possible in my classes.This semester, I鈥檓 teaching 鈥淟ives in Place: Introduction to Environmental Humanities鈥� and 鈥淔ree The Land: Histories of Environmental Racism in the United States.鈥� We鈥檙e doing a ton of multimodal learning grounded in iterative design thinking. I can鈥檛 wait to develop new courses that convene in critical and creative studio models and collaborate with units across the college to not only talk about but practice interdisciplinary teaching.

What are you most looking forward to in the coming year at 乐播传媒?

To be honest 鈥� office hours! Since I did not come from a liberal arts undergraduate background, I am continually awestruck and invigorated by a campus culture in which professors and students form such rich relationships and really go on the college journey together. In just the first three weeks of teaching, I鈥檝e discovered that I have sailors, knitters, dancers, bird call enthusiasts, photographers, and watercolor artists in class. I am excited to learn more about the full range of activities that inspire my students.

What is your favorite part of teaching?

I love when students start to 鈥渢rust the process,鈥� engage with a method, activity, or concept that seems intimidating at first, and then completely surprise themselves! We all have ideas about our place in the world, our strengths and challenges, and the contributions we鈥檇 like to make to the world. But often, even for young people, how we approach these ideas may be shaped by a more siloed understanding of learning 鈥� and teaching!

By exposing students to a vast array of methods in an inviting classroom environment, I start to hear things like, 鈥淚 never thought of myself as a creative person, but collaging just unlocked ideas I never considered while reading the text!鈥� Whether it’s discovering a writer, thinker, or maker whose work shifts their perspectives on events in their own lives, or working on a project that unlocks a perspective they never knew they could express, students remind me to never stop approaching the world with wonder and openness.

Alison Melnick joined the 乐播传媒 religious studies faculty as assistant professor in August 2015. (Josh Kuckens/乐播传媒 College)

“I think that people often associate studying religion with practicing religion,” says Alison Melnick, “instead of thinking about religious studies in terms of understanding a cultural tradition or a society different from their own.”

But it鈥檚 in the latter sense “that religious studies is really useful for students, regardless of their major or what their interests are,” explains Melnick, who came to 乐播传媒 in August as an assistant professor of religious studies.

Because religion is central to many cultures, “the important part of religious studies is to give students a sense of cultural sensitivity and cultural literacy” that will serve them both at 乐播传媒 and thereafter.

Meet other tenure-track faculty members new to 乐播传媒 in fall 2015:

• Henry Boateng, mathematics
• Carla Essenberg, biology
• Leshui He, economics

Cultural literacy including media literacy, she notes 鈥� “helping students learn to critique what they see in the media, and to understand that there are impressions that they鈥檙e going to develop about religious communities that are very frequently skewed in one way or another.”

“We give them the tools to keep questioning what they鈥檙e exposed to.”

Melnick’s own academic experience demonstrates how powerful an exposure to unfamiliar cultures can be. She is a scholar of Asian religions 鈥� but she was a political science major when she signed up for the University of Michigan study-abroad program in China and Tibet that set her on her current course.

Thanks to that experience, “my entire concept of what I wanted to do with my life shifted,” she says. “In being exposed to and immersed in new cultures, you have opportunities to completely change your perspective.鈥�

Melnick’s study-abroad group visited Tibet and Tibetan cultural regions in western China. The following year she had the opportunity to repeat the experience, this time working with faculty mentors who guided her in creating an independent research project.

“I was traveling to different nunneries and talking to Tibetan nuns,” she explains. “Learning about their daily lives, learning about what their religious practice was like, what their access to religious education was. It was really interesting.”

In turn, Melnick aims to involve her 乐播传媒 students in independent research beyond the confines of campus. “I hope to take students with me into the field in the summer, or possibly Short Term, and work with them on research that I鈥檓 interested in, but also give them a chance to do their own research.

“The idea is bring several students with me as I travel to different monasteries or nunneries, introduce them to interpreters who might help them conduct interviews, and so forth.”

“I feel like 乐播传媒 is just a great embodiment of the liberal arts.”

As a researcher, Melnick says, “I鈥檓 most concerned with bringing forth the story of women鈥檚 lives in the Asian religious world, specifically in the Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist worlds. Especially in the Tibetan tradition, we have a fair amount of unstudied texts about women within Buddhist communities. Sharing those stories is important to me.”

She adds, “I鈥檓 very interested in the role that gender plays in religious institutions and how gender dynamics affect the creation of those institutions” 鈥� and ideally, Melnick would love to collaborate with scholars investigating gender roles within other religious traditions.

A second research focus within Tibetan Buddhism is hagiography. “It’s this fascinating literary genre that talks about the lives of saints,” she explains, “but it incorporates historical material, it incorporates miracles, visions, dreams, and all sorts of other things.

“It鈥檚 one of the most prolific literary genres in Tibet. So it can be useful for us to understand Tibetan history, culture, society, and the evolution of Tibetan Buddhism.”

Melnick was excited to hear about the religious studies opening at 乐播传媒, a school she has admired for its senior thesis program, commitment to environmental sustainability, and especially quality of teaching. “I’ve been blown away by what I鈥檝e heard about 乐播传媒 鈥� about how students and faculty engage with each other in the classroom and in independent research for students.

“I feel like 乐播传媒 is just a great embodiment of the liberal arts.”

With no religious studies major offered at Michigan at the time, Melnick graduated in 2003 with an Asian studies degree, and earned advanced degrees in religious studies at the University of Virginia, where she was introduced to religious studies as a discipline.

Melnick lives in Lewiston with her husband, Eric Dyer, who works for Whole Foods in Portland. They are avid paddlers, campers, and hikers, and Melnick also works with fiber as a spinner and knitter.

John Strong, Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies at 乐播传媒 and 2015 recipient of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

With the Shroud of Turin perhaps the most widely known example, religious relics are a familiar aspect of Christian worship. But relics play important roles in many faiths, and understanding those roles can afford insight into how a faith is regarded by both adherents and observers.

Buddhism is such a religion. And a 乐播传媒 professor of religious studies has received a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship to support research into ways in which Westerners, Buddhist and otherwise, have responded to relics 鈥� objects venerated as physical remains of the Buddha and of enlightened Buddhist teachers.

John Strong, Charles A. Dana Professor of Religious Studies and chair of the Asian studies program at 乐播传媒, is one of the 175 scholars, artists, and scientists to receive John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowships in 2015. (Two joint fellowships were awarded, making the total number of grants 173.) There were more than 3,100 Guggenheim applicants.

“Guggenheim Fellowships are reserved for scholars with exceptional creative ability,” says Matt Auer, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty at 乐播传媒. “John Strong checks that box with a bold penstroke.”

Strong, Auer says, “has long been an intellectual leader in the field of Buddhist studies, and the project that he’ll undertake is a logical sequel to his pathbreaking 2004 book, Relics of the Buddha, which considers Buddhist attitudes towards Buddhism鈥檚 own relics. The timing for the new project is perfect considering a surge of Western interest in Asian religions generally, and Buddhism specifically.”

Relics are omnipresent throughout the Buddhist world.

For Strong, the fellowship will support research and travel during the sabbatical year, starting in August, that he will dedicate to a book tentatively titled Buddhist Relics in Western Eyes.

“Buddhist relics are omnipresent throughout the Buddhist world,” Strong says. “They’re just everywhere. There are some very famous relics, but there are also lots of generic, run-of-the-mill relics.”

In Buddhism, relics are substitutes or surrogates for an enlightened teacher who is absent or departed, “whereas in Christianity, a relic is kind of a conduit to the living saint, or to Christ himself, in Heaven.”

The relics can include objects that a teacher is said to have used, or body parts such as bone fragments and teeth. Distinct to Buddhism are so-called ringsel, a Tibetan word referring to objects that resemble pearls, beads, or crystals, and are said to be found in the remains of an enlightened teacher or master after cremation.

As Strong explains, “Relics almost always have elaborate pedigrees associated with them. There are lineages that are legendary accounts of their transmission through the years. In Western China, there’s a famous finger bone relic of the Buddha.

“There’s a tooth relic pagoda in Beijing, so even the communist government is keeping these relics as part of their association with Buddhist countries in South Asia.”

Strong’s book project will trace the history of Western encounters with Buddhist relics through a series of episodes 鈥� beginning with the capture by Portuguese explorers of a tooth relic of the Buddha in India, and the Europeans’ public destruction of the relic as undesirable evidence of heathen religion.

The work will culminate with an exploration of the Maitreya Loving Kindness Tour.

Another section will look at 19th-century religious philosophers who understood Buddhism as a rational non-theistic religion. There was no place for relics in their view of Buddhism, and so they considered veneration of relics to be superstitious and ancillary to “real” Buddhist practice that, Strong says, “was all about meditation and mind development and achieving enlightenment.”

The work will culminate with an exploration of the Maitreya Loving Kindness Tour, an ongoing international touring show of relics of the Buddha and other Buddhist masters from India, Tibet, and China.

The Maitreya exhibition traces “a whole lineage of Tibetan teachers, starting with the Buddha and going through the centuries almost up to the present,” explains Strong, “including some famous teachers like Milarepa, who is said to have declared at the end of his life that he would leave no relics at all, yet here they are.”

Strong will do research at the Maitreya headquarters and archives in London, and attend some of the tour’s exhibitions in Europe. “I’m interested in trying to gauge people’s reactions to this display,” he says.

Strong’s research to date suggests the emergence of an unexpected kind of interest in Buddhist relics: In addition to practicing Buddhists who have a traditional understanding of relics, there appears to be an increasing number of Westerners who ascribe major life changes 鈥� such as a cure for chronic illness 鈥� to an experience with Buddhist relics.

“That all seems like something new in Western accounts of Buddhist relics,” he says.

In addition to Relics of the Buddha, Strong’s books include The Legend of King A艣oka (Princeton, 1983); The Legend and Cult of Upagupta (Princeton, 1992); The Experience of Buddhism (Wadsworth, 1995); The Buddha: A Short Biography (Oneworld Publications, 2001); and Buddhisms: An Introduction, slated for publication by Oneworld in August.

Strong came to 乐播传媒 in 1978. He holds degrees from Oberlin College, Hartford Seminary Foundation, and the University of Chicago, where he earned a doctorate in the history of religions. A specialist in Buddhist studies, he focuses on Buddhist legendary and cultic traditions in India and South Asia.

A scene from “12 O’Clock Boys,” featured at the Emerge Film Festival.

As the Emerge Film Festival returns to Lewiston-Auburn this Thursday, members of 乐播传媒 College will have important parts to play in the event’s second year.

“乐播传媒’ involvement with Emerge has become very diverse and extensive,” says festival adviser Jonathan Cavallero, a film expert and assistant professor of rhetoric at 乐播传媒.

“This year, 乐播传媒 students, alumni, faculty and staff are playing essential roles. They will serve on the Student Film Festival jury; moderate post-screening Q&As; design, manage and organize the festival鈥檚 technology needs; and sit on panels for post-film discussions.” Cavallero helped organize some of the faculty-led discussions that will follow screenings at the festival.

The festival runs from Thursday, April 9, to Sunday, April 12. Venues include the Franco Center, The Public Theatre, Community Little Theatre, Guthrie’s Independent Theater and Free Grace Presbyterian Church. VIP passes are $75, while regular film passes to all events are $35. At the door, tickets are $5 for matinee, $10 for evening聽鈥� dependent on available seating.

Students with valid student IDs attend for free. For a complete festival schedule and additional information, please visit .

“I鈥檓 delighted to see the involvement of 乐播传媒 people in Emerge,鈥� Cavallero said. 鈥淧artnerships and collaborations like these strengthen the bonds between our campus community and the larger Lewiston-Auburn community.

“By bringing a diverse set of films to L/A, Emerge enriches classroom experiences and creates a space where students with an interest in film can interact with working filmmakers.”

At 1 p.m. Saturday, April 11, at The Public Theatre, Emerge will present two thought-provoking Maine premieres, American Cheerleader and 12 O鈥機lock Boys, followed by a panel of filmmakers, professors and coaches for a deeper discussion of youth and American culture.

American Cheerleader follows the journey of two high school teams vying for the coveted National High School Cheerleading Championship. Overcoming challenges through discipline, dedication and teamwork, 12 girls from New Jersey and 12 from Kentucky redefine what it means to be an American cheerleader.

Set in Maine, “Bluebird” features John Slattery from “Mad Men.”

To Baltimore locals, the 12 O’Clock Boys are hooligans 鈥� a group of urban dirt-bikers that perform death-defying stunts at excessive speeds through traffic and impressively evade the hamstrung police, who must adhere to a no-chase policy to maintain public safety. Yet they are heroes to Pug, a bright, young adolescent living in the city’s dangerous Westside neighborhood with his charismatic mother Coco.

Stephanie Kelley-Romano, associate professor of rhetoric at 乐播传媒, will moderate the discussion of the two films with panelists Rebecca Fraser-Thill, lecturer in psychology; Aim茅e Bessire, visiting associate professor of art and visual culture; and Jennifer Roy, Lewiston High School cheering coach, as well as the co-directors of American Cheerleader, James Pellerito and David Barba.

鈥淭he partnership with 乐播传媒 faculty adds a dimension to the festival that we know will enrich the audience鈥檚 viewing experience,鈥� said Laura Davis, president of the film festival’s board.

She adds, 鈥淔or anyone who loves to watch a great movie and then discuss it, imagine having that insightful conversation with the actual filmmaker, crew and cast members. We are hosting more than 50 filmmakers at the festival, representing 90 percent of the films we are screening.鈥�

Emerge鈥檚 Student Film Festival, which presents the work of high school filmmakers, will be juried by 乐播传媒 students and faculty. The judges are Cavallero; Kelley-Romano; two members of the class of 2015, Taylor Blackburn and Julian Hackney; and Rosy DePaul of the class of 2017.

Accepted student films will be screened at 10 a.m. Saturday, April 11, at the Franco Center鈥檚 Heritage Hall.

The Emerge Film Festival is a nonprofit organization, established in Maine in 2014, that works with local and international filmmakers. Documentaries and short to feature-length films are presented during four days of screenings, panel discussions, and receptions.

鈥淚n addition to strengthening the bonds of community between those who live, work, and study here, Emerge makes Lewiston-Auburn a destination for visiting filmmakers and movie fans,鈥� Cavallero says.

鈥淏y sparking a love of film and an understanding of its social, cultural and political power, the value of the festival extends well beyond this weekend and well beyond L-A.鈥�

The Harward Center will be providing a free shuttle for 乐播传媒 students. The shuttle will make runs to festival venues departing from Chase Hall 3-6 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday.

John Thatamanil.

John J. Thatamanil, associate professor of theology and world religions at Union Theological Seminary, speaks about the pitfalls and possibilities of multiple religious identities at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, March 11, at 乐播传媒 College’s Benjamin Mays Center, 90 Russell St.

His lecture, Church Upstairs, Yoga Downstairs: The Challenges and Promise of Multiple Religious Participation, is presented by the Rayborn Lindley Zerby Lectureship on Contemporary Religious Thought, which honors Professor Zerby’s many years of service to 乐播传媒.

Originally scheduled for January, the talk was postponed because of weather. Admission to the lecture is free. For more information, call 207-786-8272.

Thatamanil, who was born and raised in South India but now resides in New York, studies and teaches comparative theology and religious pluralism. His work, which focuses on the Hindu-Christian and Buddhist-Christian dialogues, is driven by what he has described as “a basic commitment to a deeply metaphysical form of philosophical theology” that connects Christian and non-Christian religious traditions.

Thatamanil wrote his first book, The Immanent Divine: God, Creation and the Human Predicament, An East-West Conversation (Fortress Press, 2006), as a conversation between the eighth-century Hindu thinker Sankara and 20th-century Christian philosopher Paul Tillich. He argues that borrowing ideologies from both religions leads to a richer understanding of the divine presence in human life.

Thatamanil is working on his second book, Religious Diversity after ‘Religion’: Rethinking Theologies of Religious Pluralism, as well as serving as chair of the American Academy of Religion’s Theological Education Steering Committee. While he has practiced Christianity since childhood, he also defines himself as “an aspiring albeit infrequent practitioner of vipassana,” a form of Buddhist meditation.

The Zerby Lectureship on Contemporary Religious Thought was established with a gift to 乐播传媒 in 1965 and honors Zerby, a professor who devoted many years to the growth of 乐播传媒. He chaired the Department of Religion and Philosophy from 1930 to 1945. He served as director of the College Chapel (now the Peter J. Gomes Chapel) from 1945 until his retirement, in 1962, and was appointed dean of the faculty in 1958.

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

The 乐播传媒 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 乐播传媒, 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 乐播传媒. “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 乐播传媒 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.”

Marcus Bruce 鈥�77 marked his appointment as the first Benjamin E. Mays Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at 乐播传媒 with a lecture on Nov. 5 that probed the impact the Paris Exposition of 1900 had on the thinking and work of W.E.B. Du Bois, the historian, author and civil rights leader.

Mays Professor Marcus Bruce ’77 gives his lecture 鈥淭he Ambassadors: W.E.B. Du Bois, The Paris Exposition of 1900 and African American Culture.鈥� (Sarah Crosby/乐播传媒 College)

Joined by family, friends, faculty, staff and students, Bruce drew on his years of study into the American Negro Exhibit at the Paris Exposition of 1900 to reveal how Du Bois and his contemporaries wrestled with what it meant to be both American and African American in the early 20th century.

Bruce鈥檚 lecture was titled The Ambassadors: W.E.B. Du Bois, The Paris Exposition of 1900 and African American Culture.

This exhibit聽 鈥� a government-sponsored display of books, photographs, charts and artwork聽 鈥� was meant to illustrate the progress of African Americans since the Emancipation Proclamation. It was for the Paris exhibit that Du Bois wrote what is considered to be his most famous declaration: 鈥淭he problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line.鈥�

In describing Du Bois’ relationship with the exhibit, Bruce noted that “he knew the significance of the moment from a historical perspective. It was his defining moment, and the occasion of his self-fashioning. Whenever Du Bois would discuss the event in the future, he would describe it as his achievement alone, but the exhibit was not his sole creation.鈥�

“[Du Bois] knew the significance of the moment from a historical perspective. It was his defining moment, and the occasion of his self-fashioning.”

The Mays Professorship聽was established with a $1 million gift from former 乐播传媒 trustee James F. Orr III and his wife, Ann L. Orr, parents of Brooke Orr ’94. Mays, a 1920 乐播传媒 graduate, was a civil rights leader, mentor of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and former president of Morehouse College.

Bruce was officially appointed to the chair in 2012, along with five colleagues also receiving endowed professorships.

Chair of the religious studies department at 乐播传媒, Bruce teaches American religious history, religion and literature, African American studies, and American cultural studies.

He appears as a source in the new documentary Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, in which filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris examines how photography has affected the lives of black Americans.

Bruce said his research into the Paris Exposition has led him into fascinating conversations and exchanges with the descendants of the African Americans who organized and contributed to the Paris Exposition. And, he said, his research continues to unfold more than a decade after it began.

鈥淓very once in a while I stumble upon a great collection of material that can then make the picture fuller,鈥� Bruce said.

Marcus Bruce, Benjamin E. Mays Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies. (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

In a lecture celebrating his appointment as the Benjamin E. Mays Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at 乐播传媒, Marcus Bruce ’77 gives a lecture titled The Ambassadors: W.E.B. Du Bois, The Paris Exposition of 1900 and African American Culture at 4:45 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5, in Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk), Room G52.

The event is open to the public at no cost. A reception follows. For more information, please call 207-786-8371.

The lecture will examine a historic moment for Du Bois, a civil rights activist and author who cofounded the NAACP in 1909, and for African Americans and African American culture.

In a major turning point in his life and career, Du Bois, a 32-year-old sociology professor at Atlanta University in Georgia, traveled to the Paris Exposition of 1900 to witness the unveiling of the American Negro Exhibit.

This government-sponsored display of books, photographs, charts and artwork was created to show the progress of African Americans since the Emancipation Proclamation.

One of three exhibit organizers, Du Bois contributed a sociological study to the exhibit titled the “Georgia Negro” and curated a landmark collection of photographs of African Americans. It was also for this exhibit that Du Bois wrote what is considered to be his most famous declaration: “The problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color-line.”

Chair of the religious studies department at 乐播传媒, Bruce teaches American religious history, religion and literature, African-American studies, and American cultural studies. He appears as a source in the new documentary Through a Lens Darkly: Black Photographers and the Emergence of a People, in which filmmaker Thomas Allen Harris examines how photography has affected the lives of black Americans.

He is also a featured source in Joanne Burke’s 2012 documentary When African Americans Came to Paris. Bruce received a master’s degree and a doctorate from Yale. He returned to 乐播传媒 to teach in 1987.

Jay Michaelson gives the autumn 2014 Zerby Lecture at 乐播传媒.

An author, scholar and rabbi, Jay Michaelson discusses optimum ways to discuss Israel and Palestine in campus settings at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 29, in a 乐播传媒 presentation at the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

Michaelson’s talk is titled Multiple Narratives of Israel/Palestine: Or, Will Alan Dershowitz and Steven Salaita Ever Get Along? Open to the public at no cost, the Zerby Lecture is sponsored by the Multifaith Chaplaincy at 乐播传媒.

For more information, please call 207-786-8272.

Some of the loudest voices on Israel and Palestine are also some of the most intransigent, as pro-Israel and pro-Palestine activists often talk past, rather than with, one another.

At 乐播传媒, Michaelson will look at flashpoints of debate — around academic freedom, “pinkwashing” and the conflict in general — from the perspective of multiple narratives. Can American allies of Israel and/or Palestine understand the narratives of the “other side” in a way that advances conversations? What lessons can we bring from our own efforts at respectful dialogue?

Michaelson is a visiting scholar at Brown University, adjunct professor at Chicago Theological Seminary and director of the LGBT Global Rights Initiative at the Democracy Council.

His work has been featured on NPR, CNN and in The New York Times. He is a contributing editor to the Jewish Daily Forward newspaper and a weekly columnist for the Daily Beast. His influential article “How I’m Losing My Love for Israel” was the first major statement of the growing divide between American liberals and Israel. It won the Society for Professional Journalists award for opinion writing.

Michaelson is the author of five books and more than 300 articles on religion, sexuality, law and contemplative practice. His most recent book, Evolving Dharma: Meditation, Buddhism and the Next Generation of Enlightenment, was published in 2013 by North Atlantic.

His other books include God vs. Gay? The Religious Case for Equality (Beacon Press, 2012) an Amazon best-seller and Lambda Literary Award finalist; Everything Is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism (Trumpeter, 2009); and Another Word for Sky: Poems (Lethe Press, 2007).

The Rayborn Lindley Zerby Lectureship on Contemporary Religious Thought was established with a gift to 乐播传媒 in 1965. The series was initiated the following year by the late Samuel Miller, dean of Harvard Divinity School.

The lectureship honors Zerby, a professor who devoted many years to the growth of 乐播传媒. He chaired the Department of Religion and Philosophy from 1930 to 1945. He served as director of the College Chapel (now the Peter J. Gomes Chapel) from 1945 until his retirement, in 1962, and was appointed dean of the faculty in 1958.

Commonweal editor Paul Baumann P’14.

Paul Baumann, editor of Commonweal Magazine, offers the talk Liberal, Conservative or Just Catholic? Religious Identity in a Pluralistic Age聽 at 4:15 p.m. Monday, March 31, in Room G65 of Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

Sponsored by the Catholic Student Association and the Multifaith Chaplaincy, the talk is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact mpenderg@bates.edu.

Baumann will discuss how Catholics should negotiate current political and religious conflicts between the Catholic Church and the聽secular, pluralistic聽state.

Today, Baumann acknowledges, we live in a culture whose libertarian and neopagan excesses should rightly concern people of traditional religious faith. Many voices, both clerical and theological, tell us that Catholicism and liberal democracy are in fundamental conflict, and that only the church can safeguard human dignity and freedom. There is even talk of a so-called 鈥淲ar on Religion鈥� by the liberal state.

But God, Baumann insists, does not work only through the church, and we should resist the idea that only an 鈥渦nambiguous鈥� allegiance to the church is the answer. The paradigm that juxtaposes the church and the culture 鈥� what many influential church leaders insist is a choice between聽the culture of life and聽the so-called culture of death聽鈥� is too reductive, and too easily manipulated for questionable ends.

Catholics should resist arguments that seek to abolish the ambivalence we rightly feel about both the culture and the church. American democracy still has something to teach the church, and the church has much to teach the modern world.

Commonweal is the聽oldest independent聽lay-edited聽Catholic journal聽of opinion in the United States. It is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year.

Baumann joined the Commonweal staff in 1990 and was appointed editor in January 2003. Previously he worked as an editorial writer for a daily paper in Connecticut.

His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Washington Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, Slate and other newspapers and magazines. He has been interviewed on Catholic issues on 鈥�60 Minutes鈥� as well as other TV and radio programs.

Baumann is a graduate of Wesleyan University and has a master鈥檚 in religion from Yale. His daughter Rachel will graduate from 乐播传媒 in May.