Religion & Philosophy News
Posted: 1/5/2012
"Robbins interviewed about book."
Alan Jay Richard of Realistic Living, a nonprofit organization seeking to foster new forms of communal religious practice interviewed
Jeff Robbins about his book,
Radical Democracy and Political Theology, for There is Power in the Blog, the blog for Political Theology for Equinox Press. Read the interview
here.
Posted: 10/28/2011
"Hubler presents at a conference"
On October 22, Noel Hubler presented a paper entitled, "Cognition as Psychic Motion in Plato's Late Dialogues" at the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy at Fordham in New York, NY. The greatest difficulty in understanding Plato's analysis of cognition as psychic motion is the ambiguity of the Greek term kinesis, which can either indicate active or passive movement. The soul's movements are not passive, rather they are "self-generated." Hence the soul moves not in the sense of locomotion, but as the active mover of the body.
Posted: 10/28/2011
"Sayers presents his research at the Annual Conference on South Asia"
Matthew Sayers presented on his research into the Hindu
pilgrimage place, Gaya, at The Annual Conference on South Asia held at the
University of Wisconsin – Madison, on October 23rd. His
presentation, entitled “The Development of Gaya as a Pilgrimage Site: From
Stray Reference to Mahatmya,” outlined the textual efforts to construct
Gaya as a pilgrimage place in the Hindu imagination in the early centuries of
the Common Era.
Posted: 7/14/2011
"Robbins' Book spotlighted in The Montreal Review of Art,
Politics, and Culture"
Dr.
Robbins’ most recent book, Radical Democracy and Political Theology, is
spotlighted in the August 2011 issue of The Montreal Review of Art,
Politics, and Culture at. Read the article here.
Posted: 6/27/2011
"Sayers Presentation at Patna University features in The Times of India"
Matthew Sayers was invited to present a paper at Patna University in Patna, India, during his visit to the region to do research on pilgrimage to nearby Gaya. Both Dr. Sayers and his colleague Dr. Abhishek Singh of Hamilton college were invited by the college to speak about their research on the dual pilgrimage cities of Gaya and Bodhgaya. The paper presentations received newspaper coverage in The Times of India. Read the article here.
Posted: 6/2/2011
"Death, Dying, and Beyond Resouce Page"
Students in Matthew Sayers' "Death, Dying, and Beyond" class collaborated to create a website that will be an online resource for people interested in learning about how people deal with death. Visit the website here.
Posted: 5/18/2011
"Religion and Philosophy students attend Postmodernism, Religion and Culture Conference"
Rhiannon Eckinger ’12, a double major in religion and philosophy, and Rachel Leer ’11, a double major in psychology and philosophy, accompanied Noëlle Vahanian to the Postmodernism, Religion and Culture conference at Syracuse University in early April. Read the full article on the Valley news page here.
Posted:
1/24/2011
"Robbins' opinion piece appears in the Patriot-News"
The Patriot-News for January 22 features an Op-Ed by Religion Professor Jeff Robbins. In the piece Dr. Robbins addresses the current situation in Tunisia. To view the Op-Ed, , click here.
Posted:
1/12/2011
"Religion & Philosophy Alumnus Publishes on Fulbright Work"
Carissa Devine ('09 Religion and Philosophy) has published an article in New Race.
The article includes insights gained during her time studying the experiences of the youth who live at Auroville,
a utopian community in south India created to "experiment with the possibility of human unity" as imagined by Sri Aurobindo, a Hindu saint who lived in the end of the 19th and into the early 20th century. To read the article, click here.
Posted:
1/5/2011
"Publications"
Dr. Noel Hubler has recently published two articles. His article “Aristotle on the Uses of the Political Sense of
Friendship,” appeared in the Spring 2010 edition of the International Journal of Decision Ethics. After an analysis of
Aristotle's text, Noel suggests ways Aristotle's theory of political friendship could be useful for contemporary political theory.
Noel also published "Moderatus, E. R. Dodds, and the Development of Neoplatonist Emanation," in Plato's
Parmenides and its Heritage, Volume 1: History and Interpretation from the Old Academy to Later Platonism and Gnosticism, (Society of Biblical Literature,
2010). He argues argue contrary to Dodds well-established argument that Moderatus
did not anticipate Plotinus' system of emanation.
"Conference Presentations"
At the International Society for Neoplatonic Studies, Madrid, June 2010, Dr. Noel Hubler presented "Plotinus on Cognition: Aristotle and the Stoics in the service of Plato," a study of the influence of
Aristotle's theory of truth and the Stoic theory of sense perception upon Plotinus' theory of cognition.
Noel also presented a paper entitled "Aristotle and the Identity of Truth,"at the annual meeting of the Society for
Ancient Greek Philosophy in New York, NY, October 2010. In it, he offered a new, more comprehensive interpretation of Aristotle's theory of truth.
Posted:
12/13/2010
"Religion and Politics"
A Valley News feature reviews the recent publication of Dr. Jeff Robbins.
Radical Democracy and Political Theology is Robbins' third book and engages the relationship between politics and religion. To read the article, click here.
Posted:
12/6/2010
"Studying Religion at LVC"
The
academic study of religion here at LVC was featured in an article posted on La
Vie Online this week. To read the article, click here.
Posted:
3/26/2009
The visit of the monks of the Drepung
Gomang Monastery to LVC was featured in an article on the website of the Lebanon
Daily News. To read the article, click here.
Posted:
11/3/2009
The Visit of the Tibetan Monks was
featured in the Lebanon Daily News online as well. A video piece
featuring chanting, commentary by both Dr. Sayers and the Geshe, as well as
clips of the mandala creation are shown. View the video here.
Junior Mike Ardoline, a
Philosophy/Physics double major, recently presented a paper at West Chester
University's 4th Annual Philosophy Conference: Faith Reason and the Between.
His paper, "Calculus, Generative Metaphysics and the Nothing,"
addressed the philosophical underlying of Calculus, specifically dealing with
the concepts of relational definitions and mathematical representation. From
these features, the philosophical power of Calculus is used to address the
problems of ancient Greek paradoxes, the problem of the Nothing, physical
misconceptions and the basis for a system of metaphysics. This paper is the
starting point for future work in the areas of mathematics, the Nothing,
relational definitions, philosophy of science and generative metaphysics.
Posted:
3/26/2009
Jeff Robbins will be
presenting a paper entitled "God is Green, or a Theology of
Indulgence" at the Interdisciplinary Colloquium on Theology and Energy
held at the University of Central Arkansas on February 20-21. Information about
the colloquium can be found here.
Posted:
3/26/2009
Jeff Robbinsh as been
invited by Professor John Burkey of Siena College to serve as the
"external scholar" for the Siena Symposium on Living Philosophers
during the 2009-2010 academic year. The seminar will be devoted to the work of
John D. Caputo (website).
Among the unique features of the Siena Symposium on Living Philosophers is the
intention to emphasize collaborative learning and extend the traditional
learning community. Approximately 15 students enroll in a yearlong 4-credit
seminar.
The students work throughout the year
with of a team of Siena faculty and the "external scholar" selected
for his/her special expertise in the field. The external scholar visits the
campus roughly twice per semester. As the year progresses students read,
research, discuss, and write in preparation for a final paper. The goal is to
bring them to a level where they can converse with the featured philosopher. In
April the featured philosopher visits campus a second time for a public panel
discussion with students as well as a second address to the community at large.
Jeff Robbins has been
invited to give a public lecture at The Tunisian Association of Constitutional
Law (website) for an
international conference being held on "Law, Power, and Religion."
The conference will be held in March 2009. Dr. Robbins will be speaking on
"The Role of Religion in American Political Discourse."
Posted:
3/26/2009
In October Noel Hubler presented
a paper entitled "Identity and difference: Aristotle's analogous notions
of truth" at the Annual Conference of the Society for Ancient Greek
Philosophy held at Fordham Unviersity
Posted:
3/26/2009
On October 16-18th, Professors Jeff
Robbins and Robert Valgenti led a group of students to the annual
meeting of SPEP -- the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.
The annual meeting, which is the largest meeting of for Continental philosophy,
will be held at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. Dr. Robbins will be
giving a talk entitled "Alain Badiou and the Secular Reactivation of
Theology" as part of a panel on the work of Badiou, while Pr. Valgenti
will be moderating a panel discussion on "Nietzsche and Religiosity."
Posted:
3/26/2009
On Wednesday October 8th at 8:00 pm Jonathan
Terry presented a paper on Black Liberation Theology at the Chambersburg
Torch Club. The Club requested the topic in response to the flack over Obama's
former pastor's embrace of the theology. Dr. Terry will be giving the basics of
Liberation Theology and making reference to James Cone's work to give an idea
of where Wright was coming from.
Posted:
3/26/2009
This September, Noel Hubler's
article "Locating the Cosmos in the Divine and the Body in the Soul: A
Plotinian solution to two of the great dualisms of Modern Philosophy,"
appeared in International Philosophical Quarterly.
Posted:
3/26/2009
On September 26th, Dr. Robert
Valgenti presented his research at the annual meeting of the North American
Society for Philosophical Hermeneutics, which met in Chicago at DePaul
University. His paper, entitled "The Forgotten Lineage of Hermeneutics:
Critique, Deduction and Principle Formation", explored the ways that a
valid theory of interpretation can provide more than simply relativistic
foundations for its claims to truth. Dr. Valgenti was one of eight presenters
at the conference and he hopes that this work will form the beginning of his
next major research project, which will explore the foundations for
interpretation in thinkers like Vico, Kant, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Gadamer.
Posted:
3/26/2009
On September 17th, Christopher Rodkey,
Lecturer in Religion, successfully defended his dissertation, "In the
Horizon of the Infinite: Paul Tillich and the Dialectic of the Sacred." He
will be awarded his Doctorate from Drew University this October. In the process
of finishing his dissertation, Professor Rodkey produced an intellectual
biogrpahy, which describes the intellectual journey that brought him to work on
the subject of his dissertation, Paul Tillich. This Intellectual Biogrpahy can
be found on the Religion & Philosophy Department's Student and Faculty Spotlight
page.
Posted:
3/26/2009
Matthew Sayers traveled to
Maryville College in Maryville, TN September 11-14th where he presented at the
Conference on the Study of Religions of India. The conference was dedicated to
Selva Raj, a widely respected scholar of Christianity in India, who
unexpectedly died earlier this year, and entitled Confounding and Contesting
Religious and Cultural Boundaries. Dr. Sayers' paper was entitled entitled
"Brahmanical and Buddhist Contestation over the Householder Ideal"
and highlighted the broader shared cultural religious practices of both Hindus
and Buddhists in the few centuries immediately before and after the time of
Christ.
Posted:
3/26/2009
We are happy to
introduce Dr. Matthew Sayers who has been hired as Visiting Assistant
Professor of Philosophy and Religion. Dr. Sayers comes to us from Austin, Texas
where he recently completed his dissertation "Feeding the Ancestors:
Ancestor Worship in Ancient Hinduism and Buddhism" at The University of
Texas at Austin. His area of specialization is the religions of ancient India
as revealed in the Sanskrit texts of the Brahmins and their interlocutors. He
is most interested in engaging the debate over the nature of the relationship
of Hinduism and Buddhism in the last few centuries of the Common Era.
He plans to develop the work of his
dissertation into a book on the ritual of shraddha the ancestral rite
shared by the religions of ancient India and expand his study of ancestor
worship to the later periods of Indian religious history.
His teaching interests include the
introduction to religion, comparative religion, death and dying, the problem of
evil, comparative myth, and the various religious traditions of India
specifically and Asia more broadly. During the fall 2008 semester he will be
teaching REL 110 (Introduction to Religion), REL 140 (Encountering World
Religions), and REL 252 (Indian Religions and Philosophies).
He is a self-described serial hobbiest,
but through the years baking and reading science fiction have been a constant.
Joining him in the move from Austin are his wife Margery and seven-year old son
Ze'ev.