Religious Studies Department Santa Clara University

Perspectives

Contents

Speaker Series 2

Faculty Updates 3-5

CTSA Panel 3

Alumna Profile 3

RS Department Happenings 4

Faculty Senate Teaching Award 5

Upcoming Events 6

Newsletter Editors:

Adam Reiss & Olivia Skierka

I was invited to come to Santa Clara as chair of the Religious Studies Department

in 1994. The reason I accepted the invitation was that I was intrigued with the

ideal of combining rigorous academic standards with a commitment to motivating

students to live lives of integrity and service to others. Although I had taught at

Boston College while earning my doctorate, I had not encountered such an

emphasis on the Jesuit ideal of education. For those of you reading this, you likely

take Santa Clara’s “three Cs” for granted [competence, conscience, and

compassion]. Yet, my experience of public (and much private) higher education in

the 1980’s and early 1990’s was of a stress on competence alone. Coming to

Santa Clara was like breathing pure oxygen; it required some adjustment! For

instance, I didn’t fully buy the notion of the university’s being a “community.”

However, when my husband died in 1995, I learned how deep and welcoming this

community is.

Although as chair I taught less than I liked, I enjoyed the students in my

“Introduction to Religion” courses and the seminars on “Women and Religion.”

My initial fear of “required” classes quickly gave way, when (most of) the students

in those classes clearly wanted to be there. Similarly, my work as chair was

fulfilling. This was the largest department I had ever chaired and the only one

with a graduate program. The faculty was—and is—dedicated to both their

students and their scholarship. Since they are talented and generous, acting as

their advocate was never hard.

In 2000 the president—Paul Locatelli, S.J.—asked me to be provost. (The next

question is always: “What is a provost?” The short answer is: “A provost is the

person who oversees—in coordination with several vice-provosts, deans, and the

athletic director—the full experience of both undergraduate and graduate

students.”) Just as I had been excited by the opportunity to work on behalf of my

Religious Studies colleagues, I was challenged by the prospect of working with the

staff and faculty of the University as provost to further the good of our students.

It was a rewarding six years. As I look back, I realize that the reward lay in the

people. Paul Locatelli taught me that being provost was not a job or position, but

a commitment to others. I was already aware of the hard work of the faculty as

teaching-scholars. Now I witnessed daily the dedication of the staff to making

Santa Clara prosper. Lastly, I watched with delight as first-year students matured

over the four years, making their own contributions that would benefit future

Broncos.

What are my hopes for my department and the University? Simply, that they

continue to increase Santa Clara’s real endowment: the lived commitment to the

Jesuit ideal of the magis for our students and for themselves.

Professor Denise Carmody was interviewed by Religious Studies major Zena

Andreani ’12 for this story. Professor Carmody was named Professor Emerita at the

time of her recent retirement. We are very grateful for her significant service to

the university and ongoing contributions to the life of the department.

Winter 2012

The Religious Studies Department’s 2012 Speaker Series got off to a lively start during winter quarter. Reviving a practice from years past, the department arranged to offer five informal lectures by faculty members over the course of winter and spring quarters. The gatherings aim to build community among our majors and minors (and faculty), as well as invite other interested students to learn more about ways in which religious studies connects to relevant topics of common concern. The winter quarter offerings alone offer a glimpse of the wide-ranging research pursuits alive and well in the department.

On Thursday, February 2, Professor David Pinault shared images and insights from his December travels to the Indonesian islands of Java and Sulawesi (Professor Pinault regularly conducts fieldwork in Southeast Asia and the Middle East, and visited Egypt over the quarter break, as well). Co-sponsored by AIMES (the Arabic, Islamic & Middle Eastern Studies Interdisciplinary Program that Professor Pinault directs), this lecture, entitled "Ghost Monkeys, Trance Rituals, Eagle-Wing Mosques: Notes From the Indonesian Archipelago," addressed seasoned students and interested newcomers alike. Professor Pinault prefaced his scholarly travelogue with an overview of the geography and religious history of the region. Photographs of holy sites offered examples of how Indonesian Muslim communities frequently incorporate pre-Islamic (and other religious) narratives and rituals into their contemporary practices. Professor Pinault also discussed his work with the interfaith wildlife rescue NGO ProFauna Indonesia in defense of endangered animals that are the victims of international smuggling networks. He referred to the status of tarsiers, minuscule nocturnal primates that inhabit the forests of North Sulawesi. He drew particular attention to the gold mining activities of corporations that are endangering the tarsiers' habitat. Look out for an essay by Professor Pinault on his work with these (adorable) "ghost monkeys" in the spring issue of Perspectives. With the role of religion (and theology) in presidential politics making headlines amid a hotly contested Republican primary race, Professor James Bennett’s presentation in late February offered a particularly timely contribution. Posing the question “Would a Mormon President be a Christian President?” Professor Bennett shared his wealth of knowledge on the history of Mormonism, offering attendees a well-grounded sense of the often-misunderstood religion of presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, along with its potential impact on the American electorate. Suggesting his Mormonism is more of an issue for Romney with his Republican base than it would be in the general election, Bennett traced the history and practices of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to highlight the consonance of Mormonism with orthodox Christianity broadly construed, as well as distinctions between the two. He suggested these contested dimensions of Mormons’ religious identity as well as their national identity complicate “electability”

for Mormons like Romney and former contender Jon Huntsman. He concluded that while Romney may be the most religious presidential candidate since Jimmy Carter (in terms of level of formal involvement and leadership in his church), the former governor remains reticent to talk about his faith due to many of the tensions Professor Bennett’s engaging lecture traced.

Both presentations attracted standing room only crowds, drawing Religious Studies students and faculty, core students, outside faculty (Art History, Anthropology, History and Journalism), and recent alumni. While the presentations differed in methodology and cultural contexts profiled, common themes such as attempts to purify religions (from Islamist groups in Indonesia to Joseph Smith’s visions in western New York), religious identities forged amid struggles and persecution, and moral practices that mark identity recurred across the presentations. The global reach and

religious and methodological diversities the two inaugural presentations exhibit reveal a considerable strength of Santa Clara’s Religious Studies department. See page 6 for details regarding the three upcoming Speaker Series events in spring quarter—we hope to see you there! –Kristin Heyer

Religious Studies Department Launches Speaker Series

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Inter-religious Perspectives on Terminal Illness

Hoping to capitalize on and highlight the region's rich religious diversity, Professor

Teresia Hinga arranged for a special session at the Catholic Theological Society of

America meeting in San Jose last June. This consisted of a viewing and discussion of

"Hold Your Breath," a documentary that follows a Fremont resident and Afghan-born

Muslim through his diagnosis and treatment for cancer. The film captures the

complexity of communication across cultural, religious, and generational differences

in health care, especially in end-of-life cases. Professor Boo Riley drew upon his

connections in the local Muslim community to recruit panelist Dr. Sarah Azad. An SCU

alum, local physician, and speaker for Islamic Network Groups, she spoke from a

Muslim perspective. Dr. Azad joined Professor Hinga and Professor Karen Peterson-

Iyer (of the Religious Studies department and Markkula Center for Applied

Ethics) on the panel to draw out the ethical and spiritual questions posed by the

film, generating a lively and moving discussion among the CTSA participants

attending the session.

Alumna Spotlight

The Jesuit values of competence, conscience, and compassion have certainly had

a lasting impact on Religious Studies alum, Megan Raimondi (‘07). During her

time at Santa Clara, Raimondi was known for her commitment to social justice.

Years after her graduation, she continues to strive for the betterment of others.

Raimondi is currently doing behavioral health work in Cleveland, Ohio with

Hispanic Youth and Adults.

“I listen and love and hopefully help them get to a better place in their lives,”

Raimondi explained. According to Raimondi, she finds inspiration for her work

through her understanding of religion. “I think my life has been filled with trying

to understand religion's place. My faith, I would say, is huge and ever present,

especially in working with my clients and helping me to remain hopeful and

positive.” Raimondi remembered the many classes that she was able to take

during her undergraduate studies, especially those that pertained to gender

equality and social teaching. These classes offered Raimondi useful tools to

engage with her clients in a more meaningful way.

Raimondi remembers Santa Clara fondly, and urges current students to continue

asking questions of themselves and the world beyond graduation. Her parting

advice: “Stay hopeful! Beauty is everywhere.”

-Zena Andreani ‘12

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Faculty Updates On January 23, Professor David DeCosse published “Bishop’s Conscience Model Makes Light of Practical Reason” on the National Catholic Reporter website.

In October Professor Kristin Heyer delivered a paper at an international seminar on Catholic Social Thought and the Movements at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium. Her talk was titled “The Social Witness and Theo-political Imagination of the Movements: Creating a New Social Space as Challenge to Catholic Social Thought.” This February she published “Easy Targets: The Plight of Migrant Women,” on Commonweal magazine's web site, and in March she published “Reframing Displacement and Membership: Ethics of Migration,” in Theological Studies.

This past fall Professor Akiba Lerner presented a paper in D.C. titled “‘Otherness’” and Social Hope: Rorty, Buber and Levinas on Democracy and Redemption" as part of a panel titled “Levinas and Social Justice” held at the annual meeting of the Association for Jewish Studies. This winter his article titled 'The Dialectical Self: Liberal Autonomy and Religious Identity' is appearing in The Journal of Textual Reasoning. Professor Lerner is also continuing to work on his book tentatively entitled Redemptive Hopes: From the Age of Enlightenment to the Age of Democracy.

Professor Gary Macy, John Nobili, S.J. Professor of Theology, co-authored Women Deacons: Past, Present and Future with William Ditewig and Phyllis Zagano for Paulist Press. He also co-edited Companion to the Eucharist in the Middle Ages with Ian Levy and Kristen Van Ausdall for Brill Publications, contributing the introduction and the chapter, “Theology of the Eucharist in the High Middle Ages.” He also contributed the chapter, “Il modo di considerare le donne nei Commentari biblici (sec. XII-XIII),” in Donne e Bibbia nel Medioevo. The book will be published in Italian, German, Spanish and English. The Italian volume has been published, the others will follow shortly. His plenary address for the Academy of Catholic Hispanic Theologians of the United States, “Not by Bread (or Wine) Alone: Popular Practices in the Middle Ages and Colonial Mexico,” was published in the online Journal of Hispanic/Latino Theology. Articles by Professor Macy appeared in the Encyclopedia of Christian Civilization. He gave a paper, "Women Deacons in the Past," at Loyola University Chicago in October and a paper, "Ordination Rites for Women Deacons in the West," at the North American Academy of Liturgy in January in Montreal.

(Continued on page 4)

Above: Drs. Eduardo C. Fernández, Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University; Ana María Pineda, RSM, Santa Clara University; Elizabeth Conde-Frazier, Esperanza College; and Miguel A. De La Torre, Iliff School of Theology gather at Wabash College.

On the weekend of February 17-19, 2012, the members of the leadership team pictured

above (including Professor Ana María Pineda, RSM) met at Wabash College in Indiana, to

plan the innovative and ground-breaking two-year program for Pre-Tenure Latino/a Religion

Faculty in theological schools, colleges, and universities. The program will mentor pre-

tenure Latino/a faculty in learning to survive and thrive in pre-tenure academic institutional

realities. This program aims to assist pre-tenure Latino/a faculty to successfully attain

tenure and, in doing so, promote the future of the Hispanic community through their

scholarship and learning. RS department’s own Maria Socorro Castañeda-Liles was just

accepted as a participant in the workshop’s first cohort.

Above: Catherine Cornille of Boston College chats with students prior to delivering the 2012

Santa Clara Lecture, "Multiple Religious Belonging and Christian Identity." In addition to

delivering the lecture and some reflections on her vocation beforehand, Professor Cornille

visited Professor Sarita Tamayo-Moraga's "Ways of Understanding Religion” class and

discussed her article on "Empathy and Inter-religious Imagination." She also met with

members of the Religious Studies department, the Ignatian Center and more than a dozen

representatives from the recently formed Silicon Valley Interreligious Council to discuss

opportunities for Catholics to engage in interreligious dialogue. At lunch Professor Cornille

shared her work on editing a collection of Christian commentaries on the sacred texts of

different non-Christian traditions.

(From page 3) He also spoke on the Eucharist at the Faith Formation Conference in San Jose in November and on the ordination of women in the Middle Ages at the University of Nebraska in February.

In January Professor Jean Molesky-Poz attended the conference, Nature and the Human Soul, sponsored by the Center for Contemplation and Action at the Santa Ana Pueblo in New Mexico, with speakers Bill Plotkin and Richard Rohr. She attended this in part to design a new course in the Religious Studies Department. For the last three years, Jean has led an effort at Santa Clara University to examine and reclaim the life and charism of St. Clare of Assisi. In January she co-directed the third annual retreat, entitled Gazing at and Considering the Gift, with two Poor Clare sisters, Beth Lynn and Dianne Short, OSC for SCU community at St. Francis Retreat Center in San Juan Bautista. In March, she spoke on the emerging charism of Clare of Assisi for the Franciscan Vision Series at the Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley. At the end of March, she will present “Together with Those Who Hold the Incomparable Gift,” on a panel of St. Clare of Assisi for the Medieval Association of the Pacific (MAP) to be held at SCU. She also spoke to a group of international priests serving in northern California dioceses on Women’s Leadership in the Church at El Retiro Retreat Center, an event sponsored by Loyola Marymount University in January. In March, she will address parishioners at Holy Spirit parish in Berkeley, Engaging with Spiritual Practices.

On February 9, Professor Frederick Parrella spoke to about fifty alumni on the topic “What’s Love Got to Do with It: How Contemporary Marriages Survive.” He is also once again a faculty member of the Diocese of San Jose’s Institute for Leadership in Ministry, presenting four two-hour presentations on the Theology of the Church in February and March. On April 10, he will present a paper, “A Clash of Ecclesiologies,” and be a discussant at the Forum on the 50

th

Anniversary of the Second Vatican Council at Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont, California. On April 19, he will be on a panel which will provide a local perspective on ethics at end of life at Hospice Foundation of America’s (HFA) Living With Grief: End-of-Life Ethics Program, sponsored by Hospice of the Valley in San Jose.

(Continued on page 5)

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RS Professors Extend Their Classrooms to Sunnyvale Church

One of the great things about the Religious Studies department at Santa Clara University

is the generosity of faculty members in sharing their expertise outside the university

context. I have been a beneficiary of that generosity as I pursue one of my "extra-

curricular" activities. As an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), I have

been working with Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church, the congregation where my family and

I participate, in developing their Adult Education program. My colleagues in the Religious

Studies department have been an important resource in our efforts to create

intellectually robust and diverse curriculum for the courses, which meet for an hour on

Sunday mornings.

Faculty from Santa Clara University are consistently among the favorite teachers in the

program. Over the last two years we have had classes by David Pleins on the Genesis

debates, David Gray on Buddhism, Karen Peterson-Iyer on health care ethics, and Kristin

Heyer and William O'Neill, from the Jesuit School of Theology, on immigration. In the Fall

2011 we featured two more department members: Mick McCarthy S.J. on heresy in the

early church and Elizabeth Drescher on the spirituality of Americans who identify

themselves as "nones" on religious identification surveys.

Participants in the Sunnyvale Presbyterian Adult program are grateful for the willingness

of faculty to take time on a weekend to share their expertise. They are also grateful for

the variety it brings from the American religious history courses that I tend to teach! If my

colleagues’ experience is anything like mine, hearing from a different set of students

brings new perspectives for thinking about our research and our teaching. In the end, it is

a mutually beneficial experience.

-James Bennett

Professor Parrella Wins Faculty Senate Award

On September 13, 2011, Professor Fred Parrella was awarded the 2011-2012 Faculty

Senate Teaching Award. When asked about the most memorable moments in his 35

years of teaching at SCU Professor Parrella (pictured at right) responded, "Objectively it

was winning both the Louis and Dorina Brutocao teaching award from the university and

the David E. Logothetti teaching award from the College of Arts and Sciences.

Subjectively, every student who learns something in my course and every student who I

have taught 5, 10, 15, 30 years ago and who has kept in touch with me through the

years has been a memorable moment."

Professor Parrella reflected on his surprise when he received the award: "I was

president of faculty senate and was one of the early proponents of this award so that

the greater lights of the day on our faculty would be duly honored. I never thought of

myself as more than the lesser light of the night so it is especially rewarding to be

judged worthy by my colleagues."

When asked why he enjoys teaching, why he continues to do what he does today he

responded, “you never give up something you love and as long as you continue to love it

you should continue to do it.” He went on to explain, “My goal as a teacher has always

remained the same: to make my students theologically literate in a world that is

becoming increasingly less so; and to help them take what literacy they have and use it

as a lens into their own experience, their own human struggles, and their own religious

quest.”

Andrea Carrera (‘09) asked Professor Parrella if he was thinking about retiring. He

answered, “No not yet,” to which Carrera responded, “I'm glad. We will tell you when

it's time.” “I hope that I will know when it is time at least one quarter before my

students have to tell me,” Parrella added.

-Jahayra Molina ‘12

(From page 4) In December 2011, Professor David Pinault returned to Indonesia and gave a presentation at the headquarters of ProFauna Indonesia on the topic of how animal suffering and the question of the spiritual autonomy of animals are viewed according to the doctrines of Indonesia's various religious traditions. He also visited the kera-kera hantu ("ghost monkeys") that inhabit the forests of the island of Sulawesi and interviewed environmental activists seeking to halt large-scale gold mining undertaken by corporations a few miles from these forests. In January 2012, Professor Pinault also returned to Egypt to assess the status of relations between Muslims and the Coptic Christian minority population in the wake of the "Arab Spring" and Egypt's ongoing revolution. Two of Pinault's short stories, inspired by travels in Pakistan and Indonesia, have recently been accepted for publication in forthcoming issues of the magazines Front Range and The Bryant Literary Review.

Above: Faculty, administrators and students from the Religious Studies Department and the Jesuit School of Theology enjoy dinner and conversation prior to the 2012 Santa Clara Lecture.

Upcoming Events

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Panel Discussion The Future of the Catholic Church with Bishop Geoffrey Robinson

Featuring Religious Studies Professors Sally Vance-Trembath and Denise Carmody

and Psychology Professor Thomas Plante.

March 30th

, 5pm-7pm in Bannan Hall 127

Spring Speaker Series

Sacred Politics: Scripture & the Presidential Election.

Professor Michael McCarthy, S.J.

April 18th, 12pm-1pm in The Saint Claire Room (3rd floor of Learning Commons)

Apocalyptic Economics: The Bible and the 99%

Professor Catherine Murphy

May 2nd, 5:30pm-6:30pm in Alumni Science 120

Transubstantiation is Not a Train in Russia

Professor Gary Macy

May 16th, 12pm-1pm in Kennedy Commons

Santa Clara University

Religious Studies Dept.

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Religious Studies

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Perspectives. Please e-mail any

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