The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics hosted Notre Dame assistant teaching professor, Jillian Snyder, to discuss her research on how William Shakespeare’s works have, historically, been perceived similarly to biblical texts. Snyder drew in a small but engaged audience, mostly composed of graduate students and faculty. 

The Department of English hosted “A Conversation on Religion and the Environment: Academia, Community, Activism” to discuss across disciplines the intersectionality of religion and the environment in the St. Louis and WashU communities. Speakers ranged from religious organization leaders to engineering and biology professors. 

The John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics hosted a discussion between New York Times opinion columnist Ross Douthat and Philip Zuckerman, atheist author and professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College, to discuss whether or not God exists, Oct. 16. 

WashU hosted a fireside chat with New York Times columnist David French in which he discussed the current state of free speech and the First Amendment both in the United States and on college campuses, Sept. 12.

Dozens of students convened in McMillan Hall for Charlotte Korchak’s talk titled “Concepts and Misconceptions about Israel, Zionism, and Jews.” Korchak, founder and senior educator at the Jerusalem Education Institute (JEI), led the discussion-based lecture focusing on understanding Zionism and the Jewish identity on March 27.

Two organizers of the radical performance activism group Earth Church, William Talen and Savitri D, gave a sermon and answered a series of questions posed by Professor Leigh Eric Schmidt in the second installment in the “Reverent Irreverence” series. The event was hosted by the John C. Danforth Center on Religion and Politics in Emerson Auditorium, Feb. 6. 

You have an awesome opportunity to learn from students who want to learn from you.

It is strange to simultaneously hold within myself this deep appreciation for the way I was raised and a sadness for my lack of cultural upbringing.

It wasn’t a conversion experience, and it didn’t need to be. I was content enough to learn about a religion and group I knew little about — to replace my own expectations of rigidity with real, complex and kind people of faith. 

Renne hopes that his conversion to Judaism will be over before college ends so that he can go on the Birthright trip to Israel as a college student. And his gender transition, he said, will be an ongoing process throughout life.