Wendy Doniger: 2017 Distinguished Visiting Humanist
Wednesday, March 22, 2017 through Friday, March 24, 2017
5 p.m. - 3 p.m.
Hawkins-Carlson Room & Humanities Center, Rush Rhees Library
Lectures
The University of Rochester’s Distinguished Visiting Humanist for the 2016-17 academic year is Professor Wendy Doniger (Mircea Eliade Distinguished Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Chicago), who will be in residence from Wednesday, March 22 through Friday, March 24, 2017.
Wendy Doniger has taught at the University of Chicago since 1978 in the Divinity School, the Department of South Asian Languages and Civilizations, and the Committee on Social Thought. She is an extremely accomplished scholar of Sanskrit texts, mythology, and Hindu religious traditions who has particularly explored sexuality in myth and religion. Her work addresses literature, law, gender, and zoology, as well as cross-cultural themes such as death, dreams, and evil.
*Events are free and open to the public*
Parking will be available in library lot during both lectures
WEDNESDAY,
5:00 pm
The Subversion of Religion by Science in Ancient India, and The Subversion of Science by Religion in Contemporary India (Hawkins-Carlson Room)
6:15pm
Reception (Humanities Center)
THURSDAY, MARCH 23, 2017
10:00 am
Office hours (Humanities Center Conference Room C)
4:00 pm
Life of Learning: How My Mother (who died in 1991) Prepared Me to Confront Hindu Fundamentalists in 2010 (Hawkins-Carlson Room)
More about Doniger:
Wendy Doniger is the author of seventeen interpretive studies and many more translations and other publications, including the prize-winning The Hindus: An Alternative History (2010), as well as the acclaimed Asceticism and Eroticism in the Mythology of Siva (1973). Doniger holds seven honorary degrees, including one from Harvard, where she received her undergraduate and graduate training. She also holds a DPhil from Oxford University. She has been president of the American Academy of Religion and the Association for Asian Studies. Among her many honors and awards, the 2008 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion from the American Academy of Religion is especially notable.
More about the Distinguished Visiting Humanist Program: http://
These events are supported by:
the Humanities Center
the Office of the President
and the Susan B. Anthony Institute for Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies