Heidi M. Ravven, professor of religious studies, gave an invited paper at the symposium, Spinoza: Feminist Perspectives/Aspects of Embodiment: The Madeline Renee Turkeltaub Memorial Symposium on Ethics on Feb. 7 at American University.

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Heidi M. Ravven, professor of religious studies, gave a paper, "What Maimonides and Spinoza Can Teach us About Moral Psychology and Agency," at the annual joint meeting of the Society for Jewish Ethics, Society for Christian Ethics, and Society for the Study of Islamic Ethics in New Orleans, Jan. 6-9.

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Heidi M. Ravven, professor of religious studies, gave an invited paper at the Association for Jewish Studies Annual Meeting in Boston on Dec. 21. The paper, "Reviving a Jewish Medieval and Spinozist Model of Moral Agency," was delivered in the session "Re-opening The Conversation Between Jewish Philosophy and Contemporary Science," of the Modern Jewish Thought and Theology section of the AJS.

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Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate presented the lecture "Interreligious Dialogue Through Visual Imagery: Jews, Muslims and Christians in Iberia" at the Cleveland Museum of Art, in conjunction with the Baker-Nord Humanities Center at Case Western Reserve University on Nov. 17.

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Professor of Religious Studies Heidi Ravven was a respondent in a discussion of Dr. Brian Johnson's “The Psychoanalysis of a Man with Heroin Dependence: Implications for Neurobiological Theories of Attachment and Drug Craving," published in Neuropsychoanalysis, 2010, 12 (2) pp. 207-215. The discussion took place on Nov. 17 at SUNY Upstate Medical University in Syracuse.

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Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate published an article titled “Getting Religion at the Cineplex” on the Annenberg School for Communication’s “Trans/Mission” website. He wrote about several recent films that “explore and provoke questions about what it means to be human.”

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WAMC/Northeast Public Radio in Albany will feature a reading by Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate on Tuesday, Oct. 19, as part of the public radio station’s Academic Minute. The new program airs each weekday at 7:37 a.m. and 3:56 p.m. on 90.3 FM in the Clinton area. Plate’s topic addresses the persistence of myth.

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On Monday, Oct. 4, nine Buddhist monks from the Gaden Shartse Monastery in Southern India performed an opening consecration ceremony of sacred dance and chanting in the Emerson Gallery atrium before beginning their creation of a sand mandala of compassion. This ancient tradition is a reminder of the Buddhist concept of impermanence.

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Visiting Associate Professor of Religious Studies S. Brent Plate presented a paper at the International Society of Religion, Literature, and Culture conference. Plate's paper, "Face, Ethics, Cinematics" was part of a panel that explored the ethical challenges that can occur in filmic close-ups, especially close ups of the human face. His paper brought work in neurosciences together with film studies and ethics to explore the topic. More ...

Assistant Professor of Religious Studies Erich Fox Tree has published a chapter titled “Global Linguistics, Mayan Languages, and the Cultivation of Autonomy” in the book Indigenous Peoples and Autonomy: Insights for a Global Age. More ...