Newsletter
Church of St.Mary Zion with treasury of the Arc of the Covenant in the background, Axum, Ethiopia - photograph courtesy of
www.sacredsites.com and Martin Gray
Spring, 2006
Contents

Womanist Theologian Joins The Department by Anne Clamp
1

A New Islamicist in the Department
2

Elie Wiesel: Solomon-Tenenbaum Lecturer
3

Darfur Symposium
4

Traditionalism Conference In Canada by James McKenzie
5

Vatican Specialist this year's Bernadin Lecturer
8

Levine to be Hall Lecturer in March
9

Religious Studies Graduate Students 2006-2007
10

Shorts: Department News in Brief
11

Editor's Note
14
1
Womanist Theologian Joins The Department
By Anne Clamp
Since her arrival at USC in August of 2005, Dr. Stephanie Y.
Mitchem has been a tremendous asset to the Religious Studies
Department. She stresses the need to study all aspects of culture
in order to understand both religions and the plight of women,
especially women of African-American descent.
As the author of Womanist Theology, she advocates use of
theology as a tool to "liberate all people, regardless of race, gender
or class," as well as the importance of emphasizing the voices of
both black women and the black community. Dr. Mitchem currently
serves as a co-editor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion
and serves on the American Academy of Religion's "Status of Women in the Profession"
Committee. She is also the author of African American Women: Tapping Power and
Spiritual Wellness and has just completed her newest work, African-American Folk
Healing.
This semester, Dr. Mitchem is teaching an innovative course centered on the
anthropological study of religions through their healing practices, SCCC 362R/
RELG594H: Proseminar in Religion & Healing (Anthropology and Religion). In this course,
students are encouraged to study the faith healing practices of various religions and to
present their findings in formal presentations at the end of the semester. In her joint
appointment, Dr. Mitchem works with both the Religious Studies Department and the
Women's Studies Program.
2
A New Islamicist in the Department
Maybe it was the dream a year ago, or possibly the
welcome he received in this department on his first visit.
But upon taking his PhD in the interdisciplinary Human
Sciences program from George Washington University
in August, Waleed El-Ansary reckons he was meant to
accept the appointment at USC, starting this semester.
Born in Cairo, at age two he and his mother
accompanied his father on a Fulbright to Ohio State. At
six, he and his younger brother were moved to Louisiana
when his academic father took a position at Louisiana
State. Then came a move to George Washington
University, where El-Ansary was to earn a BA in Economics followed by an MA at the
University of Maryland.
His dissertation examines competing views of man and nature in mainstream,
"neoclassical" economic theory on the one hand, and Islamic economics on the other.
The contemporary literature in Islamic economics, he finds, often adopts uncritically the
key philosophical presuppositions of neoclassical theory, neglecting the view of man
and nature in the Islamic intellectual heritage. As time permits he will ready the work for
publication.
Following a story-book meeting and courtship, he married Eman in Cairo, dividing the
honeymoon between an elegant hotel room overlooking the Nile and the Pyramids and
then a fortifying umrah pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. They live with their five-yearold daughter, Noor, in East Columbia.
He is teaching the introductory course, RELG 110, together with "Introduction to Islam"
(Fall) and "Sufism" (Spring). His first interest has become interfaith dialogue, and he
acknowledges inspiration by his dissertation advisor, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who
lectured at USC several years ago. At the San Francisco conference with the Dalai
Lama in April he contributed a report on interfaith initiatives at al-Azhar University and
by Shaykh 'Ali Juma'a, currently Grand Mufti of Egypt.
3
ELIE WIESEL:
Solomon-Tenenbaum Lecturer
Elie Wiesel on the Koger Center stage. Behind him: Judith and Melvin Solomon, Bluma
Goldberg, Janet Kolender (wife of Pincus), and Alan Kahn
Moshe the Beadle explains to the twelve-year-old Wiesel, in Wiesel's memoir of Sighet,
Auschwitz, and Buchenwald, Night (1955, 1958): ". every question possesses a power
that does not lie in the answer." On the Koger Center stage in Columbia on September
12, Wiesel, now seventy-eight, embodied the playful-serious wisdom of his tradition for
a packed house. He was formally welcomed by President Andrew Sorensen, Dean
Mary Anne Fitzpatrick, and introduced by Carl Evans.
Guest Lecturer, Elie Wiesel with Carl Evans, Chair
Religious Studies
Many sponsors came forward to help
make possible this year's SolomonTenenbaum Lecture in Jewish Studies,
entitled cryptically, "Night," for the
benefit of students, faculty, and the
larger community. Renowned deathcamp survivor, prolific author, and
conscience of the Western world, Wiesel
was the seventeenth holder of the
lectureship established by the generosity
of Samuel and Inez Tenenbaum
originally and by Melvin and Judith
Solomon.
4
Darfur Symposium
The Elie Wiesel Solomon-Tenenbaum Lecture was preceded by an afternoon
symposium, "It's
Happening Again-Darfur!,"
held in the School of Law
auditorium.
Scott Straus of the
University of Wisconsin
joined Joel Samuels,
School of Law, Ann
Kingsolver, Anthropology,
and Ron Atkinson, History,
in a panel discussion
moderated by Charles
Bierbauer, Dean, College
of Mass Communications
and information Studies.
Solomon-Tenenbaum Symposium participants: Scott Straus
(University of Wisconsin), Ann Kinsolver (Anthropology), Charles
Bierbauer (Dean, Mass Communications and Information Studies),
Ron Atkinson (History), and Joel Samuels (School of Law)
5
Traditionalism Conference in Canada
A GATHERING OF HEARTS ILLUMINATING COMPASSION
By James McKenzie
The Dalai Lama (left) speaks, Jim Cutsinger (right), Maryam Al-Khalifa, and Mehdi Khorasani
listen, at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, San Francisco, April 15, 2006.
On September 23rd and 24th two professors from this Department, Dr. James
Cutsinger and Dr. Waleed El-Ansary, and a graduate student, James McKenzie,
attended a conference, "Tradition in the Modern World," hosted by the University of
Alberta and the scholarly journal Sacred Web. Dr. Cutsinger gave a presentation on
"The Noble Lie" and Dr. El-Ansary contributed remarks provisionally titled "A
Traditionalist Critique of Modern Economics" as part of a forum panel.
The conference was centered around the "traditionalist" school of thought which holds
that the major world religions contain immutable and universal truths that point to the
same absolute Truth. Traditionalism advocates the defense of these religions from the
influence of reductionism, relativism, and secularism. The purpose of the conference
was to promote these principles and their application to the modern world.
This event was guided by His Holiness the Dalai Lama as an
opportunity to examine and celebrate the focal understanding
that all world religions and faith traditions are devoted to
common teachings and insights. The panel participants and
500 invited guests were drawn from a diversity of religious
communities.
His Holiness Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama joined many of the nation's Muslim scholars
and leaders in trying to promote a better understanding of
6
Islam, which he believes has been wrongly demonized in America.
"Nowadays, to some people, the
Muslim tradition appears different,
more militant," the Dalai Lama said.
"I feel that's wrong. Muslims, like
any of the major traditions, have
the same message, the same
practice. That is a practice of
compassion."
The Dalai Lama also met privately
with Muslim leaders, urging them to
promote respect for other faiths within their own communities across the nation. Sheikh
Hamza Yusuf, a popular voice for Muslims in America, said the world's major religions
are struggling with modernity, but none more so than Islam. He said the challenges
before the world demand that people of all faiths reach out to others.
"The essence of pain and suffering in this world is ignorance," said Yusuf, co-founder of
the Islamic Zaytuna Institute. "We can no longer ignore each other as faith-based
communities."
The gathering was organized by a volunteer group of individuals, and several
organizations, concerned that religion has become more of a political tool than a
spiritual practice. It was held April 15, 2006 at the Intercontinental Mark Hopkins Hotel in
San Francisco. The event was to focus wholly on the commonality that unites us,
resisting political discussion and delivering a united message with one voice.
The afternoon Interfaith Panel Dialogue, headed by His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama,
was the highlight of the gathering. He joined in the interfaith dialogue with Muslims and
other faiths to foster mutual understanding and to celebrate the possibility of all people
uniting their voices to express a comon goal: a world without religious violence,
respectful of diversity. His Holiness was listening to and acknowledging the Muslim faith
and all other faiths in their core commonality, focusing on tolerance, respect, dignity,
harmony and compassion.
Participants in the conference included:
Robert Thurman: holds first endowed chair in Indo-tibetan Buddhist Studies in America
at Columbia University.
the Very Reverend Alan Jones: Dean of Grace Cathedral; Professor of Ascetical
Theology; Director and Founder of the Center for Christian Spirituality.
7
Huston Smith: University of California at Berkley and Thomas J. Watson Professor of
Religion and Distinguished Adjunct Professor of Philosophy, Emeritus, Syracuse
University.
James S. Cutsinger: Professor of Theology and Religious Thought, University of South
Carolina; noted writer on the sophia perennis and the perennialist school; authority on
the theology and spirituality of the Christian East.
Maryam Ishaq Al-Khalifa Sharief: PhD student at Al-Azhar University, Cairo; B.A. in
religious studies and history (Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) from the School of
Oriental and African Studies at London University; M.A. in Philosophy in Medieval
Arabic Thought from Oxford University.
Hamza Yusuf: founder of the Zaytuna Institute, which has gained an international
reputation for presenting a classical picture of Islam in the West, and which is dedicated
to the revival of traditional study methods and the sciences of Islam.
Rabbi Jack Bemporad: Director of Center for Interreligious Understanding; at the
center of many of the negotiations improving the relationship between Christians and
Jews.
Swami Prabuddhananda: Senior monk with the Ramakrishna Order; in charge of the
Vedanta Society of Northern California.
Tekaroniamekan Jake Swamp: Sub-chief for the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation;
representative on the Grand Council of the Iroquois Confederacy.
Ewert H. Cousins: Professor Emeritus at Fordham University; Co-convener for the
Commission on World Spirituality and Consultant to the Pontifical council on
Interreligious Dialogue; presenter to the Parliament of World's Religions in Chicago
1993, Capetown 1999, and Barcelona 2004.
8
Vatican Specialist this year's Bernadin Lecturer
This year's lectureship annually honoring the late Joseph
Cardinal Bernadin was held by the prize-winning Vatican
correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter, John
Allen. On November 8 Allen, author of three books on
Vatican affairs, offered a lecture entitled "Live From the
Vatican: Recent Issues for the Church" in Trinity
Episcopal Cathedral.
The following afternoon in Rutledge Chapel Allen
contributed to a symposium, "Religion and the Media,"
moderated by Brad Warthen, Editorial Page Editor for
John Allen, Vatican
The State. Other invited contributors: Cecile Holmes,
correspondent for the National
School of Journalism; Bobbi Kennedy, SCETV ViceCatholic Reporter
President for Education; Phil Linder, Dean of Trinity
Cathedral; and Charles Bierbauer, Dean, College of Mass Communications and
Information Studies
9
Levine to be Hall Lecturer in March
This year's holder of the annual Nadine Beacham
and Charlton F. Hall Sr. Lectureship in New
Testament Studies and Early Christianity, March 29
and 30, 2007, will be a self-described "Yankee
Jewish feminist." Amy-Jill Levine is the E. Rhodes
and Leonora B. Carpenter Professor of New
Testament Studies and Director of the Carpenter
Program in Religion, Gender, and Sexuality at the
Divinity School, Vanderbilt University.
In her books and articles, Levine addresses Christian
origins, Jewish-Christian relations, and sexuality,
gender, and the Bible. She is currently editing a
fourteen-volume series, The Feminist Companion to
the New Testament and Early Church Writing. Before
coming to Vanderbilt, she held a chaired
professorship at Swarthmore College and taught at
Amy-Jill Levine, Divinity School,
Duke and UNC/Chapel Hill.
Vanderbilt University
Levine's three lectures: "Jesus and Judaism," 10:00
a.m., March 29, Trinity Episcopal Cathedral; "Jesus and Women," 8:00 p.m., March 29,
Russell House Ballroom; and "Jesus, the Church, and the Academy," 10:30 a.m., March
30, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary.
10
Religious Studies Graduate Students
clockwise from top left corner in outer ring:
Joe McDaniel
Kristin Bochine
Elizabeth Leverette (photo by Amber McKenzie)
Scott Sargent: thesis on the topic of Christian Zionism and the State of Israel
Russ Swearengin
(Joe again)
Jason Owens (photo by Amber McKenzie)
Anne Clamp (photo by Amber McKenzie)
Jay McKenzie
Justin Simmons: thesis focuses on using Luke-Acts as a means for defining the Kingdom of God
Jordan Willis
Group shot in middle of photo (clockwise from top left): Joe McDonald, Jay McKenzie,
Elizabeth Leverette, Kristin Bochine, Scott Sargent
11
Newsletter: Shorts
Departmental News in Brief
Carl Evans
Carl Evans is a contributor to the new South Carolina
Encyclopedia and has been invited to contribute to the
Encyclopedia of the Jewish Diaspora. In August he
spoke on “Issues Common to All Minority Populations”
at the Minority Issues Conference of the SC
Commission for Minority Affairs. He was elected to the
boards of the Ecumenical Institute of the Carolinas and
of the SC Christian Action Council. He serves as vice
chairman of the SC Council on the Holocaust,
appointed by the Speaker of the SC House of
Representatives, and continues to chair the SolomonTenenbaum Lectureship in Jewish Studies committee.
Hal French
Hal French was invited for the third time to offer a five-day course, “Learning NonViolence from Gandhi and Friends,” in March 2006 at the Ammerdown Retreat Center in
Bath, England. On the same trip he presented three lectures (on Ramakrishna,
Vivekananda, and Gandhi) at a 75th anniversary gathering in celebration of the
founding of the World Congress of Faiths
in London. In the spring semester he
taught for the Honors College a
proseminar “The Cultural and Spiritual
Heritage of Greece and Turkey,” followed
by a Maymester on-site exploration. He
and his thirty students visited Biblical and
classical sites in Greece, then Ephesus
and the islands of Crete, Patmos,
Mykonos, and Santorini.
Cliff Hospital
Cliff Hospital and Hal French
In October 2005 Cliff Hospital was
presented the Distinguished Service
Award by the Alumni Association of Queen’s Theological College of Queen’s University
in Kingston, Ontario, “in recognition of outstanding service and commitment” to the
12
College. He taught at Queen’s, 1971-2001, serving as Principal of the Theological
College, 1983-1992, and as Head of the Department of Religious Studies, 1983-1990.
At a symposium honoring the work of Wilfred Cantwell Smith (1916-2001) held at
Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, he presented two papers: “Thinking about India: my
Debt to Wilfred Cantwell Smith” and “Transcendence: the Hidden Key”—to be published
in a forthcoming volume of proceedings edited by John Ross Carter.
Donald Jones
Donald Jones preached on “The Breath of God” at a Lenten
Service in March 2006 and taught a three-week series on the
Gnostic Gospel of Judas in October at Trenholm Road United
Methodist Church. He lectured on “Christianity and Emperor
Worship from Hadrian to Constantine” for high school students
attending Classics Day at USC in October. In January he will
conduct a workshop on Gnosticism for UMC Directors of adult
Christian Education in South Carolina, and he continues to
organize the annual Hall Lectureship, featuring Amy-Jill Levine,
March 29 and 30, 2007.
Kevin Lewis
With fellow board member Becky Lewis, Kevin Lewis presented a paper, “Games,
Newbolt, and the Girls,” at the Nineteenth Century Studies Association Annual Meeting
(March 2005). In April 2005 he presented “Hanan ‘Ashrawi’s Generosity to the ‘Other’:
An Exception to the Rule in Palestinian Poetry of Resistance,” at the English Dept.
conference, “Communities in Crisis: Isolation, Desecration, Transformation. In August
he won a First Place prize of $100 in the Lake Murray Magazine writing contest for the
poem “Easter Noon.”
On sabbatical in Jordan in Fall 2005,
he published an op-ed column,
“Whose America?” in The Jordan
Times (Sept. 26) and “Religion and
the Aims of Higher Education” in the
University of Jordan semi-annual
magazine, Campus News (JulyNov.). At the conference, “America
in the Middle East/ The Middle East
in America,” at the American
Lewis consults with graduate student, Elizabeth
University of Beirut in December he Kevin
Leverette
presented a paper, “Is ‘Civil
Religion’ Possible, Helpful?.” He published a review of John Barbour’s The Value of
Solitude: The Ethics and Spirituality of Aloneness in Autobiography in
a/b:Auto/Biography 20:1 (Summer 2005). In Spring 2006, Lewis gave a seminar on
“Deploying William James and Rudolf Otto: A Case Study in Religious Criticism,” for
PhD candidates in the Center for Study of Literature, Theology, and the Arts, Divinity
School, University of Glasgow (March 2) and a Wolfson College [Cambridge] Research
Colloquium, “American Cultural ‘Lonesomeness’: An Exploration of ‘Loneliness’
13
Transcended” (May 25). He presented a paper, “Religion in the Middle East: Implicit
and/or Invisible,” at the annual conference on implicit religion at Denton Hall, Ilkley,
Yorkshire (May 5).
James Cutsinger
Divine Wisdom (World Wisdom, 2006), the first of twenty-three
projected volumes-in- translation of the The Collected Works of
Frithjof Schuon, has been published by James Cutsinger. His
article, “Perennial Philosophy and Christianity,” appeared in
Christianity: The Complete Guide, ed. John Bowden (Continuum,
2005). In February 2006 he gave a workshop for the St. Helena
Convent in Augusta, GA, on “Perennialism and World Religions,”
and in November 2006, with Imam Muhammad Alhomsi, another
for St. Paul Lutheran Church, Aiken, on inter-faith dialogue. At
the Sacred Web Conference in Edmonton in September, he
presented a paper, “The Noble Lie.”
Stephanie Mitchem
Stephanie Mitchem made a second trip to Salvador, Brazil, this
past summer to continue research on women, religion, and
justice. Her host organization, the Instituto de Educacao
Teologica da Bahia (ITEBA), was founded by twelve churches
and religious organizations to promote understanding of the role
played by theology in constructing dialogical identities, to
contribute to the exercise of citizenship through critical,
humanistic education, and to prepare fully modernized
individuals and groups for the world of work in an ecumenical
spirit that respects cultural and religious differences.
Waleed El-Ansary
Waleed El-Ansary attended and spoke at the conference with
the Dalai Lama in San Francisco in April 2006. He presented a
paper, “An Islamic View of the Interconnections between
Religion, Conflict, and Peace,” at a meeting of Muslim scholars
at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, DC, in August
2006.
Professor of Theology Emeritus at San Francisco Theological
Seminary and Moderator of the 213th General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church (USA), Jack Rogers, gave a lecture, “Jesus, the Bible, and
Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church,” at USC on October 2, 2006.
14
Newsletter: Editor's Note
The reflections of professional religionists, like the beliefs and
practices of people of faith, are shaped in the evolving contexts
of particular sub-cultures and religious/philosophical formations.
This faculty exhibits healthful differences in framing the
relationship of transcendence and history, of the esoteric and the
exoteric. E pluribus unum. We salute the free agency of intellect,
spirit, and imagination playing its drama upon the stage of what
determinists figure as the social construction of reality.
In this smallest department in the College of Arts and Sciences
we honor, as well, the integrity of the religious traditions that
enrich each other and their adherents as they jostle in a shrinking
world. Our grad students flourish under more personalized
supervision. Our undergrad majors have doubled in the past ten
years. We continue to prove our market value.
Credit the leadership our chair, Carl Evans, has given us for the
past twelve years. Evans will step down in June 2007, and that
leadership will be missed.
Kevin Lewis