Note from the Chair

By Paul Crowley

contents 01-02 Editor’s Notes, Note from the Chair

02-03 An Experience of Ordination

03-04 Discovering Ethnocentris- m in “The Islamic Jesus”

04-06 From Submissive to Sub- versive: Education in El Salvador

06-07 Local Religion Project

07-09 Faculty Doings

09-010 Summer Reading List

010 Announcements

editor’s notes

By: Jon Heit, Bryan Lorentz, Ashley Ator

This is it—our second issue of Perspectives. We do not believe that Perspectives has ever been mailed af-ter the end of the academic year, so we are happy to be the fi rst ones to provide such a summer surprise. We hope it fi nds all of you well (and perhaps specu-lating about why two Perspectives came out at the end of the year instead of in different quarters dur-ing the school year...). The articles in this issue have a particular focus: connecting one’s education to the world beyond the Department, as far away as India and as close as Daly Science 206. We hope you en-joy our contributing writers’ stories as much as we did.

Of course a litany of hardly suffi cient thanks is due to the many people who made this possible: to our fac-ulty advisor Professor Jim Bennett for his guidance, to Vicky the Magnifi cent who is the embodiment of that title, to Ashley Ator for her selfl ess work and outstand-ing artistic sense, to Fr. Paul Crowley for his words and aid as Chair of the Department, and fi nally, to our fantastic writers who wrote such marvelous pieces.

As Ashley and Jon depart the SCU Religious Studies Department, we’d like to say thank you, to everyone, one last time. This department, comprised of amaz-ing professors, mentors, friends, and cohorts, shaped our undergraduate experience. As we delve into the world outside Santa Clara, we will remember what we learned, academic and less so, from our time here. Try-ing to explain the feeling of gratitude at such a point of departure is surely diffi cult. So, instead of rambling more and saying less, let us just express ourselves with a deep and most sincere “Thank you, to all of you.”

With that, here’s Perspectives...

PERSPECTIVESReligious Studies Dept

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waiting to be written, and the boxes waiting to be packed.

And then I was reminded of a practice of The Baal Shem Tov presented during a lecture at UC Berke-ley a few weeks ago. The great Jewish mystic is known to have carried two cards on his person, one in each of his pockets. On the first was written: “The world was created for my sake.” On the sec-ond was written: “I am nothing but dust and ashes.”As a participant on the Antioch Buddhist Stud-ies Program last autumn, I chose to live and study for a semester in a Burmese monastery in Bodh Gaya, India. As a participant, I also chose to tem-porarily ordain as a Buddhist nun for one week. Of the thirty students participating on program, nine men and I chose to accept the opportunity to ordain.

In concrete terms, ordination meant watching my long hair fall from my head onto a white cloth in front of me. It meant placing my salwar kameez in a corner and dawning ocher robes instead. It meant agreeing, through numerous recitations in Pali, to abstain from 1) taking life, 2) from theft, 3) from sexual activity, 4) from incorrect speech, 5) from intoxicants, 6) from eat-

Fall 2005

An Experience of Ordina-tion

By Christine Bourey

When I was asked to write about temporarily ordaining as a Buddhist nun in India, I first hesitated. I thought about the many individu-als surrounding us who have accepted a life of renunciation, about the many individuals who understand the opportunities and challenges better than I. I thought about how difficult it would be to write about an experience that I can-not grasp intellectually, about all the research that I have done on the challenges of construct-ing and communicating the ineffable. I even thought about the books waiting to be read, the thesis ing after noon, 7) from entertainment (music, dance,

etc), 8) from beatifying the body (cosmetics, perfumes,

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In concrete terms, ordination meant watching my long hair fall from my head

onto a white cloth in front of me.

etc), 9) from lying on high or luxurious beds, and agree-ing 10) to extend metta (lov-ing-kindness) to all beings. It meant responding to the name Tusita (the Pali word for the heaven where the next Buddha, Maitreya, currently resides).

For me, ordination also meant learning how to walk in still-ness and in silence. It meant learning how to sustain inti-mate friendships while main-taining physical distance. It meant learning how to respond with equanimity to a Burmese pilgrim prostrate at my feet. It mean learning how to respond with equanimity to my anger, anger about the gendered na-ture of monastic practice, and to the anger of others, anger about the actions of the monastic com-munity to which I belonged.

Of course, in light of the laugh-ter and the tears, the challenges and the bliss of the past six months, ordination has come to mean something different to me today. Today, when I think of ordina-tion, I ask many questions: To what extent should we continue to engage a tradition when, in so doing, we be-come complicit in marginalization and discrimination? To what extent can tradition withstand innovation be-fore innovation destroys the integrity of the tradition?

I ask many questions such as these, questions that de-mand answers, and I ask many questions different from these, questions which evade answers. How do you answer the questions asked by the infectious, musical laughter of a Zen master sharing the ineffable secret of bliss? How do you answer the questions posed by the recognition of your self in a mirror, a mirror which reflects only the face that is temporarily your own?

These are questions to which I cannot begin to gener-ate answers, yet, to the extent that ordination demanded

that I enter into the vulnerabil-ity of the human experience, these are the questions that have come to occupy the fore-ground. As ordination opened my heart, it afforded me that opportunity to gently embrace silence and to cradle paradox, to experience the mind that perfectly comprehends the practice of the Baal Shem Tov.

On the first was written: “The world was created for my sake.” On the second was writ-ten: “I am nothing but dust and ashes.”

Footnotes:

1 Because the nuns under whom I ordained manage an orphanage for in Kathmandu for girls who would otherwise be sold into prostitution, they have made a concession for the tenth precept, which tradi-

tionally prevents monks and nuns from using money.

Discovering Ethnocentrism in “The Islamic Jesus”

By Chris Wall

Because I have received little exposure to the tradition of Islam during my Catholic education, I decided to take Dr. Pinault’s ‘Islamic Jesus’ class this spring. Personal-ly, I find cross-cultural studies fascinating. Encounter-ing another tradition often challenges me to reevaluate my own tradition. One of the things that most interests me about cross-cultural studies is ethnocentrism. The word ethnocentrism has a variety of uses, but I intend it to mean “the preferencing of one’s own cultural views over and against other cultures.” In social psychology, this phenomenon is known as “the in-group bias.” Ba-sically, one group considers itself superior to all other

On the first was written: “The world was created for my sake.” On the second

was written: “I am nothing but dust and ashes.”

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groups. From an outsider’s perspective, instances of ethnocentrism are often glaringly obvious, but for an in-sider, nothing could be more natural than ethnocentrism.

Like all religious traditions, Islam is prone to the pit-falls of ethnocentrism. During a visit to a local Muslim community, a man said to me, “All people are really Muslims.” I was shocked. I thought to myself, “Most non-Muslims would be amazed to learn that they actu-ally are Muslims.” How is a Hindu a Muslim? How is someone who has never heard of Islam a Muslim? How am I a Muslim? The man explained that to be a Muslim is to submit to God. He claimed that everyone is born in submission to God, but some people are corrupted by their culture. As they are corrupted, they grow away from their original submission to God. By claiming that all people are Muslims, this man also asserted the primacy of Islam as the one true religion. Any claim that posits one’s own religion as true and dismisses an-other’s religion as false is an example of ethnocentrism.

Looking at the ways in which Islam preferences itself over and against other traditions has spurred me to ex-amine my own culture. In what ways do we preference our own perspectives? To what extent do we fail to lis-ten to others because we have already decided that our

point of view is the only valid perspective? This self-preferencing happens not only on a cultural level but on an individual level as well. Dr. Pinault points out, “Mu-

hammad saw the world through his own eyes.” Similarly, we see the world through our own eyes. While we can understand other people’s perspectives, we are radically conditioned by our own cultural worldviews.

I have felt continually chal-lenged to remain open to the views of others. How might we begin to see not only through our own eyes, but also through the eyes of an-other? How might we main-tain our own perspectives and identities while valuing and understanding other cultures and traditions? How can we make room for the many voic-es? Ultimately, Dr. Pinault’s class has challenged me to

reevaluate my own tradition and my own thought processes. The class has challenged me to honor the differences between traditions and to respect the complexities that exist in cross-cultural studies.

From Submissive to Subver-sive: Education in El Salvador

By Heidi Kallen

One warm October night in El Salvador the electricity went out in my family’s house. From their reaction to the event I gathered that this happened often. The small children giggled and cheered in anticipation for the ad-ventures the darkness would bring. Six years old Dora ran into the house and brought out the oil lamp. Tri-umphantly in the dark she placed it carefully on top of an upside-down bowl on the table as her mom found a match to light it. We ate our dinner of tortillas and bean soup and sat playing marbles on the table, confined to the space the light touched. After two days I was fi-

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nally feeling content and comfortable with my family.

Soon the children went to bed and the house was quiet, except for the occasional call of the confused rooster in the yard. I sat, now alone with my new mom, surround-ed by the peacefulness of the night. I remember clearly how the soft orange glow of the lamp illuminated the leathery skin on her face, transforming it into a soft and young complexion, and for the first time, we began to talk. She told me about her about her family; her son in the States and the daughter she had lost to the war. Our conversation drifted to the weather and seasons of El Salvador. I explained to her how the climate at the equator was warmer due to the position of the earth and the sun. I bent down and picked up a small clear marble that had fallen on the dirt floor. Pinching it between my index finger and thumb, I circled it around the flame of the lamp demonstrating the earth’s movement around the sun. I felt like an explorer coming to a new world, sharing knowledge that no one had ever heard of before.

There was a magical feeling about our conversation. Two women from radically different parts of the world, each with different cultures, histories, and languages- one from the city, the other in the campo. As the night went on we continued to share our lives, indulging in the newness of our relationship and all we had to learn from each other. And then she asked me a question that I will never forget: “For how many years have you gone to school?” I began to count on my fingers the number of years that I had been in school. I stopped counting at sixteen. Nearly my entire life, I thought to myself. “Six-teen years,” I humbly responded, realizing what a privi-lege my education was. Her eyes widened as she nod-ded her head, surprised by the large number. Without thinking, I asked her the same question in return. Her facial expression dropped as she slowly shook her head with embarrassment; she hadn’t ever been to school, not even for one day of her life.

Experiences like these make me grateful for my educa-tion, especially the one that I have received at Santa Clara. However, this gratefulness often paralyzes me thus I am tempted to dismiss passively the chilling re-ality of injustice. Telling myself, “I am blessed, I am to receive an education,” but that “it is just a fact that the majority of the world is not able to go to school.”

This passive mentality of mine is radically up-set and transformed when it is confronted by the classroom. In the classroom, I am chal-lenged to be subversive rather than submissive.

Professors and peers shake me from this a pas-sive attitude as a response to the injustices of our world. In my religious studies classes, I am taught that being grateful is not enough. True it might be a starting place, but that there is more to understand-ing moral injustices than gratitude or even guilt.

In my religious studies class I read the works of Gus-tavo Gutierrez, Dorothy Day, Paulo Freire, and Henri Nouwen and these revolutionaries inspire me to see the world in a different way. They get inside me and move me to action. I find that my education forces me to face actively the radical poverty my family in El Salvador. In the place of gratitude and submission, I am moved to live in solidarity with the poor and marginalized and live as though their struggles are mine.

My freshman year, a good Jesuit friend told me that it is important to have one foot in the library and the other in the gutter at all times. Four years later, as I stare gradua-tion in the face, I humbly try to embrace this truth with my life. I will be leaving for Perú to for two years in hopes that my education will be transformed into action. His words resonate in my ears louder than ever. And with this, I would like to thank the Religious Studies Department for helping me reach a deeper truth and leading me to experiences that will forever affect both me and others.

The Valley of the Gods

By Stacy Rotta

The roots of Santa Clara’s Local Religions Project have grown deeper this past quarter thanks to the suc-cess of the Valley of the Gods lecture series. Every week, representatives from one of Silicon Valley’s vast array of religious traditions has shared their im-pressions of life in the valley, immigration and inte-gration issues, community outreach strategies, and most importantly added to the awareness and educa-tional enrichment of our campus community. The Local Religions Practicum class has worked in con-

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junction with the lecture series to develop further in-sight into the overall picture of faith communities and analyze religious trends here in the San Jose area.

Discerning trends and outreach programs helps us see how religious groups tie their localized congregations to the greater community. Examples of this type of in-volvement include the CHAM program, (Community Homeless Alliance Ministry) that is connected with Rev. Scott Wagers’ Evangelical Christian parish, and the annual day of service in which members of Imam Tahir Anwar’s South Bay Islamic Center participate. By catering to the needs of the poor in our community, religious institutions engage in acts of faith while si-multaneously increasing their visibility and impact in the valley. This allows for the possibility of honest per-spectives, good intentions, and inter-religious collabo-ration to emerge. Going along with this perspective, it is vital that religious groups attach a human face to their divinely inspired existence. Highlighting humani-ty draws religious persons toward one another, (regard-less of faith affiliations) and contributes to the growing interest in inter-religious dialogue. If faith communi-ties can come to embrace what each group does, even if discrepancies in belief systems are retained, large strides toward bridging religious gaps can be made.

Collaboration between religious groups greatly increas-es opportunities for inter-religious dialogue to occur. In fact, one of the strengths of the Valley of the Gods lec-ture series is its potential as a stepping stone toward increased dialogue in the community. At each meet-ing, a wide variety of different faith perspectives are represented in the audience and the increased contact and education motivates individuals to discuss religion openly. Many of the questions asked during the lec-tures push for religious comparisons to be drawn and most of the speakers are interested in discussing contact between religions. For example, Rabbi Sheldon Lewis spoke about the connections between Buddhism and Judaism, and Dr. Gurinder Paul Singh from the Sikh community shared his appreciation of Jewish, Chris-tian, Buddhist, and Hindi support in the construction of the San Jose Gurdwara (the new Sikh religious tem-ple). When each speaker truthfully expounds on their perspective of the larger community, we can begin to map out the problem areas in our quest to relate to one

another and then find effective, collaborative solutions.

Another challenge the lecture series explores is the

impact of immigration on religion and community. Most of the speakers expressed that differences in languages and customs pose a major challenge to es-tablishing strong community within the congregation; yet, all seem to have effective ways of dealing with the issue. For instance, St. Joseph’s Catholic Cathe-dral Basilica downtown holds masses in three different languages to best facilitate the needs of their expan-sive and diverse congregation. Also, religious com-munities have resources for assisting new immigrants and will often provide guidance and support to fami-lies who yearn to establish a new life in California.

Overall, the Valley of the Gods lecture series has greatly contributed to our knowledge of applied re-ligion in the community and holds great potential for encouraging inter-religious dialogue between the valley’s plethora of faith traditions. Thanks to

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the Religious Studies Department, the Local Reli-gions Project, and most notably Dr. Philip Boo Ri-ley for establishing this invaluable lecture series. We hope to see many similar opportunities in the future.

FACULTY DOINGS

Diane Jonte-PaceIn November, I delivered a paper at the AAR in San Antonio on “Psychoanaly-sis, Colonialism, and Mo-dernity.” Currently, I am working on two book-length projects: an edited volume called “Mourning Religion,”

and a co-authored book (with Peter Homans) on “The Rorschach, Religion, and the Psychoanalytic Cen-tury.” In addition, I was honored that the American Psychological Association nominated me for the Bier Award of Division 36 (Psychology and Religion).

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Margaret McLeanOne should always be leery of those little projects that will only take a day or two. My three short articles for “Religion in Ge-schichte und Gegenwart 4” morphed into a major Fall endeavor. Happily, the articles—“Behavioral Research,” “Behavioral Genetics,” and “Hered-ity” are now in the hands of the German editors. A common theological theme in these pieces is the tension between freedom and determinism. Also in the European mode was a review of Kevin Davies’ “Cracking the Genome: Inside the Race to Unlock Human DNA” for the journal History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences. Davies book is a fas-

cinating tale of genetic research from Watson and Crick to the Human Genome Project--a worthwhile read.

David PinaultAt the request of SCU’s International Programs Office, in September ‘04, I traveled for a “site assessment” of Antioch College’s Buddhist Studies Program in Bodh Gaya, India. In November I presented a paper at the Middle East Studies Association conference in San Francisco entitled “Pluralism, Communal Identity and the Uses of Moghul History: Contemporary Pakistani Views of Prince Dara Shikoh and Emperor Aurangzeb.”

Mick McCarthyIn October I presented at pa-per (“Religious Disillusion-ment in a Land of Illusions”) at the conference sponsored by the department celebrat-ing the centenary of Karl

Rahner. Since then I continue to think about disillu-sionment in many ways and am even proposing it as a lens for considering Augustine’s own theological de-velopment. Hence the RS seminar I taught this Win-ter, namely “Religious Disillusionment: Augustine

Fall 2005

^ The Valley of the Gods lectures brought together students and San Jose area religious leaders to experi-ence the great religious diversity of the Bay Area.

through Freud.” I also had the most amazing experi-ence in December. I spent 2 1⁄2 weeks in Benin, a small country in West Africa where my cousin, SCU 2002, is in the Peace Corps. Benin is not only the place from which slaves were shipped out, but it is the source of Voodoo. I had the chance to witness various Voodoo practices, in addition to spending Christmas Eve both in prayer at the Grand Mosque in the small town Djougou and at Midnight Mass at the Catholic Cathedral. I missed hearing them sing “Silent Night” but did enjoy at least three African languages. The next day I was presented to the local king of Djougou, before whom I prostrated myself even though I had no gold, frankincense or myrrh.

Fred ParrellaIn 2004, my paper, “Paul Tillich and the Doctrine of the Trinity: A Catho-lic Perspective,” appeared in Trinity and/or Quater-nity—Tillich’s Reopening of the Trinitarian Problem,

Tillich-Studien, vol. 10. I was also a busy traveler, going to São Paulo, Brasil in May to give two pa-pers to the Brasilian Paul Tillich Society: “Paul Tillich’s Life and Spirituality: Some Reflections,” and “Paul Tillich and the Body.” The papers ap-pear in both English and Portuguese in Correla-tio 6 (2004), html or pdf, at http://www.metodista.br/correlatio_06/artigos.php. I also published four short pieces, “Theological Perspectives,” in Lection-ary Homiletics in May 2004. My second trip was to Frankfurt, Germany in June where I presented a pa-per, “Tillich’s Christ and the Council of Chalcedon,” to the Tenth International Paul Tillich Symposium. The New Year appears just as active: The Trent Con-nection: Understanding Change at Vatican II, co-edited with an Introduction and a Conclusion with my friend and colleague, Raymond F. Bulman, will be published by Oxford University Press late in the year. I also went to Montpellier, France in April to giver a paper on “The Theologian as Preacher.” In June, four brief “Theological Perspectives” for Lec-tionary Homiletics will appear. I am also serving on a steering committee of four people to plan a ma-jor publication, a twelve-volume series of the Col-

lected Works of Paul Tillich, tentatively scheduled for publication by a major press beginning in late 2006.

David PleinsWe can’t rest on our laurels (or in a professor’s case our past books and articles). So, these days I’ve been trying to sort out my intellectual direc-tion after the last book. That book was devoted to various

interpretations of the Bible’s flood story. I opened a can of worms when I decided to delve more deeply into fundamentalist Christian interpretations of the flood. Looking into the 19th century background, I came to realize that conservative Christians were actually much more sophisticated about the relation of the Bible to science than their more recent creationist brethren. The more I have engaged the material from that the Victo-rian period, the more I have come to believe that a book dealing with the creation story would be of value. So, my focus through the past summer and fall has been to flesh out the initial chapters on the debates over the Bi-ble and science using Darwin’s letters as a focal point. He wrestles in curious ways with the moral dimensions of his biological mechanics, particularly in terms of the problem of human suffering and the role of happiness in the grand scheme of things. Needless to say, I’ll have my hands full for many years with this project!

Boo RileyI continue to develop the Lo-cal Religion Project, mak-ing contacts in the commu-nity and preparing materials for the initial roll out of the LRP web site. Highlights of that work include teaching a seminar on the local religious landscape in which students combined theo-retical readings with hands on field work to complete profiles on a very interesting collection of religious communities. Along with student work from the past year, those profiles are in the process of being edited for publication on the web site. One of the seminar students, Ashley Ator, an Art-Religious Studies dou-ble major, completed a photo-documentary project for the class, which she presented at the AAR region-al in March. I began a term on the City of Milpitas’

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newly established Ethics Evaluation Panel in Octo-ber; we heard our first case the day after the election.

Tennant WrightI taught Winter and Spring terms here at Santa Clara. Summer and Fall I teach the semester at the St. John’s Jesuit Junior College in Be-lize, Central America. I have taught various courses in Belize, but in recent years a

course in the religious and moral implications of some of the main local and world events. The course demands two brief essays each week and daily class discussion.

For many years I have worked in the prison ministry here in California and now in the Youth Facility (about 70 young men, 13 to 20 years of age) in the Belize Prison. Through weekly liturgies I am attempting to form a Catholic Eucharistic liturgy that responds to the needs and the attitudes of young Belizeans who are mainly without families, troubled and involved in various and often serious crimes, gangs and drugs.

Summer Reading List

The summer is certainly a time for students to break away from the classroom and the stress of the school year. But that doesn’t mean those inquisitive brains need turn off completely. While we duly encour-age our overstressed students to rest during the sum-mer months, we also gathered the following list of suggested books from the faculty. So, between jobs, internships, traveling, even naps, take some time to check out something from this list. Enjoy...

From Fred ParellaOliver Clement, The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts and CommentaryPaul Lakeland, The Liberation of the Laity: In Search of an Accountable Church

From Paul CrowleyJon Sobrino: Where Is God? Earthquake, Terorrism, Bar-barity, and Hope. Orbis, 2005

From Boo Riley

Thomas Lynch, Bodies in Motion and At Rest: On Meta-phor and Mortality (W.W. Norton & Company, May 2001) Thomas Lynch, The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade (W.W. Norton & Company, July 1997, July 1998)

Stephen G. Bloom, Postville: A clash of cultures in Heart-land America (Harcourt, 2000)

From Tenny WrightMarilynne Robinson, Gilead (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2004). Fiction: An old minister’s letter to his young son, rich in human insight and religious reflection.

Sue Monk Kidd, The Secret Life of Bees (Penguin, 2002). A short novel about ordinary life, death and religion among family, friends and strangers.

Jostein Gaarder, That Same Flower (Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 1998). Fiction: A letter to St. Augustine by his mistress and the mother of his son, Adeodatus, after she had read his “Confessions.”

Thomas Cahill, Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea: Why the Greeks Matter (Doubleday, 2003). History: A popular well-written and informed brief look at classical Greek history, culture, literature and art.From Cynthia BakerFiction: Starhawk, The Fifth Sacred Thing (Bantam, 1993) Any novel by Octavia ButlerSharan Newman, any of the Catherine Levendeur mystery novelsDaniel Quinn, Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit (Bantam, 1992)

“Non-Fiction” (very easy reading)Frances and Anna Lappe, Hope’s Edge (Putnam, 2002)Rodger Kamenetz, Stalking Elijah: Adventures with Today’s Jewish Mystical Masters (Harper San Francisco, 1997)Rodger Kamenetz, The Jew in the Lotus (Harper San Fran-cisco) Richard Elliot Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (Harper-Collins1987)

From John David PleinsJohn Shelby Spong, The Sins of Scripture: Exposing the Bible’s Texts of Hate to Reveal the God of Love (Harper-SanFrancisco).

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Os Guinness, Unspeakable: Facing up to Evil in an Age of Genocide and Terror (HarperSanFrancisco).

From Diane Jonte-PaceKen Bain, What the Best College Teachers Do, Harvard University Press, 2004

From Thomas BeaudoinJohn Noonan, A Church That Can and Cannot Change: The Development of Catholic Moral Theology (University of Notre Dame Press, 2005) Ladelle McWhorter, Bodies and Pleasures: Foucault and the Politics of Sexual Normalization (Indiana University Press, 1999) Neil Peart, The Masked Rider: Cycling in West Africa (Pot-tersfield Press, 1996)

From Michael McCarthyMarilynne Robinson, Gilead Marilynne Robinson. Farrar, Straus and Giroux (November 19, 2004)

From Catherine BellSuggestions sent to Amazon (i.e., least middle aged in taste):Orhan Pamuk, SnowMarilynne Robinson, GileadKaren Jay Fowler, The Jane Austen Book ClubCynthia Ozik, Heir to the Glimmering WorldAlan Hollinghurst, The Line of Beauty

Among the best books of all time:Wallace Stegner, Angle of ReposeAnne Fadiman, First the Spirit Get YouKazuo Ishiguro, Remains of the Day (better than the movie)Virgina Woolf, To the LighthouseKenzaburo Oe, A Personal MatterThomas Mann, The Magic MountainSimon Leys, The Death of Napoleon

Books that are merely very good:Jim Crace, Being DeadV Woolf, OrlandoItalo Calvino, The Baron in the TreesJM Coetzee, Elizabeth CostelloLarry McMurty, Walter Benjamin and the Dairy QueenHaruki Murakami, The Wind-up Bird Chronicle Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

Department Notes

*Our own Catherine Bell was named the 2004 Alumna of the Year by the University of Chicago Divinity School, where she received her Ph.D. in 1983. The award rec-ognizes what we at Santa Clara University have long known: she is an accomplished scholar, teacher, and administrator. The announcement cited her scholarly achievements, including her international reputation as a scholar of ritual and Asian religions, her honors for teaching here at Santa Clara, including the Bruto-cao Award for Excellence in Curriculum Innovation in 1994, and her service as chair of the Religious Stud-ies Department from 2000 to 2005. As Alumna of the Year, Bell joins a prestigious list of scholars who have shaped the field of Religious Studies over the last half century. On April 28th, she returned to Chicago to give her Alumna of the Year Address entitled “Theory, Palm Trees, and Mere Being.” We are all very proud of Pro-fessor Bell and this high honor she so richly deserves.

* The annual Religious Studies Banquet was a clas-sic RS event: light-hearted, just serious enough, and celebratory of achievement in and commit-ment to the work of religious and theological schol-arship. Here is a list of the annual award winners:

Religious Studies Prize: Jon Heit and Chris Wall Theodore Mackin, SJ Thesis Award: Pearl Barros Joseph Grassi Social Justice Award: Heidi Kallen Many Faces of the Divine Award: Jessica Rauff, Chris Wall Keys to the Kingdom Award: Jon Heit Bodhisattvas in Training Award: Chris Wall, Heidi Kallen, Ross Egge, Annie Selak. Also recognized were the following Theta Alpha Kap-pa (Religious Studies honor society) members: Kelly Burns, Brandown Dow, Louise Hills, Tiffany Tchoba-nian, Brandon Au, Everett Depangher, Stephanie Ed-wards, Andrew Guistini, Laura Keck, Elise Levine, Christiana Quattrocchi, Jennifer Vollmann, Michael Zo-zos, Tessa Baker, Anne Selak, Christine Bourey, Eliza-beth Lauck, Eryn Reyes, and Anne Thompson. Gradu-ating TAK seniors received scarlet honor cords (scarlet is the academic color for theology and religious studies).

Professor William Spohn, a dynamic member of our

department and an old friend to many members of the

faculty, died peacefully on Wednesday, August 3, 2005

of complications from brain cancer. Bill was born in

Washington, D.C. on June 7, 1944. He was raised in San

Francisco and entered the Society of Jesus, California

Province, in 1962. After serving in the Jesuit novitiate at

Los Gatos, Bill received a B.A. from Gonzaga University

in 1968, M.A. (1969) and Ph.D. (1978) from the

University of Chicago, and M.Div. (1974) and S.T.L.(1981) from the Jesuit School

of Theology at Berkeley. Well-known for his work in the fields of scripture and

ethics, Roman Catholic moral theology, and American philosophy and theology,

Bill served on the faculties of the Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley (1979-

1992) and Santa Clara, where he was director of the Bannan Center for Jesuit

Education (1998-2004) and held the Augustin Cardinal Bea chair in theology and

Christian ethics in our own department. A riveting teacher and a respected scholar,

Bill wrote widely on applied ethics, moral theology, and spirituality. He is the

author of the well-received Go and Do Likewise: Jesus and Ethics (1999). He

served on the boards at Georgetown University and Santa Clara, as well as the

Kaiser Foundation Northern California Institutional Review Board. Bill is survived

by his wife of nine years, Professor Martha Ellen Stortz of Oakland, and an

extensive family in the Bay Area, including his sister, Catherine Wolff, former

Director of the Arrupe Center. A beautiful funeral Mass was held at St. Ignatius

Church in San Francisco on Monday, August 8th. A memorial Mass will be held at

the Mission Church, Santa Clara, on October 3, 2005 at 5 p.m. All are invited to

attend. We will greatly miss his presence among us, and the tremendous impact he

had on fostering the overall academic excellence of the department.

Perspectives: Newsletter of the Religious Studies Dept. Fall 2005

PerspectivesNewsletter of the Department of Religious StudiesSanta Clara UniversitySanta Clara, CA 95053-0335

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