Center for the Study of Religion
Upcoming Events
D. T. Suzuki: Letters, Lectures and Legacies
Fri 11/13
Charles E. Young Research Library, Main Conference Room
This Workshop explores the cultural, religious, and intellectual legacy of Daisetsu Teitaro (D. T.) Suzuki (1870–1966), the preeminent figure who introduced Zen and Mahayana Buddhism to the modern Western world. This event brings together scholars, curators, and practitioners to discuss and reflect on Suzuki’s polymath contributions and their enduring, cross-cultural impact. Discussions will span a broad range of topics, including interpretations and evaluations of Suzuki’s Buddhist philosophy and translations, archival discoveries of his lecture manuscripts and interpersonal correspondence, and his connections with Japanese American communities and local religious institutions. Generously funded by the UCLA Center for Buddhist Studies, this one-day workshop will feature several highlights: a keynote address by Professor Richard M. Jaffe of Duke University; an exhibition of Buddhist archival materials, including artifacts and manuscripts related to Suzuki’s 1950-60s U.S. sojourns preserved in the UCLA Library Special Collections; and a roundtable dialogue bridging academic research with contemporary spiritual practice and community engagement.
Idol Talk: False Worship in the Early Christian World
Tue 1/12 • 4PM - 5:15PM PST RSVP
Royce Hall, Room 314
Are idols real? Do gods or demons dwell in them or around them? Or are they empty, devoid of existence except in the mind of the idolater? Ancient Christians and Jews gave very different answers to these questions. Sonja Anderson (UCLA, B.A.; University of Notre Dame, M.T.S.; Yale University, M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D.) teaches courses in ancient Christianity and Judaism, religious violence, gender and Catholicism, apocalypticism, and religion and medicine. Her current book project, Idol Talk: False Worship in the Early Christian World, will be published with Edinburgh University Press and explores how ancient Christians and Jews used idolatry polemic to claim a distinctive identity for themselves over against their pagan peers and how scholarly narratives have replicated this claim to uniqueness. Her training is in ancient biblical and parabiblical texts, but lately she is interested in the history of Catholic book publishing in 20th–21st-century America, and in being more anti-AI with every passing day. Her favorite place to be is in conversation with students and colleagues about the weirdness of how we imagine ancient religion. She is a Benedictine oblate of Saint John’s Abbey.