Center for Religion and Civic Culture (CRCC)

Becoming a Saint, Twice: The Two Canonizations of a 13th Century Porter

Enjoy a wine tasting and scholarly discussion with Lester K. Little of Smith College, past president of the Medieval Academy of America.

The Interdisciplinary Research Working Group on Religion and Material Culture presents a program that includes a scholarly discussion of wine, wine casks, wine carriers and saints, and a sampling of the goods.

Refreshments will be provided (attendees must be 21 or older to be served alcohol).

Lester K. Little is Dwight W. Morrow professor emeritus and a senior fellow of the Kahn Liberal Arts Institute at Smith College. He is a former director of the American Academy in Rome, a past president of the Medieval Academy of America, and a past president of the International Union of Institutes of Archaeology, Art History and History in Rome. From 2000 to 2005, he served on the board of directors of the Commission for Educational and Cultural Exchange between Italy and the United States.

A specialist in the social history of religion and religious movements in the European Middle Ages, Little has published Nature, Man and Society: New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West (a translation of M.–D. Chenu, La Theologie au 12e Siecle) (1968); Religious Poverty and the Profit Economy in Medieval Europe (1978); Liberty, Charity, Fraternity: Lay Religious Confraternities at Bergamo in the Age of the Commune (1988); Benedictine Maledictions: Liturgical Cursing in Romanesque France (1993); and, with Barbara H. Rosenwein, Debating the Middle Ages: Issues and Readings (1998). His most recent publication is Plague and the End of Antiquity: the Pandemic of 541–750 (Cambridge University Press, December 2006); it is a collection Little edited of essays by 12 scholars on the history, archaeology and epidemiology of the so–called Plague of Justinian, the first historically documented pandemic of bubonic plague in history.

To reserve a place and receive the paper, click here.

Thursday 02/09/2012: 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM

University Park Campus Social Sciences Building (SOS) 250

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Religion on the Move: Material Culture and Popular Catholicism

A seminar features papers by Jennifer Scheper Hughes on the religious image in Latin American religion and Domino Torres on Irish and Chicana iconography in contemporary art.

Jennifer Scheper Hughes presents “Weeping Virgins and Perspiring Christs: The Religious Image as Agent and Subject in Latin American Religion.” Hughes is assistant professor of Religious Studies at the University of California, Riverside. Her research and teaching focuses on Latin American and Latino religions, religion and art (including especially religious images), the role of religion in colonialism and decolonization, Christianity in the Southern hemisphere, and comparative liberation theologies. Hughes’ first book, Biography of a Mexican Crucifix: Lived Religion and Local Faith from the Conquest to the Present (Oxford University Press, 2010), is a history of popular devotion to artistic images of the suffering Christ in Mexico.

Domino Torres presents “Transnational Connections Across Borders: Depictions of Irish and Chicana Iconography in Contemporary Works of Art.” Torres is a Ph.D. candidate in English at USC. Her research interests include theater, culture, performance, Irish drama, contemporary Irish theater and Irish and Chicana dramaturgy.

These lectures are part of Religion on the Move: Crossing Borders, Setting Boundaries, which is sponsored by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s Interdisciplinary Research Group. The seminar explores how the notion of diaspora has been reinvented in the 21st century, how tourists have revitalized certain forms of spirituality, and the significance of the explosion of Pentecostal Christianity in the developing world.

To reserve your seat and to receive the papers in advance of the seminar, RSVP by clicking here and completing the form.

Wednesday 02/22/2012: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

University Park Campus Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) 232

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Interdisciplinary Research Group Annual Showcase

Join the Center for Religion and Civic Culture for a luncheon and presentations by faculty and doctoral students who have received fellowships to pursue innovative projects in religion.

Each year, the Interdisciplinary Research Group offers fellowships for members of the USC scholarly community to do advanced scholarship in religion. Join Prof. Lisa Bitel, chair of the group, and past and present fellows for a luncheon and presentation.

In 2011, six faculty members received fellowships:

Darnell Cole and Shafiqa Ahmadi, USC Rossier School of Education
Matthew Gainer, USC Libraries
Jane Iwamura, Religion and American Studies and Ethnicity
Macarena Gomez-Barris, Sociology and American Studies and Ethnicity
Jason Glenn, History

The Interdisciplinary Research Group awarded advanced doctoral fellowships to the following:

Rebecca Cerling, History
Jeremy Glatstein, Art History
Bradly Nabors, Sociology 
Thien-Huong Ninh, Sociology 
Tasneem Siddiqui, American Studies and Ethnicity 
Mohamed Saleh, Economics

More information is available at crcc.usc.edu/irg.

Thursday 02/23/2012: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

University Park Campus Doheny Memorial Library (DML) 240

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Religion on the Move

A seminar features papers by Thomas Tweed on religion in motion and Rebecca Kim on Korean missionaries in America.

Thomas Tweed presents “Following the Flows: Studying Religion in Motion.” Tweed is Shive, Lindsay and Gray Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Tweed’s historical, ethnographic and theoretical research, which includes six books and a six-volume series of historical documents, has been supported by several grants and fellowships, including three from the National Endowment for the Humanities. His research interests include religion in the Americas, Catholicism in America, Asian religions in the U.S., Latino/a religion, religion and trans-nationalism, religion and geography, and method and theory in the study of religion.

Rebecca Kim presents “Saving the Whites: Korean Missionaries in America.” Kim is associate professor of sociology and the director of the Ethnic Studies program at Pepperdine University. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of California at Los Angeles. She has published on topics related to immigration, religion and the second generation. Kim is the author of God’s New Whiz Kids? Korean American Evangelicals on Campus (NYU Press, 2006). She is currently conducting research on Korean missionaries.

These lectures are part of Religion on the Move: Crossing Borders, Setting Boundaries, which is sponsored by the Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s Interdisciplinary Research Group. The seminar explores how the notion of diaspora has been reinvented in the 21st century, how tourists have revitalized certain forms of spirituality, and the significance of the explosion of Pentecostal Christianity in the developing world.

To reserve your seat and to receive the papers in advance of the seminar, RSVP by clicking here and completing the form.

Wednesday 03/21/2012: 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM

University Park Campus Ronald Tutor Campus Center (TCC) 232

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From The Ashes: The 1992 Civil Unrest and the Rise of Social Movement Organizing

Join the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity and CRCC for a daylong conference on the 1992 Civil Unrest.

April 29, 2012 marks the 20th anniversary of the beginning of the 1992 civil unrest in Los Angeles. And just as the media missed much of the real story then – portraying it as a "Black-white" or “Black-Korean” conflict, downplaying the pervasive economic distress that drove the unrest, and focusing on divisive racial politics in the immediate aftermath – reporters are likely to swoop into the city as they have on previous anniversaries, trekking to the communities hardest hit in search of continued conflict, tension, and poverty.

What they will likely leave out are the everyday efforts of grassroots organizers and ordinary residents to better their lives and the flowering of a set of vibrant, multiracial social movements that have brought the city and the region a living wage, a better transportation system, college prep in all our schools, a more welcome stance toward immigrants, and a set of community benefits agreements that have become a model for progressive America. And it is that story – how we rose as a region from contradictions to coalitions, from growing apart to standing together – that is relevant for a country still reeling from the deepest economic and political crisis in modern times.

Join us on Thursday, April 26th, 2012 for a look back and, more importantly, for a look forward at what the lessons of social movement organizing in Los Angeles might mean for a national agenda and the emerging social movement possibilities symbolized by (but not limited to) Occupy Wall Street.

The event is organized by the USC Program for Environmental and Regional Equity in collaboration with:

Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Community Coalition (CoCo), Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA), Labor/Community Strategy Center, Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE), Strategic Concepts in Organizing and Policy Education (SCOPE), and UCLA Labor Center.

The event is made possible with funding from the California Community Foundation, Ford Foundation, James Irvine Foundation, Liberty Hill Foundation, New World Foundation, Panta Rhea Foundation, Solidago Foundation, Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock, USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture, USC Dana and David Dornsife College, and USC Office of the Provost.

Thursday 04/26/2012: 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

University Park Campus Davidson Conference Center (DCC)