New! Video from the Dean’s Lecture Series is now available on Candler’s iTunes U.

In Fall 2011, Candler School of Theology introduced the Dean’s Lecture Series, featuring free, monthly conversations with influential figures in history, culture, academics, and ministry. Candler students and other members of the Emory community had the opportunity to hear from scholars as varied as a civil rights legend and an up-and-coming scholar in early Christianity. That diversity is maintained in the spring semester’s slate of speakers. 

Laura S. NasrallahLaura S. Nasrallah, professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School, delivers the first lecture of the series on Jan. 18. In ‘“You Were Bought with a Price”: Freedpersons and Things in 1 Corinthians,’ Nasrallah will explore three short sentences in Paul’s letter that reference slavery and emancipation. Using Roman-period archaeological and literary evidence, she will explain the social and material contexts of slavery and freedom in that age, as well as the significance of Paul’s language in a setting like Corinth, a colony largely settled by freedpersons. 

Jennifer GraberOn Feb. 15, Jennifer Graber, assistant professor of religious studies at The College of Wooster, will give a lecture entitled “The Search for the Christian Prison in the Early American Republic.” Graber received her Master of Theological Studies from Candler in 1999. Her book, “The Furnace of Affliction” (2011), explores evangelical Protestants’ efforts to make religion central to emerging practices and philosophies of prison discipline from the 1790s through the 1850, while her next project is focused on religious transformations prompted by conflicts between settlers and Indians in the American West.

Jehu HancilesJehu Hanciles will present “’Every Foreign Country a Motherland’: Immigration, Religion, and the American Church” on Feb. 22. A native of Sierra Leone, Hanciles is associate professor of the history of Christianity and globalization and the director of the Center for Missiological Research at Fuller Theological Seminary. His lecture will examine massive recurrent immigration in America’s religious development and missionary ethos. In 2008, Hanciles published “Beyond Christendom: Globalization, African Migration and the Transformation of the West,” which examines the interconnection between globalization, migration, and religious expansion. 

Sathi ClarkeSathi Clarke is the Bishop Sundo Kim Chair in World Christianity and professor of theology, culture and mission at Wesley Theological Seminary. He is a member of the Episcopal Church of South India. His lecture is titled "Mapping Trajectories of World Christianity: Post-colonial Mission, Global Theologies, and Biblical Trans-versions." In his career as an educator, Dr. Clarke served as professor of theology in Bangalore, India, for nine years and as a visiting contextual theologian at Harvard University. He has cultivated specialties in contextual theology, constructive global theology, and theology of religions. His current projects include tales of Jesus in Asia and competing religious fundamentalisms. NOTE: Clarke’s lecture will take place on Tuesday, April 3 at noon in Brooks Commons.

Curtis J. Evans will present “Beyond the Black Church” as part of the series on April 11. Evans is assistant professor of the history of Christianity at the University of Chicago Divinity School. His first book, “The Burden of Black Religion” (2008), argued that black religion was crucial in debates about the role of blacks in American culture, especially prior to realistic prospects of integration. 

Lectures begin at 11:00 a.m. and are held in room 252 in Candler School of Theology, with the exception of Sathi Clarke's lecture on April 3. A free boxed lunch is available to those who register one week before the lecture. To register, visit the Candler Calendar at www.candler.emory.edu/news/calendar/, navigate to the date of the event, and click “Sign Up.”