This article first appeared in the St. Louis Beacon, Jan. 3, 2012 - The Danforth Center for Religion and Politics at Washington University will kick off the New Year of free public lectures on Jan. 18 at 4:30 p.m. with a topic that been popular this year: "Muslim American Dissent and US. Politics Before and After 9/11."
Edward E. Curtis IV, a liberal arts and religious studies professor at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis is the speaker. He's the author of the 2010 reference book "Encyclopedia of Muslin-American History."
The building on the WU campus where the talk will be given will be announced later.
Curtis' talk is one of several public lectures in the spring semester, which concludes with a national three-day conference co-sponsored by St. Louis University and the Missouri History Museum.
R. Marie Griffith, the center director in her first school year in the post, announced that other speakers in the second semester include author Parker Palmer (4:30 p.m. Feb 10, an event co-sponsored by several university groups); Melani McAlister, (4:30 p.m. Feb. 16), associate professor of American Studies and Media and public affairs at George Washington University in D.C.; Jonathan Walton, a Harvard Divinity School social ethicist; and history lecturer Andrew Preston, of Cambridge University, England. All are free and open to the public.
The center's final event of the school year will be the three-day international conference co-sponsored by SLU and the Missouri History Museum on April 30 through May 2 "The Enlightenment Pope: Benedict XIX 1675-1758."
The lectures are free. The Benedict XIX conference requires registration and a fee. Its events will be on the Washington University and the Saint Louis University campuses and the History Museum. For more information go to the conference website.
Patricia Rice is a freelance writer who has long covered religion.