Associated Students of the Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology: February 19: Arch & Vine

IN THIS ISSUE

Important Announcements
Upcoming Events/Deadlines
Calls for Papers

IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS

Arch & Vine Question of the Week
Answer the Question of the Week here! Your answers will help DSPT serve you better! Each week that you answer the Question of the Week, you will be entered in a raffle for some great prizes! Raffles will be held once or twice a month (more frequently the more people respond). Thank you to everyone who responded to last week’s Question of the Week! Your answers will help us greatly as we plan for this year’s summer session.
Calling All Singers!
If you are interested in being in the choir for the Tri-School Ash Wednesday Mass, rehearsal will be on Wednesday, February 25 at 11:30 a.m. (prior to the Mass) in the JSTB Chapel. The music will be very simple, probably chants or cantor call and response, so it’ll be very easy for everyone to learn.
Student Job Opening: Facilities Assistant
DSPT is looking for a student to assist with Facilities. This job would entail assisting with the cleaning and maintenance of DSPT. A detailed job description and application are available from Elissa at the front desk. Applications are due February 27, 2009 to Jeremiah Loverich! If you have any questions, please email them to Jeremiah at jloverich@op.dspt.edu.
Lose Your Bike?
A blue and silver bike has been locked to our bike rack since before the semester started. If this is yours, please move it soon so that other people can use the space – at times the rack gets full and other people have no room to lock their bike because this one is being stored here! If the bike is not moved soon, we will have to assume that it has just been "dumped" here and take measures to remove it, which may not be good for your bike or your lock!
DSPT Grants and Scholarships
If you are interested in receiving DSPT grants or scholarships for the 2009-2010 academic year, please note that applications are due in the Admissions Office by March 15, 2009. Even if you have already been awarded grants or scholarships, you must apply again each academic year. Students must be in a DSPT degree program and take at least 9 units each semester to be eligible for grants and scholarships. Questions? Stop by the Admissions Office!
Lenten Six-Week Series at Newman Hall: “A Pearl of Great Price”
Experience a deeper dimension of Christian life, teaching and prayer that has often been overlooked and neglected – a practical introduction to meditation in the Christian tradition and the significance of this practice for one’s life and faith. The one-hour candlelight meeting will include quiet music, a short teaching, and 25 minutes of silent meditation, followed by a question period for those who wish. This series will take place on six Monday evenings, beginning on March 2, 2009, from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. in the Chapel at Newman Hall/Holy Spirit Parish (2700 Dwight Way, Berkeley). This series is free of charge! For more information, call Jeannie Battagin at 510-849-2181.
On Facebook?
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UPCOMING EVENTS/DEADLINES

Friday, February 20

Last day to submit grades for Intersession and to make up Intersession incompletes.
Monday, February 23

Yuck, It’s Monday: Coffee, Bagels, Cream Cheese, and Time Together
Time: 9:00 – 10:30 a.m.
Location: GTU Student Lounge
Everyone knows that feeling when you wake up after a fun weekend and remember, “Oh yuck, it’s Monday!” So, the GTU Doctoral Students will be hosting “Yuck, It’s Monday” on the fourth Monday of each month in the GTU Student Lounge. Bagels, cream cheese, decaf/regular coffee will be available. Fredonia Thompson will be making the coffee – if the carafes of coffee or plates, utensils, etc. run out, let her know. You can also get hot water and tea bags on the second or third floor if you prefer.

John Searle’s 50 Years at Berkeley: A Celebration
Time: 2:10 p.m.
Location: UCB Maude Fife Room (315 Wheeler Hall)
A celebration of John Searle's 50 years of distinguished service to the UC Berkeley campus, with reflections by Tom Nagel, Barry Stroud, Robert Cole, Alex Pines, Peter Hanks, and Maya Kronfeld. For more information, visit: http://philosophy.berkeley.edu/events/detail/504

Authorizing Dissent, Attempting Godly Rule, Dismantling Central State Power: The Political History of Early (1630-1650) New England Revisited
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: UCB Moses Hall 201
To situate the political culture of early New England in the context of English politics of the 1630s and 1640s is to expose the radicalism of the colonists; and to recover the practice of scribal publication among them is to expose the possibilities for political dissent and debate.The lecture will be given by David D. Hall who is Bartlett Research Professor of New England Church History at Harvard Divinity School. He has written widely on religion and culture in the seventeenth-century Atlantic world, most notably Worlds of Wonder, Days of Judgment: Popular Religious Belief in Early New England (1989), and has also written widely in the field of book history, co-editing with Hugh Amory The Colonial Book in the Atlantic World (2000). His most recent book is Ways of Writing: The Practice and Politics of Text-Making in Seventeenth-Century New England (2008).

The Blood of Zechariah between Jews and Christians: Sacrifice as Murder from Late Antiquity to René Girard
A lecture presentation with Ra’anan Boustan (UCLA, Departments of History and Near Eastern Languages and Cultures).
Time: 5:00 p.m.
Location: Dinner Boardroom (GTU Library, top floor)
Ra‘anan Boustan received his Ph.D. from the Department of Religion at Princeton University in 2004. He teaches ancient Jewish history and the history of ancient Mediterranean religions at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research focuses on Jewish apocalyptic, mystical, and magical literatures and their relationship to rabbinic culture; on early Jewish–Christians relations; and on martyrdom and religious violence in Late Antiquity. His publications include From Martyr to Mystic: Rabbinic Martyrology and the Making of Merkavah Mysticism (Mohr-Siebeck, 2005) as well as a number of co-edited volumes, including a special issue of the journal Henoch titled Blood and the Boundaries of Religious Identity: Late Antique Perspectives on Sacrifice, Purity, and Atonement (2008) and Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (Cambridge University Press, 2004).
Tuesday, February 24

DSPT Mass & Lunch
Time: 11:10 a.m.

Theology of the Body Study Group (rescheduled from last week)
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: DSPT Conference Room
For more information, contact Ed Hopfner at ehopfner@oakdiocese.org.
Wednesday, February 25

Tri-School Ash Wednesday Mass
Time: 12:40 p.m.
Location: JSTB Chapel
For those who would like to be in choir, rehearsal will be at 11:30 a.m. in the JSTB Chapel. The music will be very simple, probably chants or cantor call and response, so it’ll be very easy for everyone to learn.

Emmaus Road Initiative Session: Why did it take the Crucifixion to save us?
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Location: DSPT Classroom 1
Perhaps the single-most important theological question in Christianity is: what is the relationship between the death of Christ on the Cross and the forgiveness of sins and the redemption of the human race? René Girard’s contribution to this question is indispensable to the task which the Second Vatican Council implicitly assigned to us, namely, that of developing a theological anthropology. In this session of the E.R.I. we will look to Girard’s work and suggest some of its surprising – and surprisingly orthodox – theological implications.The Emmaus Road Initiative presentations are made by Gil Bailie, an author, lecturer, and the founder and president of The Cornerstone Forum. Visit http://www.test-cornerstone.org/VENUES/Berkeley-Dominican-School.html for information on the Emmaus Road Initiative.
Thursday, February 26

Violence in the Household of God: Responding Faithfully and Effectively to Domestic Violence
Time: 1:00 p.m.
Location: PSR
A workshop by STAND! Against Domestic Violence’s Jennifer Joslyn-Siemiakoski. Contact wsr@ses.gtu.edu for more information.

Faith in Human Rights Workshop: Dialogue and Discussion about the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD)
Time: 7:30 p.m.
Location: Newman Hall-Holy Spirit Parish (2700 Dwight Way, Berkeley, CA)
Panelists: Imam Faheem Shuaibe (Masjid Waritheen, Oakland, CA), Pastor Phillip Lawson (East Bay Housing Organization; Jones Memorial Church); Deena Aranoff (Center for Jewish Studies, GTU); and William O’Neill (JSTB)
Opening Narrative and Respondent: Ella Baker Center (The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is a strategy and action center working for justice, opportunity and peace in urban America. Based in Oakland, California, they promote positive alternatives to violence and incarceration through our four cutting-edge campaigns.)

See the DSPT Academic/Events Calendar here: http://www.dspt.edu/docs/news/calendar_list.asp

CALLS FOR PAPERS

Call for Graduate Student Papers: The 5th Annual University of Chicago Divinity School Ministry Conference
“From the Ends of the Earth: Christianity and the 21st Century”
Conference date: May 1-2
Location: University of Chicago Divinity School
Keynote speakers: Kwok Pui Lan (William F. Cole Professor of Christian Theology and Spirituality at Episcopal Divinity School); William Dyrness (Professor of Theology and Culture at Fuller Theological Seminary); Betta Mengistu (President of the International Bible Society in Africa)
This conference will feature an all-student panel on Saturday. Student presentations will be fifteen minutes each, and Q & A will follow the presentations. This is an exciting opportunity for graduate students to reflect on ministry in an academic/seminary setting and to interact with recognized scholars and church leaders on issues of Christianity, globalization, localization, contextualization and ministry. We are interested in papers in the following four areas: 1. The Bible and Spirit in 21st Century Christianity 2. How Christianity affects and is affected by globalizing political and economic forces 3. "Authentic," "original," "local" or "indigenous" Christian expression and theology 4. How do/ought forms of Christian belief and practice around the world influence and affect one another? How is local belief and practice in the U.S. affected by other Christian belief and practice around the world? How should it be? Abstract and CV deadline: March 1. Please email CVs and a 300 word abstract of your paper to ministryconference@gmail.com (some bibliographic info would be helpful but is not required). The deadline for submission of your final presentation will be April 20. Conference Description: Christianity is no longer a religion dominated by the West. It is estimated that by 2050, at least four-fifths of the world's then three billion Christians will be of non-European descent. The implications of such statistics call for focused attention in the 21st century. With this conference we hope to address issues that arise from contemporary transformations in Christianity. How is the co-incidence of the post-colony with the failures of nationalism influencing new forms of Christian leadership? How, in turn, do developing practices of Christian organization demand and resist new approaches to cooperation and unity? Finally, how do these things influence and even produce new self-understandings for Christians in America? While building on important efforts of social scientists and missiologists, the 5th Annual Ministry Conference of the University of Chicago Divinity School will approach these topics with specifically ministerial and ecclesiological lenses. This conference seeks (1) to help deepen understanding of certain realities and potential futures of being Christian around the world for ministers, students and lay-persons as well as professional academics and (2) to equip the same with resources for engaging the issues of the conference further. Featuring speakers from a broad ideological and geographical spectrum, please join us for this engaging and provocative two-day event!