Spring 2025 Upcoming Public Events, News, and Opportunities

Public Events

• March 17: Rabbi Sharon Brous on The Amen Effect
• March 27: Queer Jews: The Struggle for Judaism’s Straight Soul with Dr. Orit Avishai
• March 31: Lecture with Dr. Marla Stone
• April 6-11:?Culture of Encounter Ideas Festival (selected events below)
• April 6: Meet You at the Crossroads: A Salon Concert
• April 7: (Inter)religious Literacy & Interfaith Leadership in Higher Education
• April 7: Abraham's Bridge: Film and Discussion
• April 8:Interfaith Reflections on Beauty, Goodness, and Truth
• April 8: Interreligious Peacebuilding through Reparative Scriptural Reasoning
• April 9: Moral Realism and Relativism in Higher Education
• April 9: Religious Diversity and Interfaith Engagement in Healthcare Professions
• April 10: Exploring Hizmet Values: Bridging Interfaith Dialogue and Addressing Global Challenges
• April 10: Keynote Lecture: The Challenge of Interreligious Dialogue: How We Perceive and Misperceive the Religious “Other” with Dr. Marianne Moyaert

News & Opportunities?(scroll down the email for details on each item)

• Marianne Moyaert joins the JPC as scholar-in-residence from KU Leuven
• Report from Norway!?From Frozen Lakes to Frosty Fjords: Dialogue, Religious Diversity, and Leadership in Minnesota and Norway
• Undergraduate Opportunity: complete the Engaging Religious Diversity Certificate Program as an Interfaith Fellow
• Launch of new Holocaust and Genocide Studies Minor at St. Thomas
• JPC Director Hans Gustafson publishes new book on dialogue

Upcoming Public Events

Finding Forward: The Amen Effect with Rabbi Sharon Brous Monday, Mar 17, 2025, 7:00 pm James B. Woulfe Alumni Hall, Anderson Student Center, St. Paul Campus, University of St. Thomas

Join us for a conversation with Rabbi Sharon Brous and St. Thomas President Rob Vischer about exploring connection and community in a divided society.

Click here for all the details.

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Save the date!

Presentation with Dr. Marla Stone, historian of fascism Monday, Mar 31, 7:00 pm

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2025 Culture of Encounter Ideas Festival April 6-11, University of St. Thomas

The Festival brings together community members, Minnesotans, global thinkers, students, and cultural enthusiasts to engage diverse perspectives, foster cross-cultural dialogue, and build leadership for the common public goods.

• Festival Homepage
• Festival Schedule
• Speakers and Performers
• Practical Information

The Festival celebrates diverse ideas and fosters meaningful cross-cultural encounters, particularly across religious, nonreligious, and spiritual worldviews and ways of living. Drawing inspiration from Pope Francis’ concept of a culture of encounter - which emphasizes truly seeing, listening, and being present with others to build relationships that restore dignity and advance the common good - the festival highlights the transformative power of human connection.

• Event Types: Salon concerts, symposiums, film screenings, storytelling events, panel discussions, keynote lectures, workshops, interfaith dialogues, faculty workshops, photovoice exhibits, peace meal dialogues, and student-only sessions.
• Programs & Activities: Interfaith Photovoice sessions, StorySLAM, Peace Meals dialogue simulation, Scriptural Reasoning training, symposium on (inter)religious literacy, faculty workshop on pedagogy, and an international coffee and tea hour.
• Speakers & Contributors: Higher education leaders, faith leaders, filmmakers, scholars in interreligious dialogue, theologians, and professionals in healthcare and ethics.
• Topics & Themes: Religious diversity, interfaith leadership, interreligious literacy, intercultural dialogue, theology in practice, storytelling and lived experience, beauty and truth across traditions, morality and worldviews, interfaith engagement in healthcare, Hizmet values, and overcoming biases in interfaith dialogue.
• Key Themes: Belonging, trust, resilience, faith and service, the intersection of music and culture, leadership development, dialogue as a bridge, and religious encounters in public life.

Sponsored and Organized by the student?Interfaith Fellows program?of the?Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies?(College of Arts and Sciences) in collaboration with the?Minnesota Multifaith Network.

News & Opportunities

Marianne Moyaert, joining the Jay Phillips Center as scholar-in-residence from KU Leuven, will be with us from April 6-11, 2025. Her visit will include a public lecture on her new book Christian Imaginations of the Religious Other: A History of Religionization, a faculty pedagogy workshop, guest lectures in classes, and participation in a public panel on interreligious studies and interfaith leadership in Higher Education.

Introducing the JPC Faculty Fellows, a distinguished group of faculty members who, alongside their regular undergraduate courses that engage with religious diversity, will lend their scholarly expertise to enhance our initiatives. They will promote inter-, multi-, and trans-disciplinary approaches to interreligious studies and foster intellectual collaboration. The inaugural fellows include Shaherzad Ahmadi (History), Rabbi Ryan Dulkin (Theology & Encountering Judaism), Mary Elmstrand (Theology), Christopher Wong Michaelson (Ethics & Business Law), Fuad Naeem (Theology & Encountering Islam), Laurel Potter (Theology), and Ted Ulrich (Theology).

Report from Norway!?From Frozen Lakes to Frosty Fjords: Dialogue, Religious Diversity, and Leadership in Minnesota and Norway:?This past January, 17 undergraduate students from the University of St. Thomas embarked on a transformative 4-credit study abroad experience exploring dialogue, diversity, and leadership across Minnesota and Norway. Led by Dr. Hans Gustafson and Dr. Rabbi Ryan Dulkin in partnership with DialogPilotene, this immersive course challenged students to step beyond echo chambers and engage in complex conversations on religion, antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, secularism, extremism, and pluralism. Click here to read full article...

Undergraduate Opportunity: Complete the Engaging Religious Diversity Certificate Program as an Interfaith Fellow: Complete the program at your own pace while at St. Thomas, with no application required—just a simple registration. Open to students of all religious, spiritual, secular, and nonreligious identities, the program offers four micro-credential badges: Interfaith Scholar, Interfaith Practitioner, Interfaith Leader, and Interfaith Champion. You can earn these badges in any order or concurrently. These digital badges help document your learning and share your acquired knowledge and skills within St. Thomas and beyond. Click here for more information.

Launch of new Holocaust and Genocide Studies Minor at St. Thomas: Offered by the College of Arts and Sciences, this new interdisciplinary minor offers students an opportunity to explore the historical, theological, political, and cultural roots of antisemitism, racism, and other forms of extreme hatred that lead to genocide. Click here for more information.

JPC Director Hans Gustafson, Ph.D., publishes book?Everyday Encounters: Humanizing Dialogue in Theory and Practice?with Fortress Press (2025). The book?condenses practical insights about the theory and practice of dialogue and human engagement across difference into five short chapters, highlighting its importance in humanizing others in healthy ways.

Jay Phillips Center for Interreligious Studies College of Arts & Sciences, University of St. Thomas 2115 Summit Ave. MAIL 57P St. Paul, MN 55105 (651) 962-5780 |?[email protected] www.stthomas.edu/jpc