News of Alums & Friends
Congratulations to current Scholar and PhD student Rachel Abdoler and Matt Brothers, who were married September 30 in Providence, Rhode Island.
J. Kwest, aka Julian DeShazier (trustee), performed at Wrigley Field for HBCU Day, September 29.
Judith Guy (2013) has been called to Mackinaw (Illinois) Christian Church, beginning on October 1. She was the keynote speaker for the Women's Retreat of the Christian Church in Illinois and Wisconsin, September 22-24, at Camp Walter Scott.
Spencer Dew (1998) is spending his sabbatical in Chicago and will speak at DDH on October 23. He is Associate Professor and Chair of Religious Studies at Centenary College of Louisiana.
Kristel Clayville (2001) is Visiting Assistant Professor of Religion at Eureka College and a fellow at the MacLean Center for Clinical Medical Ethics at the University of Chicago.
Congratulations to Joe Blosser (2005) who has received tenure at High Point University in North Carolina. He is the Robert G. Culp, Jr. Director of Service Learning and Assistant Professor of Religion and Philosophy.
Yvonne Gilmore (2001; associate dean) preached and led a workshop on “The Practice of Testimony” on September 24 at First Christian Church, Jefferson City, Missouri, where Beau Underwood (2006) is the senior minister. The event was part of a series funded by a grant from the Calvin Institute of Worship.
Congratulations to current House Scholar Andrew Langford who completed his midpoint dissertation colloquium on September 18. His dissertation considers how medicalized language (language of disease and disability) is used to pathologize religious opponents in the Pastoral Epistles.
In September, Melinda "Lindy" Keenan Wood (1997) became Senior Minister of Pilgrim United Church of Christ in Durham, North Carolina. She was previously Senior Minister of the Pershing Avenue Christian Church in Orlando, Florida.
Mark Lambert, House Scholar and PhD student in Theology, offers the first word in a roundtable on healthcare and religion. His essay, "The Trump Administration, Immigration, and the Instrumentalization of Leprosy", observes that leprosy has made a surprising appearance in current rhetoric about immigration. He explores how medieval and nineteenth-century contexts inform a "toxic petri dish" of "media sensationalism, the healthcare debate, xenophobia, and religious rhetoric." The roundtable appeared in the September edition of the Religion & Culture Forum, edited by Joel A. Brown, House Scholar and PhD student in Religions in America.