IAT Spring 2024 Lecture Series
Divisions that Define Us
These lectures will take place on the following Mondays at 12:00 pm in Bard Hall.
February 26th, March 11th and March 25th, April 8th and April 22nd
During the past two millennia, systemic ruptures in the understanding of religion and society have shaped the cultural contours of all the lands that once comprised the Roman Empire. These schisms have of course featured in the histories of Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, but they also have exerted a profound influence on the ways that people in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and later the Americas conceive of themselves of their relations with one another. Our series will deal in order with: (1) the emergence of Christianity from Judaism and the resulting contention, (2) the breach between the Latin West and the Greek East after the conversion of Constantine, (3) the rise of Islam and the proclamation of the Crusades, (4) the Reformation and its consequences, and (5) the opposition between religion and science in the modern period.
Coffee & Conversation
This is a series of events with each day covering a separate topic.
Feb. 11: Single Parents
March 10: Unprotected Children
April 14: Immigrants
May 19: Poor People
Please Join to discuss these vital issues on the above days and times at the Rhinebeck Reformed Church in partnership with the Jewish Federation of Dutchess County, the Institute of Advanced Theology and Blue Butterfly Foundation.
Fall 2023 Lecture Series
Although the Gospels are written in Greek, Jesus and his first followers framed their teaching in Aramaic. Their forms of expression were so influential, Aramaic words and phrases are literally quoted in the New Testament. New discoveries of texts, as well as advances in linguistic study, enable us to look into the Aramaic foundations of the Gospels more deeply than at any other time since the first century.
Spring 2023 lecture series
Fall 2022 lecture series
"In Search of the Once and Future Eden"
This lecture series with Bruce Chilton is in conjunction with the book launch of Eden Revisited: A Novel by László Z. Bitó ’60. Eden is both a place in the mythic past and the prospect for a balanced, ecological, and human civilization in the future. Gnostic writers in particular have portrayed how the idyllic garden could have been lost, and why regaining its richness has proven elusive. Laszlo Bito, a Bard alumnus from the class of 1960, investigated these issues in his book Eden Revisited. This series is designed to join in that quest, in order to press the issue of Eden’s deep promise.