On Sept. 11, Manhattan College’s Holocaust, Genocide and Interfaith Education (HGI) Center will commence the fall semester with a discussion on the dilemmas of American religion by historian Charles H. Long, Ph.D.
Long, a retired scholar and professor of the history of religions, studied with Joachim Wach, the pioneer of the comparative study of religion at the University of Chicago. He also helped to establish the international scholarly journal History of Religions with Mircea Eliade and Joseph Kitagawa. Both the journal and discipline played a major role in the study of religion in the U.S.
In addition to the University of Chicago, Long has held faculty positions at the University of North Carolina and Duke University, and was the Jeannette K. Watson Professor of History of Religions at Syracuse University. He also was director of the Research Center for Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As a founding member of the American Society for the Study of Religion and the Society for the Study of Black Religion, Long was president of the American Academy of Religion in 1973.
His research and work captures a unique perspective on the meaning of religion in the formation of the Atlantic world, which is the history of relations between the people and empires bordering the Atlantic Ocean rim from the 1450s to the early 21st century. In particular, he transfers the issue of religion within the structures of the Atlantic formation, which offers further insight into the understanding of religion and African American religions.
On Nov. 5, the HGI Center welcomes Murray Baumgarten, Ph.D., to present the seventh annual Frederick M. Schweitzer Lecture. Baumgarten is the Distinguished Professor of English and Comparative Literature, co-director of Jewish Studies, and founding director of The Dickens Project at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Founded in 1996, the HGI Center is committed to understanding and respecting differences and similarities between people of all religions, races, ethnicities and nationalities.
The Sept. 11 event will be held at 4 p.m. in the Alumni Room of the Mary Alice and Tom O’Malley Library, and the local community is invited to attend.
For more information about the HGI Center’s events, please contact Mehnaz Afridi, director of the HGI Center, at (718) 862-7284 or mehnaz.afridi@manhattan.edu.