IRCPL, Institute for Religion, Culture, and Public Life

Rethinking Religion
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Can Donors Choose?

By Charity Hanley 

A response to a public conversation with Charles Best on February 15, 2012. 

Since 2000, Donorschoose.org has raised more than $100 million to fund classroom projects in public schools across the country, reaching more than 6 million students. On its site, teachers post projects like trips to an aquarium or requests for dictionaries, construction paper, even iPads to make classroom lessons come to life. Anyone can go online, pick a project, and donate as little as $5 to the project that interests them most.

CEO and founder Charles Best believes the nonprofit’s success has been fueled by the “pent-up innovation” of teachers and donors. Donorschoose.org, he said, gives teachers an unparalleled platform to develop new and creative solutions to the challenges they confront in their classrooms.  And donors see exactly where their money is going. As with other peer-to-peer philanthropy sites like Kiva or even Kickstarter, they connect to the donation on a personal level, giving to their hometown, their favorite sport, or the class reading their favorite book from 7th grade.

But too much choice can be a problem, Best admitted. In some cases, donors found it too difficult to choose a project, and after looking through three or four web pages, they left without donating. Identifying a passion, said Best, “wasn’t in their muscle memory.” I am not so sure.

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Rethinking Religion
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Harlem Renaissance Public Radio Special

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During the Harlem Renaissance, music, religion, and spirituality were connected—not only in the church, but also in the jazz club. The public radio special “The Harlem Renaissance: Music, Religion, and the Politics of Race” combines music, archival audio, and guest commentary to explore this fascinating period in African-American history.

Listen here and at iTunes University.

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Religions of Harlem
spacer Harlem has long been the subject of African American cultural and political history, yet a comprehensive account of Harlem’s religious milieu (historical and contemporary) has yet to be developed. On this website you’ll find a growing document of the religious life of the Harlem neighborhood of New York—affectionately known as Harlem, USA. With the help of Columbia University students, and under the guidance of Professors Obery Hendricks and Josef Sorett, Religions of Harlem uses written research, photos, and video to provide a unique view of the wide range of religious expressions, leaders, and communities that have been and continue to be central to the cultural worlds of Harlem.
Rethinking Religion
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Mormonism and American Politics Conference Video

Watch video of the conference of Mormonism and American Politics, held on February 3rd-4th, 2012, at Columbia University. It takes a broad view of the history of Mormon participation in American political life, from Joseph Smith’s 1844 run for the presidency to the new era of Mormon identification with the Republican Party.

Speakers include Randall Balmer, Jana Reiss, Richard Bushman, Claudia Bushman, Joanna Brooks, Matthew Bowman,Sarah Barringer Gordon, Jan Shipps, David Campbell, Russell Arben Fox, Max Perry Mueller, Philip Barlow, and Peggy Fletcher Stack.

Special thanks to Trevor Hill, director of The Religious Test, for filming the conference.

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IRCPL EVENT
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Burden of Choice: Waste

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012, 6:30 to 8pm
Common Room, Second Floor
Heyman Center for the Humanities

A conversation with Allison Macfarlane, professor of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University. Her research focuses on environmental policy and international security involving nuclear energy, and she is the editor of Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste. Moderated by Klaus Lackner, Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel Professor of Geophysics.

Burden of Choice is a conversation series about how proliferating choices in a liberal democracy both liberate and constrain us, including charitable giving on February 15; guns on February 29; and debt on April 3.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Secular Evolution: Coalitions, Crisis and Institutional Change in Ireland and Senegal

Thursday, March 8th, 2012, 12-2pm
International Affairs Building, Room 801
420 West 118th Street

A talk by David Buckley, a doctoral candidate in government at Georgetown University. Moderated by Alfred Stepan,  the Wallace Sayre Professor of Government at Columbia; and Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Professor of French and Romance Philology and of Philosophy at Columbia.

PhD Thesis Series on Religion and Politics co-sponsored with Center for the Study of Democracy, Toleration and Religion (CDTR).

Elections in Africa: Mali 2012

Tuesday, March 27th, 2012, 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm
International Affairs Building, Room 1501
420 W 118th St.

A roundtable discussion on Mali’s 2012 elections with Susanna Wing (Haverford College), Jaimie Bleck (University of Notre Dame), and Brandon County (Columbia University). Moderated by Manthia Diawara (New York University).

Sponsored by the Center for Democracy, Toleration, and Religion.

Burden of Choice: Waste

Wednesday, March 28th, 2012, 6:30 to 8pm
Common Room, Second Floor
Heyman Center for the Humanities

A conversation with Allison Macfarlane, professor of Environmental Science and Policy at George Mason University. Her research focuses on environmental policy and international security involving nuclear energy, and she is the editor of Uncertainty Underground: Yucca Mountain and the Nation’s High-Level Nuclear Waste. Moderated by Klaus Lackner, Maurice Ewing and J. Lamar Worzel Professor of Geophysics.

Burden of Choice is a conversation series about how proliferating choices in a liberal democracy both liberate and constrain us, including charitable giving on February 15; guns on February 29; and debt on April 3.

Burden of Choice: Debt

Tuesday, April 3rd, 2012, 6:30-8pm
Common Room, Second Floor Heyman Center for the Humanities

A conversation with Michael E. Lewitt, founder and president of the investment advisory firm Harch Capital Management, discusses the relationship between choice and debt. He is the author of The Death of Capital: How Creative Policy Can Restore Stability, and his widely read newsletter, The Credit Strategist, covers economics, politics and the financial markets. Moderated by Mark C. Taylor, Chair of the Department of Religion and Co-Director of the Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life.

Burden of Choice is a conversation series about how proliferating choices in a liberal democracy both liberate and constrain us, including charitable giving on February 15; guns on February 29; and waste on March 28.

Directions to the Heyman Center. Enter the Wien Hall Gate on 116th Street between Amsterdam Avenue and Morningside Drive.

Pray, Kill, Eat: Relating to Animals across Religious Traditions

Friday, April 20th, 2012, 9 a.m. - 6:30 p.m.
TBA, Columbia University

A graduate student conference on how religious traditions have been instrumental in both reflecting and constructing humans’ notions of animals and have integrated such notions into comprehensive mythical, symbolic, and ritual frameworks of meaning and action. In recent decades, however, many earlier forms of such relationships have been radically transformed in the face of rapid development.  This conference engages both the shifting complexity of the modern world and a growing body of scholarship in religious studies.

Keynote speakers include Wendy Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Religions in the University of Chicago Divinity School; and Kimberley C. Patton, Professor of the Comparative and Historical Study of Religion at Harvard Divinity School.

Sponsored by the Religion Graduate Students’ Association of Columbia University.

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