![]() |
|
|
![]() |
![]() |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Religion Department inaugurated on an experimental basis the Visiting Scholar Seminar program in 1972. A seminar in the Religion Department curriculum is devoted to reading and analyzing the works of a scholar in the field of the study of religion who has made a significant impact upon a particular area of study. Near the end of the term, this scholar is then brought to Dartmouth; and the seminar concludes with several days of intense meetings, during the course of which the visiting scholar reads and responds to students' critiques of his or her own work.
Although this experimental program had proven extremely successful, and those students who participated in the program unanimously expressed their wish that it be continued and expanded, the Religion Department did not have sufficient funds to conduct the program in a way which responds adequately to the demand.
In 1982, the Dickinson Fellow Program was created by a generous gift from Frances Ann & Charles C. Dickinson Jr., Dartmouth class of 1928. The Dickinson Fund provides an extraordinary opportunity for the Religion Department to improve its teaching and research programs; and the members of the Religion Department are very grateful to the Dickinson family and to (then) President David T. McLaughlin, (then) Dean of the Faculty Dwight Lahr, and others for making this fund available to us.
Many Departmental "Visiting Scholar Seminars" and, subsequently in the Dickinson Fellow Program, the "Dickinson Distinguished Visitor Advanced Seminars in Religion," have been offered by the Religion Department since 1972. The Dickinson Advanced Seminar is a unique opportunity for students to focus on the work of a distinguished scholar who has made a significant impact upon the study of religion. The Religion faculty designs the course annually and invites the scholar to visit the Dartmouth campus to engage the students, critique their papers, and present a public lecture to the community.
The Dickinson Distinguished Visitor Advanced Seminars in the Dickinson Fellow Program continue to remain among the most successful of the course offerings in the Religion Department.
| Term | Faculty Instructor | Dickinson Lecture Title | Distinguished Visitor |
| 12F | Susannah Heschel | Eastern Wisdom in an Era of Despair: Orientalism in 1920s Central Europe | Suzanne Marchand (Louisiana State University) |
| 09S | Gil Raz | This Foreign Religion of Ours: (Mis)Translation East and West, Medieval and Modern | Stephen R. Bokenkamp (Arizona State University) |
| 08S | Reiko Ohnuma | From Stone to Flesh: The European Encounter with the Buddha | Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (University of Michigan) |
| 07S | Susannah Heschel | The End of History and the Last Jew: Apocalypse and Anti-Semitism from the Middle Ages to Left Behind | Lisa Lampert-Weissig (University of California, San Diego) |
| 04S | Reiko Ohnuma | Convents & Courtesans: Locating Buddhist Nuns in the Cultural & Urban Landscape of Early North India | Gregory Schopen (UCLA) |
| 03S | Kent McConnell | Picturing Faith: Religious America in Government Photography, 1935-1943 | Colleen McDannell (University of Utah) |
| 01F | Susannah Heschel | Before the 'Final Solution': Nazi Ghettoization Policy in Poland, 1939-1945 | Christopher R. Browning (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) |
| 01W | Amy Hollywood | On Death, Sainthood, and Ethics: Thinking with Edith Wyschogrod | Edith Wyschogrod (Rice University) |
| 00S | Nancy Frankenberry | Religion, Science, and Naturalism | Willem B. Drees (University of Twente and Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) |
| 99W | Kevin Reinhart | Religion and Religious Revolutions | Said Arjomand (SUNY at Stony Brook) |
| 98S | Hans H. Penner | The Deification of Captain Cook, or, Did the Hawaiians Transform Captain Cook into the God Lono? - The Debate Between Obeyesekere & Sahlins | Gananath Obeyesekere (Princeton) |
| 95F | Ifi Amadiume | Religion, Ritual and Political Power: A Study of the Work of Maurice Bloch | Maurice Bloch (London School of Economics) |
| 95S | Robert G. Henricks | Early Chinese Mythology | Sarah Allan (School of Oriental and African Studies, SOAS, London) |
| 93F | Hans H. Penner | Magic, Science and Religion: A Study of the Work of S. Tambiah | Stanley Tambiah (Harvard University) |
| 93W | Susan Ackerman | Archeology and the Bible | William G. Dever (University of Arizona) |
| 92F | A. Kevin Reinhart | Wilfred Cantwell Smith and the Study of Religion | Wilfred Cantwell Smith (Harvard University) |
| 91S | Ronald M. Green | Faithful Dissent? The Sexual and Social Ethics of Charles Curran | Charles Curran (Auburn University) |
| 90S | Nancy Frankenberry | Plurality and Ambiguity: The Theology of David Tracy | David Tracy (University of Chicago Divinity School) |
| 88F | Charles Stinson | Themes of Contemporary Christian Thought | Avery Dulles (Catholic University of America) |
| 88W | Robert G. Henricks | Chinese Comparative Folk Religion | David K. Jordan (University of California, San Diego) |
| 87S | Hans H. Penner | Rationality and Ritual | Jonathan Z. Smith (University of Chicago) |
| 87W | Robert G. Henricks | Chuang-tzu and Early Chinese Thought | Angus C. Graham (SOAS, London) |
| 84W | Steven Katz | Mysticism | Seyyid Hussein Nasr |
| 83W | Stuart Blackburn | The World of Hindu Mythology | Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (University of Chicago) |
| 86W | Ronald M. Green | Roman Catholic Social Thought in the Twentieth Century | Thomas Sanders, Bryan Hehir, David Hollenbeck |
| 85S | Robert A. Oden | Ways of Reading the Bible | James Barr (Oxford) |
| 85W | Robert G. Henricks | Taoism: The Religion | Michel Strickmann (University of California, Berkeley) |
| 82F | Robert G. Henricks | The Hero Pattern and Founders of Religions | Alan Dundes (University of California, Berkeley) |
| 82S | Fred Berthold | Evangelical Christianity | Donald G. Bloesch (Dubuque Theological Seminary) |
| 81S | Ronald M. Green | The Ethical Thought of James Gustafson | James Gustafson (University of Chicago) |
| 80S | Nancy Frankenberry | Women and Religion: The Writings of Rosemary Radford Ruether | Rosemary Radford Ruether (Garrett Theological Seminary, Northwestern University) |
| 79S | Robert G. Henricks | Early Chinese Thought: The Works of Herrlee G. Creel | Herrlee G. Creel (University of Chicago) |
| 78S | Robert A. Oden | Abraham in History and Tradition | William Van Seeters (University of North Carolina) |
| 77S | Charles Stinson | The Thought of William Christian | William Christian (Yale University) |
| 76S | Ronald M. Green | Special Seminar in Paul Ramsey's Ethics | Paul Ramsey (Princeton University) |
| 74F | Hans H. Penner | The Problem of Understanding Another Religion | Melford Spiro (University of California, San Diego) |
| 74W | Fred Berthold | The Mind/Body Problem in the Thought of H.D. Lewis. | H.D. Lewis (Kings College, University of London) |
| 72S | Fred Berthold David Adams Edward Yonan |
On the Concept of God: The Work of Schubert Ogden | Schubert Ogden (Perkins School of Theology, SMU) |