Visiting Scholar shares her research into AIDS and Pentecostalism in SA.

On Monday, October 24, Dr. Katherine Attanasi gave the department's  Religion & Society Annual Lecture. This year we were able to tie in with the College of Arts & Science's Symposium against global indifference.  Dr. Attanasi is an Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Regent University (PhD. Vanderbilt University, MTh., M Ed., Harvard) where she teaches Christian Ethics. She recently completed work on a co-edited volume with Amos Yong entitled Pentecostalism and Prosperity: The Socio-economics of the Global Charismatic Movement (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, forthcoming). 

In her lecture, South African Pentecostalism and the Gendered Politics of HIV Prevention, Attanasi shared findings and conclusions from her doctoral research.

Dr. Attanasi also met with religion students over meals and in the classroom. Religion major Corey Smith said, "I was very grateful for the opportunity to speak with someone in the  middle of a larger research project that would have meaningful impact on a community. Dr. Attanassi's lecture and discussion time was extremely helpful both in raising our awareness of her particular field  of research in gender issues within the Pentecostal church in South  Africa as well as encouraging and equipping us to think critically and  creatively in our own areas of interest."

If you missed the lecture you are not too late, you can watch it on the university's media site.

The Religion & Society Annual Lectures started in 2009. Past lectures were:

John Kiess (Loyola), "When War is Our Daily Bread: Congo, Theology, and the Ethics of Contemporary Conflict."

Elizabeth Philips (Cambridge), "Christian Zionism, Violence, and Peace in the Middle East."