<< Back to Archives

Independent Scholars' Evenings

2001 Events

Annual Dinner

Opening 6th. Year for The Independent Scholars’ Evenings:

Sept. 20th. 2001

Bruce Carter: Creativity: A lifelong project

Bruce Carter
Born in Philadelphia, PA, and raised in Brazil and the United States, Bruce de Gouveia Carter received his bachelor's degree in Art and English from Notre Dame in 1970. Bruce then traveled the western hemisphere for a few years before landing in Iowa City for graduate studies with Lasansky in Printmaking. Having originally come to the Quad Cities to teach at Marycrest College, he remains deeply involved in the area's art scene.
Bruce's artwork is primarily in oil crayon, painting "interior landscapes" in vibrant colors. The trees, hills and rivers of Bruce's work reflect the ever-expanding curiosity of this artist-turned-radio-host. His experience as an artist infuses his interviews with an understanding that makes Art Talks a favorite among listeners involved in all phases of the creative process.
Art Talks began on St. Ambrose University's KALA in 1991, later moving to WVIK. The program has yet to run out of interesting artists.

Sept. 27th 2001

We have suspended our event on the 27th of September and our regular programs on the 3rd Thursday of every month, for the remainder of our calendar year, to open a public forum addressing the current domestic and international crisis.
Announcing: Technoethics
Technoethics is the word constructed by Swami Bhramarupananda from Washington D.C. during his recent talk at the symposium entitled “Vedanta In The New Millennium” held at Ganges, Michigan. This newly coined word means the ethical responsibility that those who are involved with technology must and need to maintain, since one individual in today’s technically advanced world is capable of great good as well as great harm. Before the world’s massive technological advances, it took a larger group and far more time to achieve the same effect– both in construction and in destruction. With modern technology, the capacity for creative and destructive ability has increased beyond our imaginations. Since technology is an intrinsic part of our daily lives at a personal and individual level, the responsibility of ethics is highly individualized.
We are developing these evenings in an attempt to call attention to the concept of technoethics into our daily awareness.
The timings for the forum meetings will be the same as the regular Independent Scholars’ Evenings:
7.00 p.m. on Thursdays on the 2nd. Floor of The Moline Club. Moline, Illinois.
The Core Group

October 4th. 2001

Kathleen Lawless Cox.
“God Bothering”
“This ecstatic, poetic mono-dia-logue is not directed to the mind of God, but is aimed straight at God’s heart.”
Original essay by Kathleen being presented for the first time to the public.
Kathleen is an artist, poet and an Independent Scholar of The Institute and is currently working on a collection of poetic essays.

October 11th. 2001

Lisa Zaynab Killinger, DC
“Setting health goals. Tiny steps: the Kaizen approach.”
Lisa Zaynab Killinger, DC
Dr. Killinger, a 1983 Palmer College of Chiropractic graduate, is an assistant professor at the Palmer Center for Chiropractic Research. She has authored and co-authored 2 book chapters and over 25 papers in peer reviewed professional journals, has made over 75 presentations at scientific and educational conferences, She has directed/assisted on nine US Government (Health Resources and Services Administration) projects related to geriatrics and interdisciplinary programs. Lisa is the Chair-elect of the Chiropractic Health Care Section of the American Public Health Association and is the Palmer College representative on the Iowa Geriatric Education Center. She serves as the chiropractic consultant to the US Bureau of Health Professions, making her the first chiropractor ever employed (in a chiropractic capacity) by the US government.

October 18th. 2001

Technoethics.
Continuations of our discussions on the value of Technoethics.

October 25th. 2001

David Hill Ph. D.
“The Sword of The Nazarene.”
Dr. Hill will be reading from his completed book. He will be reading the final passages. The book has been constructed with assistance from the co-learners at The Independent Scholars’ Evenings. The book is about the time of Jesus Christ and the political conditions that existed at that time in history.

November 1st. 2001

Quad City Poet Laureate Dick Stahl.
Mr. Stahl will read from his poetry. There will be a special reading of the poem he composed for the September 11th. tragedy.

November 8th. 2001

“Hypnotherapy”
JT Harms, C. Ht.
JT Harms has been practicing since 1994 and has been certified since 1997 withInternational Medical and Dental Hypnotherapy Association of Detroit, Michigan.

November 15th.2001

Continuation of the discussions on Technoethics.

November 22nd. 2001

Thanksgiving.

November 29th. and December 6th. 2001

Open free forum for area Independent Scholars.
Scheduled sessions will resume in February 2002

2001 Spring Session

February: 22nd. 2001

“The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam.”
Verses will be read by James Roberts.
Wine and bread and other snacks will be available in the spirit that Omar offers us.

March: 8th. 2001

"Our Greatest Maritime Loss - the Sultana Disaster.”
Speaker: Maureen Lemek

March 22nd: 2001

“The Sword of The Nazarene”
David Hill, Ph.D. Department of Philosophy, Augustana. Will read from his work-in-progress:
We encourage you to attend the symposium at Iowa City, ( please note the session by Diana Eck, from Harvard Divinity School.)
The Independent Scholars’ Evenings are open to the public and are sponsored by:
The Institute for Cultural and Healing Traditions, Ltd.
1530 5th. Ave. Moline. Illinois. 61265
email: institute@qconline.com www.qcinstitute.org. (309) 762-9202

Goddess Gurus

Symposium invites distinguished scholars
Distinguished scholars from across the nation will gather at the University of Iowa Friday and Saturday, Feb. 23 and 24th, to participate in a public symposium focusing on “Experiencing Devi: Hindu Goddesses in Indian Popular Art,” being held in conjunction with the major exhibit at the UI Museum of Art. Eight scholars will participate in the two-day event, discussing visual representations or embodiments focusing on the worship of mother goddesses.
Keynote address: “Seeing the Goddess in India” - Diana Eck, professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at the Harvard Divinity School and Center for the Study of World Religions.
Eck is a renowned scholar and teacher of Indic religious traditions. The author of Banaras: City of Light (Princeton, 1982) and of Darsan: Seeing the Divine Image in India (Anima, 1985), she has recently completed extensive research in contemporary pilgrimage to goddess shrines.
Friday, Feb. 23, starting at 7:30 p.m. in the Lasansky Room at the UI Museum of Art on the UI campus.
The symposium will continue on Saturday, Feb. 24, with half-hour presentations by the other seven invited scholars, starting at 9:00 a.m., also in the Lasansky Room.
All of these scholars have done research on Hindu goddesses and their worship, according to Philip Lutgendorf, UI professor of Asian Languages and Literature, South Asian Studies Program (SASP) co-chair and symposium organizer.
“The focus of the presentations will be on visible embodiments of the Goddess—In the Indian landscape, in icons, and in people. Listeners will gain a better understanding of the imminent experience of feminine divinity in Hindu culture,” Lutgendorf says.
Symposium events are free and open to the public. No registration is required. For more information, contact Lutgendorf at (319) 335-2157 or at philip-lutgendorf@uiowa.edu. The symposium is sponsored with support from the following: • UI Arts and Humanities Initiative, • International Programs Major Projects Fund, • The Stanley-UI Foundation Support Organization, • The School of Religion, • Meenal and Arnold Menezes.

Symposium Presenters include the following:
“Pilgrimage Goddesses in Central India” - Anne Feldhaus (Department of Religion, University of Northern Arizona) Feldhaus is the author of four books on popular religion in the central Deccan Plateau region of India, including Water and Womanhood (Oxford, 1995), a study of pilgrimage and the worship of river goddesses in Maharashtra.
“The Mothers of a Rajasthani Village” - Ann Grodzins Gold (Department of Religion, Syracuse University) An anthropologist who teaches religious studies, Gold is the author of Fruitful Journeys: The Ways of Rajasthani Pilgrims (California, 1988) and co-author with Gloria Raheja of Listen to the Heron’s Words: Reimagining Gender and Kinship in North India (California, 1994).
“Recasting Goddess Images in Popular Poster Art” - Jyotindra Jain (Director, National Handlooms and Handicrafts Museum, New Delhi) A widely-published scholar of folk and popular art, Dr. Jain leads one of India’s most innovative museums. He is the author of eleven volumes, including Ganga Devi: Tradition and Expression in Mithila Painting (Grantha, 1997).
“Popular Goddesses in Bengali Painted Scrolls” - Frank Korom (Department of Religion, Boston University) An ethnographer and folklorist, Korom served until 1998 as Curator of Asian and Middle Eastern Collections at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, NM. He is the editor of Gender, Genre, and Power in South Asian Expressive Traditions (Pennsylvania, 1991), and of Constructing Tibetan Culture (World Heritage Press, 1997). Drawing on his extensive fieldwork in West Bengal, he will analyze one of several painted storytellers’ scrolls in the Foster Collection.
“Durga on the Titanic and Other Puja Visions” - Rachel Fell McDermott (Department of Religion, Barnard College) McDermott is the author of a forthcoming monograph on the contemporary worship of the martial goddess Durga in Bengal, and will share recent fieldwork documenting how the iconography of the Durga Puja festival has been influenced by images and themes derived from mass media.
“Worshiping Tulsi Mata Through Women’s Folk Art” - Kirin Narayan (Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison) An anthropologist, folklorist, and novelist, Narayan is the author of Storytellers, Saints, and Scoundrels (Pennsylvania, 1989), and Mondays on the Dark Night of the Moon (Oxford, 1997). She will discuss the domestic art created by women in the Himalayan foothills for the worship of the goddess (and medicinal herb) Tulsi.
“Seeing the Goddess in an Urban World: Temple Iconography for a New Age” - Joanne P. Waghorne (Department of Religion, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) Waghorne is the author of The Raja’s Magic Clothes (Penn State, 1994), and editor with Norman Cutler of Gods of Flesh, Gods of Stone (Anima, 1984).

Experiencing Devi: Hindu Goddesses in Indian Popular Art
The brilliant colors, dramatic scenes, and complex symbolism of Indian folk art are highlighted in this exhibition from the Georgana Falb Foster Collection, a recent donation to the University of Iowa Museum of Art.
In cultures all over the world, art is used to represent and embody spiritual beings.
In India, shrines and altars are adorned with representations of devi, female deities who play central roles in Hindu religious practice. On the street, in private homes, businesses or temples, the sculpted and painted images of devi inspire and guide religious contemplation. These objects may be hand-made or mass-produced, intricately worked or elegantly minimal; all vividly illustrate the central role of art in human communication with the spiritual realm.
The first exhibition of Foster Collection materials, “Experiencing Devi: Hindu Goddesses in Indian Popular Art,” curated by Victoria Rovine, will occupy the Museum’s Stanley Gallery from November 25, 2000, to May 26, 2001. Designed by local architect Sanjay Jani of Akar Architecture and Design, its installation will emphasize the spatial experience of darshan or visual communion with Hindu images. The formal opening of the exhibit on December 1st will include a ritual “awakening,” performed by a Hindu priest, of a goddess image formed from Iowa River clay, a gallery tour by Professor Lutgendorf, and a reception, starting at 7 p.m.
The Foster Collection is comprised of more than 150 drawings, paintings, works of sculpture in bronze, clay, papier maché, and wood, as well as elaborately painted textiles and paper scrolls.

For more information, contact the museum at (319) 335-1727 or visit their Web site at http://www.uiowa.edu/uima.