Pluralism Week 2017
Join us for the following workshops. All are welcome. Registration may be required.
Tuesday, March 14
DateTimeLocation
Tuesday, March 1410 a.m. - noon
Women’s Resource Centre (MSC 482)
Faith Zone - Students only
Faith Zone is a workshop to help participants become more inter-religiously competent on our religious-diverse campus.
By the end of the session, participants will
- challenge their own assumptions and biases through personal reflection
- acquire knowledge around key terminology, myths and misperceptions about different religious communities and historical examples of religious discrimination in Canada
- feel more comfortable asking questions and fostering meaningful relationships across lines of difference
- learn concrete steps to become an ally to members of religious communities that face discrimination
CANCELLED
Thursday, March 16
DateTimeLocation
Thursday, March 16th9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Vitruvian Space, Firmitas A & B
Train the Trainer - Blanket Exercise - Staff only
Led by: Kairos Canada
The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is an interactive learning experience that teaches the Indigenous rights history we’re rarely taught. Blanket Exercise participants take on the roles of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Standing on blankets that represent the land, they walk through pre-contact, treaty-making, colonization and resistance. They are directed by facilitators representing a narrator (or narrators) and the European colonizers. Participants are drawn into the experience by reading scrolls and carrying cards which ultimately determine their outcomes. By engaging on an emotional and intellectual level, the Blanket Exercise effectively educates and increases empathy. Ideally, the exercise is followed by a debriefing session in which participants have the opportunity to discuss the experience as a group. This often takes the form of a talking circle.
Register for Train the Trainer
Friday, March 17
DateTimeLocation
Friday, March 172 - 4 p.m.
Women’s Resource Centre (MSC 482)
Faith Zone - Staff only
Faith Zone is a workshop to help participants become more inter-religiously competent on our religious-diverse campus.
By the end of the session, participants will
- challenge their own assumptions and biases through personal reflection
- acquire knowledge around key terminology, myths and misperceptions about different religious communities and historical examples of religious discrimination in Canada
- feel more comfortable asking questions and fostering meaningful relationships across lines of difference
- learn concrete steps to become an ally to members of religious communities that face discrimination
Register for Faith Zone
Join us for the following presentations and discussions. All are welcome. Registration may be required.
Wednesday, March 15
DateTimeLocation
Wednesday, March 15th11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
Faith & Spirituality Centre (MSC 373)
imagiNation 150 Round Table - led by Canada 150
The organization, imagiNation 150, has put together a program where young people (ages 15-25) in and around Calgary will engage in facilitated roundtable discussions about Canada's future, alongside participation with Members of the Order of Canada. The idea is to engage key questions and themes, to cull concrete and valuable ideas on a handful of themes.
We will record the discussions and their results for analysis (all personal names will remain anonymous), with the purpose of putting together a document depicting our youth's vision of the future--for distribution and injection into the political process. We hope to make an impact among policy advisors, legislators, business leaders, community activists and the like, by providing guidance with respect to the direction young people believe our nation should take.
Click here to register for imagiNation 150
DateTimeLocation
Wednesday, March 15th5 - 8 p.m.
Senate Room, Hotel Alma
Out of Iraq Screening - with cast Nayyef Hrebid and Hayder "Btoo" Allami in attendance!
The film tells the story of two enlisted men in Iraq – one an Iraqi soldier, the other a U.S. translator – who fall in love before being forced to flee when one becomes the target for an honor killing. With thousands of miles between them, they fight to be reunited. Join us for a screening of Out of Iraq, followed by a discussion and Q&A with the cast, Nayyef Hrebid and Hayder "Btoo" Allami.
Out of Iraq is a World of Wonder film produced by Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato; produced and co-directed by Academy Award-winner Eva Orner (Taxi to the Dark Side) and Chris McKim; and co-produced by Aaron Butler.
Thursday, March 16
DateTimeLocation
Thursday, March 16th4:30 - 7 p.m.ST 129
Faith & Film: Water by Deepa Mehta
Eight year old Chuyia is widowed and sent home where Hindu widows must live out their lives in penitence; she os forced into poverty at a temple in the holy city of Varanasi. Intercultural and interreligious discussion, led by SU Wellness Centre social worker, Priya Kharat, will include themes such as child marriage, consent, misogyny, social constructs and restraints.
From here to there, from there to here: Your Journey: A Powered by PechaKucha event
Monday, March 13, 2017
6:00-8:30pm
University of Calgary
Venue: Vitruvian Space, DC 12
Join us during Pluralism & Religious Diversity Week as we invite campus and Calgary community leaders and change makers to share their personal narratives, lived experiences and explorative interactions with the world in shaping their faith, religious, traditional, and/or philosophical identities.
Confirmed speakers:
- Cheryle Chagnon-Greyeyes
- Dr. Patrick Finn
- Kelly Johnson
- Pace Anhorn
- Judy Shapiro
- Patrick Ma
- Adriana Tulissi
- Rahamatullah Siddique
Join us for the following activities! All are welcome. Registration may be required.
Wednesday, March 15
DateTimeLocation
Wednesday, March 15th1:30 - 3:30 p.m.
The Loft, MSC 487
Service Day
Join us as we make sandwiches for the Calgary Drop-In Centre. Sandwich making will happen from 1:30-3:30pm, with a discussion following about what "service" means to many religious communities.
Service Day is hosted in partnership with the Graduate Students' Association.
Religious Pluralism, Religious Nationalism, and the Culture Wars
Friday, March 17th, 2017
7 - 9 p.m.
ST 135
The value of religious diversity is widely acknowledged in Canada and in most urban areas in the United States. But a new age of strongmen from President Trump to India’s Prime Minister Modi in India seems to be ushering in a new age of religious nationalism. This lecture places this battle in the context of the so-called culture wars in the United States, which for more than two centuries have pitted “exclusivists” wary of foreigners and their faiths against “inclusivists” who have seen ethnic and religious diversity as a strength. What lessons (and what hope) might these cultural battles offer for 2017 and beyond?
Stephen Prothero is Chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University and the author of numerous books including Why Liberals Win the Culture Wars (HarperOne, 2016), God Is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter (HarperOne, 2010), and the New York Times bestseller Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know—and Doesn’t (HarperOne, 2007). His books have been published on five continents and translated into eight languages. Prothero has commented on religion on hundreds of National Public Radio programs, and on television on CNN, MSNBC, FOX, PBS, and all the major networks. He was also a guest on "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart, "The Colbert Report," and "The Oprah Winfrey Show." A regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, he has also written for the New York Times, Slate, Salon, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. Prothero was the chief academic adviser for the critically acclaimed six-hour WGBH-TV series, "God in America." He also worked as a Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History, and as the chief outside writer for CNN's "Belief Blog." He received his BA from Yale in American Studies and his PhD in the Study of Religion from Harvard. He lives on Cape Cod, and he tweets @sprothero.
Presented in partnership with the Department of Classics and Religion and funded by the Department of Classics and Religion, the Faculty of Arts and the Office of the Provost and Vice-President (Academic).
What I Be Project
DateTimeLocation
All week!9 a.m. - 7 p.m.
MSC 459 (next to Peer Helper office)
What I Be Project with photographer Steve Rosenfield
The “What I Be Project” is a social experiment turned into, what is now, a global movement about honesty and empowerment. Each person that takes part in the What I Be project is extremely courageous. The What I Be experience is cathartic and universally empowering, and each portrait is immortalized for the entire world to see. Subjects are putting their insecurities out in the open, and exposing a side of themselves that nobody has seen before. By stating “I am not my_____,” they are claiming that they do in fact struggle with these issues, but it does not define who they are as a person. They are not denying their insecurity, they are owning it.
Project creator and photographer Steven Rosenfield will be on campus during the week and will be meeting with students for 45 minute sessions. He will work with each student to hear their story, learn about their experiences and then encourage the student to write "I am not my_______" on their body and photograph it. Photos will then to displayed across campus during the week as a way to build security through insecurity.
Sign up for a photo slot