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Associate Professor
Chair of Religion
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The Department of Religion at Denison University proudly presents the first Goodspeed Lecture (Virtual) in 2021—2022: “Transforming Conflict to Peace: Israel, Palestine and Beyond.” We welcome four internationally acclaimed scholars in theology, women’s and gender studies, peace studies, and anthropology. This Goodspeed Lecture is a two-day virtual event open to the public.
The Goodspeed Lecture series welcomes Rev. Mitri Raheb, presenting “Arts as a Tool for Social Transformation” and Islah Jad, presenting “Women’s Movements: Between Liberation and ‘Peacemaking.” Raheb and Jad will speak from Palestine.
Raheb is the Founder and President of Dar al-Kalima University College of Arts and Culture in Bethlehem and co-founder of Bright Stars of Bethlehem, a not-for-profit 501c3 in the USA. The most widely published Palestinian theologian to date, Raheb, is the author and editor of 40 books, including “The Cross in Contexts: Suffering and Redemption in Palestine; and Faith in the Face of Empire.” He also served as the senior pastor of the Christmas Lutheran Church in Bethlehem from 1987 to 2017. In addition, he was the President of the Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Jordan and the Holy Land from 2011-2016. As a social entrepreneur, Raheb has founded several NGO’s including the Christian Academic Forum for Citizenship in the Arab World (CAFCAW). In addition, he is a founding and board member of the National Library of Palestine and an author of the “Kairos Palestine” document.
Jad is Director of Women’s Studies Institute and assistant professor of gender and development at Bir Zeit University. She is a co-founder of the Women’s Studies Institute at Bir Zeit University and co-founder of Women’s Affairs Technical Committee, a national coalition for women. She published many books and articles on Palestinian and Arab women’s political participation and activism. In 2018, she published “Palestinian Women’s Activism: Nationalism, Secularism, Islamism” (Syracuse University Press). Jad also co-authored the “Arab Human Development Report of 2005.”
Denison University’s Goodspeed Lectureship is named after Edgar Goodspeed (Class 1890), one of the most important American Biblical scholars of the twentieth century. The Goodspeed Lecture Series introduces renowned scholars in religion to the Denison community whose work critically explores social justice issues, American public life, international relations, human history, and rituals through the multiple lenses of religion.