CU-Boulder professor Emeritus Reg Saner will present "Adam's Navel: The Politics and Poetics of Belief" on Wednesday, April 12, as part of the new "Campus Lecture Series" scheduled through May.
The presentation, at 7:30 p.m. in the Humanities Building, room 250, will review episodes from ancient times to the present in which religion and science have been at odds.
Recent examples of religion being politicized, according to Saner, include attention to Creationism and the Ten Commandments in public schools, prayer by team members before ball games and presidential candidates making Jesus a plank in their platforms.
Saner's talk will refer to these, implicitly, by discussing the cases of an ancient Roman naturalist, a Renaissance astronomer and a Victorian biologist. He will pose the question, "What is the psychology behind all three squabbles between orthodoxy and science?"
The lecture is part of the new "Campus Lecture Series" of talks that have been scheduled monthly in CU-Boulder聮s new Humanities Building.
Saner said that perversions of science and scripture have often led to mass murder in the name of one or another religious belief. As a result, a literary treasure, like the Bible, can become a deadly weapon. In a different way, scientific knowledge of nature can become psychologically dangerous.
Professor Saner聮s essays and poems have appeared in more than 140 literary magazines, such as The Atlantic, The Yale Review, Poetry, The Paris Review and in more than three dozen anthologies. Several of his books have won national prizes, including the Walt Whitman Award in poetry, the National Poetry Series Award and the Quarterly Review of Literature's 45th Anniversary Award.
All lectures in the Campus Lecture Series feature former Hazel Barnes Awardees, the top campus award recognizing excellence in teaching and research.
The remaining lecture in the series is May 10 featuring biology Professor Emerita Jane Bock with her husband Carl Bock, also a professor of biology. They will read from their newest book, "The View from Bald Hill: Thirty Years in an Arizona Grassland."
A book signing will follow the presentation in the Humanities Building, room 150.
All lectures in the series are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the CU-Boulder Office of Community Relations at (303) 492-8384.