NABS Alumni Chosen to Present at American Academy of Religion Regional Meeting
March 5, 2007
Two alumni of North American Baptist Seminary in Sioux Falls have been selected to present at the Upper Midwest Regional Meeting of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) in Saint Paul, Minnesota, on April 13-14, 2007.
Ryan Stander, who holds a Master of Arts (Bible and Theology) '03 from NABS and is currently employed as the Marketing Assistant, will present on Photographic Memory: Photography, Pilgrimage, and Sacred Space. Stander will share his personal photographs and theological observations from St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City, a small country church and cemetery in Iowa, and the Midwestern landscape that illustrate not only key places and moments in his personal pilgrimage, but also the elements that make spaces sacred.
Lanta Davis, 2006 Master of Arts (Bible and Theology) graduate and admissions counselor for NABS, will present excerpts from her paper and research on the works of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien entitled, Chronicles of Self in Middle Earth and Narnia. Davis's presentation will explore each writer's understanding of the self, particularly how the denial of the self fits into the wider perspective of Christian theology, especially in regard to salvation. This is held in comparison to the popular conception of the self during the modern period (when they wrote the majority of their work), where the exaltation of the individual was the prominent frame of thought.
About the American Academy of Religion
The American Academy of Religion (AAR) was founded in 1909 and is the world's largest association of academics who research or teach topics related to religion. In addition to a large annual meeting, the AAR holds ten, smaller regional meetings that offer program units for an ongoing community of scholars who are collectively engaged in the pursuit of knowledge about a specific religious tradition or a specific aspect of religion. All of the world's major religious traditions, as well as indigenous and historical religions, are explored in the work of AAR members.
The 2007 Upper Midwest Regional Meeting will be held on the campus of Luther Seminary on April 13-14, in St. Paul, MN.