Asland University: Center for Nonviolence to host series
The Ashland Center for Nonviolence will host a series featuring James P. Carse, professor emeritus of religion at New York University, on Wednesday and Thursday. The events, which are free and open to the public, will be on the Ashland University campus.
Carse will present "Writing Your Own Gospel: Creating and Understanding Religious Encounters through Writing" 7 p.m. Wednesday in the Hawkins-Conard Student Center Auditorium. The presentation is co-sponsored by Ashland University's master's in creative writing program. Carse will read from a wide range of his writings. A book signing will follow the talk and several of his works will be available for purchase.
Carse will focus on personal relationships in a talk titled, "Is Partner Violence a Game?" 1:40 p.m. Thursday in the Hawkins-Conard Student Center Auditorium. He will return 7 p.m. in the Schar College of Education's Ronk Lecture Hall. He will discuss the ways people look at conflict in a talk titled, "Finite and Infinite Games: Alternatives to Winners and Losers."
Carse is the author of several books including "Finite and Infinite Games," "Breakfast at the Victory" and "The Religious Case Against Belief." He has been educated in both religion and philosophy and has used both disciplines to look at the differences between these two diverse ways of thought.
"Christianity is losing its resonance," said Carse. "Its history looks to be more a matter of decades than millennia." He feels people could be watching the breakdown of Christianity.
"Carse looks at the way that our ideas about ourselves and our beliefs prevent us from seeing the real experiences around us," said John Stratton, the executive director of the Ashland Center for Nonviolence. "This has led him to write about the mystical realities in ordinary experience as well as the conflicts in religious thought."
The presentations are a part of the remembrance of "The Season for Nonviolence," which began Jan. 30 and runs through April 4. "The Season for Nonviolence" commemorates the anniversaries of the assassinations of Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. It encourages people to examine the practices of peace and nonviolence and how to incorporate them into their everyday lives.