Content
Fall/Winter 2010 : Ha!
Get together, share ideas, listen, think, grow.
Sign up to be the first to hear about what we’re doing around the state.
Ha!
Oregon Humanities: Fall/Winter 2010
Thinking in Public
Oregon Humanities’ Think & Drink features provocative conversations fit for public consumption.
Picture a conversation that could have turned into a verbal boxing match, with religiosity and secularism in opposite corners. Instead, civility reigned. Good thing, because civil discourse about provocative topics is one of the goals of Oregon Humanities’ Think & Drink, a quarterly happy-hour conversation series that, since its inception in 2008, has taken place at Rontoms restaurant and bar in Portland.
The October 2010 Think & Drink with Kevin Palau, president of the Luis Palau Association, and Willamette University professor of politics David Gutterman explored issues of religion in civic life. Cosponsored by the Portland State University Religious Studies Department, the event featured a lively conversation about the difference between evangelicalism and fundamentalism, the recent Pew study on religious knowledge among Americans, and the role of church-based volunteer groups in supplementing government services to provide food and other services for those in need.
To this last point, Palau explained that projects like his organization’s Season of Service can meet only simple needs, not make systemic changes or get at root causes. Gutterman, who is on the Oregon Humanities board of directors, wondered about the long-term consequences of these types of projects, saying if people in government aren’t able to move beyond their ideologies to work with one another, they will never do what’s necessary to solve problems like hunger and poverty.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re a non-Christian or a Christian,” Gutterman remarked, “if we’re only listening to those who agree with us, we get pulled toward extremes.”
Directory
Links for this page
Subscribe
If you reside in Oregon and would like a free subscription to Oregon Humanities magazine, please sign up here. You will also be signed up to receive our monthly e-newsletter.
Masthead
Staff, advisors, etc.
- Kathleen Holt
- Editor
- McGuire Barber Design
- Graphic design
- Eloise Holland
- Communications Coordinator
- Allison Dubinsky
- Copy editor
- Editorial Advisory Board
- Tom Booth
- Brian Doyle
- Debra Gwartney
- Julia Heydon
- Guy Maynard
- Win McCormack
- Kathleen Dean Moore
- Camela Raymond
- Kate Sage
- Rich Wandschneider
- Dave Weich
Oregon Humanities magazine examines topics of broad public interest from a variety of perspectives and approaches. Recent issues of this publication have focused on stuff, nostalgia, and civility. Through good and thoughtful writing, Oregon Humanities magazine enriches our understanding of important subjects and stimulates conversation and reflection among readers, their friends, families, colleagues, and neighbors.
Contributors
Andrew Guest
Andrew Guest is an associate professor of psychology at the University of Portland. When not watching, playing, coaching or writing about soccer, he does research on youth developmental and educational experiences through sports, arts, and service activities.
Ariel Gore
Ariel Gore is the author of seven books including Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), from which this selection is excerpted. She is also the founding editor of Hip Mama, and editor of the Lambda-award-winning anthology Portland Queer. She teaches creating writing online at the University of New Mexico and The Attic in Portland.
Courtenay Hameister
Courtenay Hameister is the host and head writer of LiveWire Radio, the co-creator of “Road House: The Play!,” a screenwriter and filmmaker. In her spare time, she likes to imagine what it would be like to have more spare time.
Courtney S. Campbell
Courtney S. Campbell is the Hundere Professor of Religion and Culture at Oregon State University. You can try friending him through his Facebook page.
Jamie Passaro
Jamie Passaro lives in Eugene, where she is a freelance writer and an editor for Northwest Book Lovers, a blog produced by the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. Her last essay for Oregon Humanities was “Driving Mrs. Spacely” (Summer 2008).
Kristin Kaye
Kristin Kaye is a Portland-based writer. Her book, Iron Maidens, was an Oregon Book Awards finalist. She has recently completed her novel To Catch What Falls.
Scott Nadelson
Scott Nadelson’s most recent book is The Cantor’s Daughter. A new collection of his short fiction, Aftermath, is forthcoming from Hawthorne Books in Fall 2011. He teachers creative writing at Willamette University. His latest essay for Oregon Humanities was “Go Ahead and Look” (Spring 2010)
Todd Schwartz
Todd Schwartz is in reality a very serious and reserved person who divides his time between being a Calvinist minister and a funeral home director. Wait…wait! A funeral home director and a Calvinist minister walk into a bar…
Add a comment
Commentary introduction