Visiting Scholars

June 4–6, 2008
The International Conference on Media, Spiritualities and Social Change
In conjunction with the University of Colorado, Naropa is proud to sponsor Mark Silk, PhD, director, Leonard Greenberg Center on Media and Public Life, Trinity College. Professor Silk is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America. He is co-editor of Religion by Region, an eight-volume series on religion and public life in the United States, and co-author of One Nation Divisible: Religion and Region in America Today.

Dr. Silk presented a keynote lecture, “Think Locally, Act Globally,” on Thursday, June 5, 3:30–5 p.m., at CU’s University Memorial Center.

Abstract: For forty years, the environmental movement has been animated by the imperative to think globally and act locally. But the challenge of our time is to know how to think locally in order to achieve global objectives. Local ways of conceptualizing community differ profoundly. In a world that often seems overwhelmed by transnational forces and institutions, accomplishing global ends requires profound awareness of the social metaphysics of particular places.  

September 22–24, 2008
The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation Distinguished Guest Lecturer in Buddhist Studies and American Culture and Values: José Cabezón, PhD: "Thinking through Texts: Toward a Critical Buddhist Theology of Sexuality"

Dr. José Cabezón is the first XIV Dalai Lama Professor in Tibetan Buddhism and Cultural Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, a major center for the study of world religions. Not only is he one of the leading scholars of Tibetan Buddhism, Professor Cabezón is active in interreligious dialogue, gender and gay studies, and pioneering insights into the role of the practitioner in the academy. Born in Cuba and raised in Boston, he was the first in his family to attend college. A former monk, he served as Spanish interpreter for His Holiness the Dalai Lama. In addition to his expertise in Tibetan and Spanish, Cabezón also has some fluency in Sanskrit, Pali, Japanese, Hindi, Latin, French and German.

April 7–9, 2009
The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation Distinguished Guest Lecturer in Buddhist Studies and American Culture and Values: Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara, PhD: "Five Expressions of Zen: A Path to Service"

Enkyo Roshi is a Zen Priest and certified Zen Teacher in the Soto tradition. She studied with John Daido Loori Roshi of Zen Mountain Monastery and Taizan Maezumi Roshi of the Zen Center of Los Angeles/Zen Mountain Center. In 1997, she received Shiho (dharma transmission) from Roshi Bernie Tetsugen Glassman and in June 2004, she received inka from him in an empowerment ceremony held at the House of One People in Montague, MA. Roshi currently serves as co-spiritual director of the Zen Peacemaker Family, a spiritual, study and social action association, and holds a PhD in media ecology from New York University.

September 10-13, 2009
The Frederick P. Lenz Foundation Distinguished Guest Lecturer in Buddhist Studies and American Culture and Values: Jan Willis, PhD: "Dharma Diversity: The Many Forms and Faces of Buddhism in America"

Dr. Janice Willis is a Professor of Religion at Wesleyan University. She is one of the earliest American scholar-practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism, and has published numerous essays and articles on Buddhist meditation, hagiography, women and Buddhism, and Buddhism and race. In 2001 she published Dreaming Me: An African American Woman’s Spiritual Journey. She has studied with Tibetan Buddhists in India, Nepal, Switzerland and the U.S., and has taught courses in Buddhism at Wesleyan since 1977. Time magazine named Dr. Willis one of six "spiritual innovators for the new millennium", Ebony caller her one of its "Power 150" most influential African-Americans, and she was profiled in a 2005 Newsweek article about “Spirituality in America.”