While colonialism is widely believed to have officially ended in the 20th century, ushering in a "postcolonial" era, and W.E.B. DuBois famously defined the "problem of the 20th century [to be] the problem of the color line," this presentation will examine the ways in which this colonial color line has transformed and continues to thrive in the 21st century. Critically building on the work of Frantz Fanon and Sylvia Wynter, and in particular reference to the mutually-influencing categories of race and religion, this talk will explore the roots of this continuing colonial rupture, and strategies for moving beyond it in various domains.
Oludamini Ogunnaike is an Associate Professor of African Religious Thought at the University of Virginia specializing in the intellectual and aesthetic dimensions of West and North African Sufism and Yoruba oriṣa traditions. He is the author of Deep Knowledge: Ways of Knowing in Sufism and Ifa, Two West African Intellectual Traditions (Penn State University Press, 2020) winner of the ASWAD's (Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora) Outstanding First Book Prize and Poetry in Praise of Prophetic Perfection: West African Madīḥ Poetry and its Precedents (Islamic Texts Society, 2020). He is currently working on two book projects, The Logic of the Birds: An Introduction to Sufi Poetry and Poetics and a book on Yoruba Mythology.
He received his PhD in African and African American studies and Religion at Harvard University and his A.B. in African Studies and Cognitive Neuroscience from Harvard College.
VALARIE KAUR is a civil rights leader, lawyer, award-winning filmmaker, educator, and founder of the Revolutionary Love Project. Valarie became an activist when a Sikh father and family friend was the first person murdered in hate violence in the aftermath of 9/11. For two decades, in his memory, Valarie has led visionary campaigns to tell untold stories and change policy on issues ranging from hate crimes to digital freedom. Her work ignited a national movement to reclaim love as a force for justice.
Today, the Revolutionary Love Project is seeding networked communities of practice across the country to build the beloved community. A daughter of Punjabi Sikh farmers in California, Valarie lifts up her vision for America in her acclaimed TED Talk and #1 LA Times Bestseller See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love. In Fall 2022, President Biden honored Valarie at the White House in the first-ever Uniters Ceremony, naming her as one of 16 leaders whose work is healing America.
To experience Valarie’s vision for America, watch her TED Talk and read her acclaimed book SEE NO STRANGER: A Memoir & Manifesto of Revolutionary Love.
Dr. E. Richard Atleo, whose Nuu-chah-nulth name is Umeek, is a hereditary chief. He is widely and duly celebrated both for his analysis and promotion of the Nuu-chal-nulth concept of "tsawalk," oneness, the interdependence of all things, and for fostering our respectful relationship and negotiation with it. He has written two contemporary classics on this theme, Tsawalk: A Nuu-Chal-Nuth Worldview (2005), and Principles of Tsawalk: An Indigenous Approach to Global Crisis (2012). He will draw on his vast experience and his life in two cultural worlds to speak to healing and reconciliation.
Dr. Atleo's contributions include the creation of the First Nations Studies Department at Vancouver Island University where he also taught as well as the Universities of Victoria, Manitoba, Simon Fraser, and UBC. Beyond his roles in academia, Dr. Atleo was a social worker, elementary school teacher, principal, federal ministerial assistant, and assistant superintendent of education. Dr. Atleo received the Equity Award from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, where he served as a member of the Equity Committee since its inception. His contributions extend to other organizations, including roles as co-chair of the Scientific Panel for Sustainable Forest Practices in Clayoquot Sound, and as a member of the board of Ecotrust Canada.
After a long ordeal, we return to campus, perhaps with apprehension, likely licking our wounds. In a spirit of solidarity and compassion, I welcome everyone back.
I am currently serving as the chair of the Interreligious Dialogue Initiative (IDI), which is part of the Institute of Catholic Thought and Culture (ICTC) and works collaboratively with them. It organizes and hosts one major lecture each quarter, seeking to address the themes highlighted by the ICTC, but through the lens of interreligious dialogue and reflection. It is my hope to contribute to a healthy, inclusive, respectful, and honest space of shared spiritual striving across the human world’s many religious traditions.
In the months before his passing, Peter Ely, SJ, asked me to replace him as the head of the IDI. It continues to remain my privilege to accept Peter’s offer and to walk in his admittedly large footsteps. I dedicated the first year to his memory and legacy. Challenges and opportunities continue to confront us, and I hope to use Peter’s generous, discerning, and radically open example as an inspiration and guide.
Last academic year, as we all navigated the strange waters of the pandemic, the IDI hosted two events. In the winter quarter, the Soto Zen priest and Viet Nam War veteran Claude AnShin Thomas spoke on peacemaking. In the spring quarter, our own Pat Twohy, SJ, joined the Lummi Elder Darrell Hillaire in a dialogue about spirituality and the ecological crisis. Both events were held on Zoom and were recorded and remain available for viewing on the ICTC website.
I am still planning this academic year’s three lectures. Given the current policy proscribing large non-classroom events, the Fall lecture and discussion will be offered remotely through Zoom. Although the circumstances of the winter and spring lectures are still to be determined, the winter lecture will highlight the Sakyadhita International Association for Buddhist Women, whose new president is Dr. Sharon Suh, and which works “at the grassroots level” to provide “a communications network among Buddhist women internationally” and to “promote research and publications on Buddhist women’s history and other topics of interest” and to “strive to create equal opportunities for women in all Buddhist traditions.” Although the speaker is still in the process of being identified, I am also working with our local friends at the Seattle Buddhist Study Center at the Betsuin (Seattle Buddhist Church). For more information on Sakyadhita, see: https://www.sakyadhita.org
Please contact me with questions and suggestions. I seek to be responsive to our community and to offer spiritually rich and provocative programming that will nourish our whole community, religious and non-religious, traditionalists and seekers.
Tetsuzen Jason Wirth (wirthj@seattleu.edu)
Tetsuzen Jason Wirth, Professor of Philosophy at Seattle University and a Soto Zen priest, offers a Dharma talk (speaking from the heart regarding the great matters of living and dying) that also seeks to offer some Zen words of encouragement during the current crisis. He begins with a brief reflection on a line from the Heart Sutra and then ties its thought to the words of Zen Master Dogen (1200-1253). In so doing, he tries to understand how Dogen would also have seen our crisis as a sutra, a moment the study of which can lead to an awakening and a deepening of our practice.
In the summer of 2019, Peter Ely invited me to be his successor as the leader of the Interreligious Dialogue Initiative (IDI) beginning in AY 2020-2021 and I accepted. I consider this a great honor and responsibility as we help facilitate the exploration of the many religious paths shared by members of the Seattle University community, both on campus and beyond, and as we deepen our respect for them and enrich our own paths by sharing in the wisdom and compassion of other paths. We will continue to feature a major speaker every academic quarter who will engage the Catholic intellectual and spiritual tradition by building bridges to and opening channels of communication with other traditions. I plan to dedicate my inaugural year to Peter Ely and his immeasurable legacy. May he rest in power and may his wise and kind spirit continue to guide us in our shared work across traditions.
This has been a difficult year for all of us. In addition to the many challenges that we have endured, some more than others, this time also saw the passing of Peter Ely, SJ, a cherished friend of many of us. As a founding member of what came to be called the Interreligious Dialogue Initiative (IDI), under Peter’s steady guidance, I witnessed not only his erudition and wisdom, but also his open heart. This inspired me deeply. Over the years I witnessed him engage in fair-minded debate with atheists, and dialogue appreciatively and generously with many of the world’s religious and spiritual paths.
In the months before his passing, Peter asked me to replace him as the head of the IDI. This was Peter’s way. Although earlier in my life I had been trained by the Jesuits (Saint Ignatius College Preparatory in San Francisco and the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester), my own lifelong discernment took me to Japan where I was ordained a priest in the Soto Zen lineage, which goes back to the great Kamakura master, Dōgen Zenji (1200-1253). Yet Peter recognized that my Zen training and commitment had opened me up to all sincere spiritual striving, regardless of its institutional or personal manifestations. Unless we consign our spiritual practices to escapist fantasy, they share with all other genuine and honest spiritual practices a commitment to the great matters of human living and dying. We consequently have much to learn from each other in open dialogue, debate, and philosophical engagement.
It remains my privilege and happiness to accept Peter’s offer and to walk in his admittedly large footsteps and I would like to dedicate my first year to his memory and legacy. Given the many challenges and opportunities that confront us, I hope to use Peter’s generous and radically open example as an inspiration and guide.
I am also happy to be working with my friend and colleague, Dr. Jeanette Rodriguez. I travelled with her and Dr. Ted Fortier to Cuernavaca, Mexico to stay with the Sisters of our Lady of Guadalupe and later with them to El Salvador. These two trips were deeply formative for me and they strengthened my resolve to engage in the important work of the IDI ahead. (It is now officially a part of the work of ICTC.) I also acknowledge here the wonderful work of Jessica Palmer, the assistant director of the ICTC. I plan to have updates and reflections in each issue of this newsletter.
The IDI will sponsor and organize one major public lecture each academic quarter. I am still busy planning this year’s events, but the first one will engage intersectional justice in an age of global migration and will likely be offered in early November. The winter lecture will engage the issue of non-violence from an interreligious Buddhist perspective. The spring lecture will engage our local indigenous sisters and brothers.
Please feel to contact me with questions and suggestions. It is my hope to offer spiritually rich and provocative programming that will nourish our whole community, religious and non-religious, traditionalists and seekers.
Tetsuzen Jason Wirth (wirthj@seattleu.edu)
Although the news on Saturday morning, November 7, at last promised a reprieve from the bellicosity of the last four years, we remain a divided and broken country. In a healthier time, disagreements could give rise to productive debates. Now they seem tinged with the threat of violence. This also makes it difficult to address the many exigencies of our time, including the ecological crisis, systemic white supremacy and economic inequity, and the pandemic.
As a Buddhist priest in the Soto Zen tradition, I share, along with the ICTC, as well as members of the Interreligious Dialogue Initiative, the sense that these challenges drive us deeper into our spiritual practices for the requisite wisdom, patience, compassion, and action to respond to our hurting country and its emergencies. We cannot sow the seeds of nonviolence and healing unless we first have the courage to confront the roots of violence, including those in our own heart.
Following the ICTC’s winter theme "The Non-violent Shift," the first IDI speaker, Claude AnShin Thomas, will address the issue of non-violence from a Zen Buddhist perspective. As a teenager, Thomas fought in the Vietnam War as a helicopter gunner. As he confessed in his moving book, At Hell’s Gate: A Soldier’s Journey from War to Peace (2004), “My job in Vietnam was to kill people. By the time I was first injured in combat (two or three months into my tour), I had already been directly responsible for the deaths of several hundred people. And today, each day, I can still see many of their faces." Returning home from the War, he suffered severe bouts of PTSD and lived a self-destructive and unstable life.
Thomas eventually took up the path of Zen. Bernie Glassman ordained him and gave him his Dharma name, AnShin, Heart of Peace (as well as Angyo, Peacemaker). He has dedicated his practice to non-violence and peace-making and this practice includes a rigorous practice of takuhatsu, Buddhist begging. He has walked almost 20,000 miles on peace pilgrimages, carrying no wallet and no money.
Claude AnShin Thomas learned to cultivate non-violence out of the hell of violence. He, and his nonprofit Zaltho Foundation, serve those who have undergone suffering and traumatic violence, helping them heal and sowing the seeds of peace. For more information, see: https://zaltho.org
Given the prevailing pandemic conditions, this will be a Zoom event at a date to be determined in February. I look forward to joining you as we learn from this remarkable peacemaker, healer, and powerful spokesperson for ahimsa, the way of nonviolence.
Jason M. Wirth
I hope that this finds everyone persevering through the many challenges of the pandemic, including the various new stresses that have characterized our life and work at Seattle University. Our spiritual life has been a traditional source of solace during times of adversity, although historically the strife between its disparate manifestations has also contributed significantly to the problems that they purport to heal.
As the chair of the IDI and a Buddhist priest, I acknowledge this history, but it is also my hope that in addressing it, we can make the diversity of our spiritual life a source of wisdom, learning, and mutual dialogue, support, and strength.
In the winter quarter, we had our first event, an afternoon with the Vietnam vet, peacemaker, and Soto Zen priest, Claude AnShin Thomas. We lifted up the ICTC winter theme, Non-violence, by providing an interreligious perspective. AnShin gave a terrific talk and there were over a hundred people in attendance. If you missed it, you can watch it here on vimeo: https://vimeo.com/509920193
I am also happy to share with you the preliminary details for our next event, which will feature Darrell Hillaire of the Lummi People and Pat Twohey, SJ. It is scheduled for WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2021 at 4 pm and will once again be a Zoom event. The topic will be twofold: Lummi spirituality in dialogue with Jesuit spiritual practice as well as Lummi reflections on ecology and earth care.
Darrell Hillaire is a highly esteemed leader and the executive director of Tse-sum-ten and Setting Sun Productions (https://settingsunproductions.org). Pat Twohey is the author of two seminal works, Finding a Way Home and Beginnings: A Meditation on Coast Salish Lifeways. He has lived with and served indigenous peoples of the Northwest for four decades, including eleven years with the Colville Confederated Tribes in Eastern Washington and more recently the Swinomish and Tulalip Tribes of the Coast Salish Peoples.
In order to prepare for the event, I highly recommend listening to this powerful recent collaborative project between Darrell and Pat. It both sets the tone for the event and provides excellent and quite moving background:
https://settingsunproductions.org/beginnings
Please feel to contact me with questions and suggestions. It is my hope to offer spiritually rich and provocative programming that will nourish our whole community, religious and non-religious, traditionalists and seekers.
Tetsuzen Jason Wirth (wirthj@seattleu.edu)
The Interreligious Dialogue Initiative (IDI) established in 2012 under the auspices of Mission and Ministry and now, as of Fall 2015, located within the Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture (ICTC) aims to awaken sensibility in the Seattle U. community to the richness of the world’s religions, a richness abundantly represented on our campus, and to move beyond mere tolerance to engagement. The IDI steering committee includes on-campus representatives of various religious and spiritual traditions and key areas such as Campus Ministry, Theology and Religious Studies, and the School of Theology and Ministry. Beginning in the academic year 2019-2020, the IDI will be shifting its focus in a new direction. Each quarter IDI, in collaboration with various other groups and initiatives on campus, will sponsor a public forum designed to deepen awareness of religious traditions and spiritual pathways. We hope that these events will emphasize the continuing creative role of religions in a secular age.
Read the text from the 34th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus, Decree 5: “Our Mission and Interreligious Dialogue.” https://jesuitportal.bc.edu/research/documents/1995_decree5gc34/