Events & Calendars Rumi and the Nature of Religious Identity

Jamal J. Elias, Walter H. Annenberg Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Religious Studies and South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania where he is also a member of the Graduate Groups in Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations and in Ancient History, will speak on "Rumi and the Nature of Religious Identity" at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 18th in 101 Chapin Hall. Elias, a former member of the Religion Department at Amherst College, has published broadly on history, religion, literature and material and visual culture in the medieval and modern Islamic world, his two most recent books being On Wings of Diesel: Trucks, Identity and Culture in Pakistan (Oxford 2011) and Aisha's Cushion: Religious Art, Perception and Practice in Islam (Cambridge, MA, 2012). A recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship this year, he is working (primarily) on a history of the Mevlevi Sufi order from the death of its founder, Rumi (d. 1273), until the advent of the modern era. This lecture is sponsored by the Religion Department and the Willis D. Wood Fund and is free and open to the public.