West Michigan Academic Consortium Conference: Religious Polemics and Religious Fairness

Calvin Theological Seminary

3233 Burton Street SE Grand Rapids MI 49546

Tuesday October 15, 2013

This day-long conference will feature Dean Margaret Mitchell, Ph.D. as the keynote speaker. Dr. Mitchell is the Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School and a literary historian of ancient Christianity. Her research and teaching span a range of topics in New Testament and early Christian writings up through the end of the 4^th century, with a special interest in the Pauline letters, the poetics and politics of ancient biblical interpretation, and the intersection of text, image, and artifact in the fashioning of early Christian culture.

Dean Mitchell is the author of four books: Paul and the Rhetoric of Reconciliation (1991), The Heavenly Trumpet: John Chrysostom and the Art of Pauline Interpretation (2000), The “Belly-Myther” of Endor: Interpretations of 1 Kingdoms 28 in the Early Church (2007), and Paul, the Corinthians and the Birth of Christian Hermeneutics (2010).

Recent articles include “The Poetics and Politics of Christian Baptism in the Abercius Monument” (2011), “The Continuing Problem of Particularity and Universality within the corpus Paulinum: Chrysostom on Romans 16:3″ (2011) and “Peter’s ‘Hypocrisy’ and Paul’s: Two ‘Hypocrites’ at the Foundation of Earliest Christianity?”(2012).

2013 Consortium Conference Schedule

9:30am Registration and Coffee

10:30am – 12:30pm Morning Keynote Lecture “Pauline Polemics in Galatians and Their After Effects”

12:30pm – 1:45pm Lunch Break (Optional $10 Lunch Available)

2:00pm-3:00pm Breakout Session I

3:00pm – 3:30pm Refreshment Break

3:30pm – 4:30pm Breakout Session II

4:30pm – 6:30pm Dinner Break (Optional $20 Dinner Available)

6:30pm – 7:00pm Coffee and Mini-Dessert Buffet

7:00pm – 8:30pm Evening Lecture “Playing with Fire – Talking About Religion in Public”

Click here to register for the 2013 Academic Consortium Conference