News

GA: Annual UU Historical Society Lecture

General Assembly, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida — Saturday, June 28 at 5:00 p.m. — Convention Center 316

The American Transcendentalists sought to realize the Founders’ dream of a truly egalitarian society. But they were deeply divided over how this should be accomplished, one wing championing self-culture, and the other, selfless commitment to the common good. In this lecture Gura will explore how the group’s dilemma continues to vex liberals attitudes toward reform.

Biography of Speaker: Dr. Philip F. Gura is one of the most distinguished scholars of Transcendentalism. He is the William S. Newman Distinguished Professor of American Literature and Culture, Department of English, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He was previously Professor of English and American Studies, University of Colorado, Boulder, and before that taught at Middlebury College. He has published many books including American Transcendentalism: A History (2007) and Jonathan Edwards: America’s Evangelical (2005) He is also an active Unitarian Universalist.

Gura is an outstanding scholar in the field of American history and literature. He has just finished the first comprehensive history of the American Transcendentalist movement since 1876. Even though there have been countless biographies of leaders of the movement such as Emerson and Thoreau, there has been no modern, complete history of the movement until now. This is important in terms of scholarship, but Gura is also someone who can give UUs a good perspective on what this most fascinating of UU traditions can mean to us spiritually and socially. Gura is an active UU, as well as a scholar, and can help us see how this important historical movement is socially relevant and can still empower us with a philosophy that was a spiritually integrated approach to life with an impulse toward reforming the world, saving the environment, and finding the divine in natural settings. In his lecture Gura will show how the Transcendentalists sought to reform American society by balancing self and society. This debate animated the movement throughout its history, until, in the Gilded Age, for various reasons Transcendentalism became identified primarily with the sanctity of the individual. This historical legacy will help us understand how to deal with this continuing dilemma in our own lives.

GA: Workshop

#5014 “A Faith for the Few? Class and Unitarian Universalism,” Rev. Mark Harris

(Fifth Lecture of the 2008 Minns Lecture) — General Assembly, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida — Sunday, June 29 1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. — Convention Center Grand Floridian H

Is Unitarian Universalism a class-bound religion? Did the Brahmin elite create a faith that only appeals to a narrow, “cultured” minority? In this Minns lecture, we will explore several groups in our history who challenge us to create a more popular message that can attract a broader spectrum of people to our congregations today. Rev. Mark Harris

Please send comments or corrections to psprecher@uuma.org . This site was updated May 23, 2008.