'Sensing Religion in American Experience'

"Hidden Histories: Sensing Religion in American Experience," a series of five free, public lectures, will be presented on Jan. 24, 25 and 26 by Lawrence Sullivan (A.M.'79, Ph.D.'81), director of the Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions and former faculty member in the Divinity School here.

Addressing the key question of the series -- "Is there anything innately religious about religious sensory experience?" -- Sullivan will analyze specific discourses about the senses, from Puritans and Shakers on music and Martha Graham on dance to Aztec codices on ceremonial space and Navajo sand painters on vision.

Four of the lectures will be held in the third-floor lecture room of Swift Hall, and one will be at the Art Institute of Chicago. The lectures are as follows. For more information, call 702-7170.

Wednesday, Jan. 24: "The Pilgrim's Chapel and the Shopper's Mall: Spaces That Shape Religious Experience," 4 p.m., Swift Lecture Hall.

Thursday, Jan. 25: "Soundings: Notes on Music From Shaker Hymns to Coltrane and Mickey Hart," 2 p.m., Swift Lecture Hall; "Seeing Things: Knowledge Viewed Through the Lens of Painting and Photography," 6 p.m., Arthur Rubloff Auditorium, Art Institute of Chicago.

Friday, Jan. 26: "Embodying Memory: The Rites of Easter and the Dances of Martha Graham," 10 a.m., Swift Lecture Hall; "Assembling the Senses: Religious Experience and the Convergence of Meanings," 2 p.m., Swift Lecture Hall.