Must-dos in Rome

In a little more than a week, the new 5th cycle students will leave for their one and only RRE initiation: the trip to Rome! Sharing a dinner, me and some other 4th cyclist went on a nostalgia trip, while thinking of last year. Although we would rather join again, having good memories is also valuable. Moreover, we could thus create a very arbitrary and personal list of everything we think one should do when being on the RRE Rome trip. Anna, Thomas and Ivana, thanks for the inspiration! ;-) 

When in Rome with RRE, one should: 

- Arrive after 11 PM at the Lebanese sisters or at least have to run to make it in time once
- Sit on the roof of the Norwegian Institute with self-cooked dinner.

- Get awesome pizza for lunch at That One Pizzeria that is close to the Institute.

- Get lost. Somewhere.

- Enter the Vatican. Either decide not to enter the St. Peter because of the long line or stand in line for two hours and be eventually not allowed in because of too short pants/skirt.

- Find a topic for both of your papers.

- Go to a Conference on an exciting Coptic fragment.

- Pet the Norwegian-Institute cat. Be careful, she can be mean.
- Get into an academic discussion with Einar Thomassen

- Eat at least one of the following: tiramisu, lasagne, risotto, crostini. Or all, that's even better. 

- Curse the stairs (You'll know what I mean)

- Learn all the names of your fellow students. 

- Conclude that Einar Thomassen was probably right.
- Find out the Coptic fragment is a fraud.

- Found a Facebook group with your classmates. (If there's none yet.)

- Eat seven ice creams. That's once every other day and we have concluded that this should be the minimum.

- Study

- if you still have time for that...

Any additions are welcome, fellow students!

/PD

First Open Lecture Lund Fall 13

Every term, Lund's University organises a series of three-open lectures, linked to the RRE program. The theme of this term is 'fearing the other', so the three lectures will be about judeophobia, christianophobia and islamophobia.
The first one will be coming Tuesday, September 10th and the Centre for Theology and Religious Studies in Lund.  Time: 4.15 PM. Professor Jesper Svartvik will give the lecture about judeophobia.

I'm quite sure that many of us Lund students will come, which might lead to some nice socializing, drinks and possibly dinner afterwards. So if you're in the neighborhood, please come!! :-)

/PD

Remember remember - the first of September

Hooray, it’s the first Monday of September. I guess it’s the start of the Academic Year at all of the six RRE institutions. Well, at least it is in Lund. So, it took me some effort to come out of bed at an early time this morning. (And I can tell you that I consider everything before 9 AM ‘early’ after quite a long holiday…)

I started with reading a book for my course on the Religions in Contemporary Perspective: ‘Abraham’s Children – Jewish Christians and Muslims in Conversation’ by Solomon, Harries and Winter. (T&T Clark, 2005.) The concept of the book is special: it was born out of the so-called ‘ Oxford Abrahamic Group’. In this group, Jewish, Christian and Islamic scholars came together twice a year. Three scholars would present a paper on an aspect of one of the three religions, followed by a discussion. Because of the personal beliefs of the scholars, the discussions did not only have an academic, but also a personal dimension and contributed to mutual understanding, even if the discussions were sometimes heated. This book is a collection of the presented papers and the discussion that took place in this group.

Personally, I think that this is very interesting approach and it provides definitely for different reading than other academic books I have read before. When read that Harries thanked his wife Jo “who has provided hospitality for the group, with its variety of dietary requirements”, I had to smile. However – out of the 15 contributors to the book only two are women and that made my smile a little smaller.

So, fourth cycle – what do you think about the concept of this book? And what about the ‘lack’ of female contributors? Am I making fuss about nothing? ;-)

I guess I should get back to reading in the meantime…
/PD