Rabbi and scholar to address globalization
The speakers headline a three-day conference hosted by Chaminade
Chaminade University of Honolulu will host the Fifth International Conference on Globalization for the Common Good through Saturday at the Ching Conference Center.
The conference addresses a world quest for international understanding, dialogue, justice and peace in Asia and the Pacific. There will be a large number of speakers, delegates and senior scholars from Australia, Indonesia, England, Japan, the Middle East and the United States, according to a release.
The annual conferences have previously been held in Dubai, Kenya; Oxford, England; and St. Petersburg, Russia.
The public is invited to attend keynote speaker presentations on the top floor of the Ching Conference Center on the Chaminade campus, including:
» Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun Magazine, on "Globalization of Selfishness versus Globalization of Spirit," today, 7:30 p.m. Cost is $10.
» Peter Milward, Society of Jesus, emeritus professor and director of the Renaissance Institute, Sophia University, Tokyo, on "The University and Globalization," tomorrow, 7:30 p.m. Free admission.
More information regarding the conference can be found at acad.chaminade.edu/dept/ humanities/commongood or by calling 735-4827. The conference center is past the chapel at the top of a one-way road as you enter the campus; turn left behind Ivan Hall.
Rabbi Lerner is publisher of Tikkun, a magazine devoted to Jewish culture and politics. "Tikkun" means to mend, repair and transform the world, according to the release.
His most recent book, "The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right," is a call to political action. Lerner was picked by Utne Reader as "one of America's 100 most significant visionaries."
He is a frequent lecturer and scholar-in-residence at universities and synagogues around the United States, Canada and England. Lerner was awarded a special PEN Award in 2001 for his stance in breaking the censorship that exists around Israel-Palestinian matters in the U.S. media.
At the same time, he was subjected to death threats from Israeli and American Jewish rightists who denounced his stance (in Tikkun magazine) calling for Israel to respect Palestinian human rights and end the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Milward has taught in Japan at Sophia University since 1962 and has published many books on English literature, including "An Introduction to Shakespeare's Plays," "Christian Themes in English Literature," "Shakespeare's Religious Background" and two volumes of "Religious Controversies of the Elizabethan Age and the Jacobean Age."
His current work, "What Is a University?" is a quest for the meaning of the university in the modern global context and its potential for transformative education.