M. Shawn Copeland to give the 2007 Becket Lecture

Friday, March 16, 2007, 5:00 P.M.
Petteruti Lounge, Faunce House, The College Green, Brown University
Sponsored by the Brown-RISD Roman Catholic Community
Free and open to the public.

The technological progress of the twenty-first century has created a global village.
The Internet, global news media, and travel have made it possible for the world’s peoples to increase experience and knowledge of one another. Simultaneously, these same processes of progress increase each individual’s self-concern. In this context,
M. Shawn Copeland, an associate professor of theology at Boston College, will
present the 2007 Becket Lecture, which asks, “Who Is My Neighbor?”

Copeland specializes in theological and philosophical anthropology, political theology, as well as African and African-derived religious and cultural experience and African American intellectual history. The author of more than 70 articles and book chapters, Copeland’s more recent publications include “Disturbing Aesthetics of Race” in the Journal of Catholic Social Thought (2006); “Body, Race, and Being: Theological Anthropology in the Context of Performing and Subverting Eucharist” in Constructive Theology: A Contemporary Approach to Classical Themes (2005); and “Doing Black Catholic Theology: Rhythm, Structure, and Aesthetics” in Chicago Studies (2003). In addition to her duties at Boston College, she teaches and holds an administrative
post with the Institute for Black Catholic Studies at Xavier University of Louisiana in New Orleans. She has taught at Marquette University and Yale University Divinity School and has lectured widely in the United States, Australia, Belgium, Canada, and Nigeria. Copeland is the past convenor of the Black Catholic Theological Symposium and a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America. She received her doctorate in systematic theology from Boston College.

This lecture is funded by the Thomas Becket Association. For more information, contact 401.863.2344.