News 2019

Paula Arai published a bookPainting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra - The Buddhist Art of Iwasaki Tsuneo. Boulder, CO: Shambhala Publications, 2019. 

Paula Arai presented on her book, Painting Enlightenment: Healing Visions of the Heart Sutra - The Buddhist Art of Iwasaki Tsuneo, at events in California, Louisiana, New York, Indiana, and Washington. 

Paula Arai presented at two conferences - "Painting Emptiness: Healing Viewed Through Microscopic and Telescopic Lenses Focused on the Heart Sutra," at the American Academy of Religion National Conference in California; and "Healing Art: Seeing the Female Heart of Wisdom and Compassion" at the 16th Sakyadhita International Conference in Australia. 

Paula Arai published two peer-reviewed book chapters: "Healing Wisdom: An Appreciation of a Japanese Scientist's Paintings of the Heart Sutra" and "Japanese Buddhist Women's 'Way of Healing'"in Buddhism and Medicine: An Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Sources (edited by Pierce Salguero, New York: Columbia University Press, 2019).

Delbert Burkett will offer a new class for the Honors College in Fall 2019: "A History of Jesus" (HNRS 2030).

Michael Pasquier published the article "Missionaries, Martyrdom, and Warfare in French Colonial Louisiana, 1699-1764" in the Spring 2019 issue of the Catholic Historical Review. In it, Dr. Pasquier describes the involvement of Catholic missionaries in the evangelization and extermination of Native American groups in colonial Louisiana.

Michael Pasquier published the article "Flooded Catholicism: Disaster and Prayer in Coastal Louisiana" in Exchange: Journal of Contemporary Christianities in Context. Through the use of oral histories, Dr. Pasquier explores the prayer lives of people affected by the Flood of 2016 in the Baton Rouge area. 

Michael Pasquier, along with Dr. Craig Colten (Geography) and Dr. Traci Birch (Architecture), is leading LSU's involvement in the "Coasts, Climates, the Humanities and the Environment Consortium" (CCHEC). Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Consortium brings together scholars from LSU, the University of Florida, the University of Georgia, and the University of North Carolina to study the history and culture of coastal zones throughout the U.S. South.

Michael Pasquier recently spoke to a crowd of several hundred people for LSU's Science Cafe at the Varsity Theatre in Baton Rouge. Here's a link to his talk on "Coastal Voices: Stories of Resiliency." Dr. Pasquier's presentation on the history and culture of southern Louisiana is connected to his larger multimedia initiative "Coastal Voices". 

Brad Storin published two books: Self-Portrait in Three Colors: Gregory of Nazianzus's Epistolary Autobiography, Christianity in Late Antiquity 6 (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019) and Gregory of Nazianzus's Letter Collection: The Complete Translation, Christianity in Late Antiquity 7 (Oakland: University of California Press, 2019). 

Mrs. Catherine Cole “Cacky” Petty

October 2, 1923-June 19, 2019

Mrs. Catherine Petty passed away a few weeks ago. Her husband William preceded her in death by three years. While I knew them both, I was closest to Mrs. Petty. People close to her knew her as “Cacky,” a kind, generous, and funny woman, who didn’t have much of a filter. And at her age—she died at 95—she had earned the right to live with candor. And live she did, in her own way.

I met her in 2014 after she had reached out to me by email and phone. She was excited to see on the LSU Religious Studies site that I had an interest in UFOs and what they mean and African American esotericisms. I would eventually visit her at home on several occasions, mostly where I would just listen to her. She knew a lot about parapsychology, its history in the United States and Europe, and its primary scholars. She knew many of them.

She was a deeply read and intelligent woman, who spent much of her time researching the paranormal—what used to be called the discipline of Parapsychology, or Psychical Research—which had academic departments, research centers, and working groups all over the United States and Europe through the early 20th century. She reported knowing Dr. J. B. Rhine of the Duke University Parapsychology Lab and many other scientists and researchers. Her interest in life after death, consciousness that exceeds the body, was personal. She lost her son in his youth, and she claimed to have communicated with him repeatedly over time. This motivated her investigations and support for scholarship on Psi phenomena and the paranormal.

Indeed, that was her connection to Religious Studies at Louisiana State University (her family has other connections to Philosophy, since her daughter, Cay Petty, completed a master’s degree in the program and worked in Hill Memorial Library). Very early in the origins of the program, which began in 1980, Mrs. Petty was in close contact with Dr. John Whittaker, who also had an extensive personal library of books on the paranormal and psychical research. Dr. Whittaker was the professor who initiated the program.

Almost immediately, in 1981, William and Catherine Petty endowed the William James Fund, which continues, to this day, as a Foundation account at LSU. This Fund supports teaching, lectures, research, and scholarly materials about the paranormal, but it is especially directed toward scholarly activities related to life after death. With support from the Fund, for instance, Religious Studies hosted Dr. Jeffrey J. Kripal, in November, 2011, who had recently published two related books, Authors of the Impossible and Mutants and Mystics. While here, Dr. Kripal presented on his work to Dr. Madhuri Yadlapati’s Introduction to the Study of Religion class and delivered a public lecture. Dr. Kripal’s lecture was on William James, ironically enough, the famed Harvard psychologist, who was also a researcher of psychical phenomena. Dr. Whittaker once shared with me that, because William James was a respected scholar and researcher, he suggested to the Pettys that the endowment carry his name.

The William James Fund is also tied to one of our courses, REL 3203, Religion and Parapsychology, which I have taught several times. Indeed, as a way of honoring Mrs. Petty in Spring 2016, I invited her to visit my class—the class which she and William Petty made possible—through their philanthropy. I wanted my students to meet her, and I wanted her to see the learning that she helped to enable. And I wanted her to feel like a celebrity. She deserved that. This is the picture that she took with my class and me on that day, which her daughter sent to me recently with an announcement of her passing.

  Catherine Petty

Mrs. Catherine Petty was supportive of Religious Studies at LSU, as was William Petty, and I just wanted to say something about her and to remember her for what she has done, including the boxes of books, tape recordings, journals on psychical research, and documents that she donated to us, which we gave to Hill Memorial Library in her name and William’s name in 2015. We were grateful to her, and I will continue to remember her for what she did for me personally and how kind and inviting she was. And the William James Fund will continue benefitting our program and students.

Professor Stephen C. Finley

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