Princeton Seminary’s Spring Book Series focuses on Literature Responding to a Changing World and Faith and Church in the Third Millennium

Princeton, NJ, January 3, 2008–This spring, Princeton Theological Seminary’s Center of Continuing Education will offer a “Meet the Author” book series, featuring five distinguished authors speaking on the topic of literature responding to a changing world and faith and church in the third millennium.  

On Tuesday, February 19 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Dr. William M. Tucker, author of How People Change: The Short Story as Case History and clinical professor of psychiatry at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, will speak. Tucker has published in the professional literature on psychiatric education, trauma, and telemedicine, and has been teaching psychiatric residents and fellow physicians about the process of change for the past two decades.

How People Change: The Short Story as Case History illustrates how through the enjoyment and careful reading of short stories, we can understand how change occurs in all phases of our lives. The book contains sixteen well-known short stories by authors such as Katherine Anne Porter, Anton Chekhov, James Joyce, and others and a discussion of each. Professionals and clinicians can also benefit from this presentation of the short story as case history.

In Globe, his latest collection, Dublin poet Micheal O’Siadhail explores the questions: How do the past and our memories bear on the present? What kind of people help to alter the dynamics of history? How do we face the open wounds of irreversible tragedies and loss?

O’Siadhail will give a poetry reading on Tuesday, March 11 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. He is a full-time writer living in Dublin, Ireland, and was educated at Trinity College, where he has since lectured. He has publicly read his poetry throughout Europe, Britain, Ireland, and North America, including at Harvard and Yale Universities.            

On Tuesday, April 1 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., Dr. Linda Mercadante will speak about her book A Jewish-Catholic Jersey Girl’s Spiritual Journey. In this memoir, she traces her ongoing spiritual journey from her childhood in the Newark, New Jersey, apartment above the bakery owned by her Italian Catholic father and Jewish mother.

Mercadante, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), earned her doctorate at Princeton Seminary and is currently professor of theology in the B. Robert Straker Chair in Historical Theology at Methodist Theological School in Delaware, Ohio.

In his latest book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, Jim Wallis addresses the question: What will it take to solve the biggest issue of our time: poverty, global warming and environmental degradation, terrorism, violence, racism, human trafficking, healthcare and education in a world where politicians are offering only blame and fear?

Wallis is a best-selling author, public theologian, preacher, speaker, activist, and international commentator on ethics and public life. His background includes involvement in the civil rights and antiwar movements as a student at Michigan State University. His commitment to social justice continued while he studied at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, where he and several other students started a small magazine and community with a Christian commitment, which has grown into a national faith-based organization for which he serves as president and executive director: Sojourners/ Call to Renewal. He will present his latest book on Thursday, April 10 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Books will be sold after the event and a book signing will follow.

Brian McLaren, an author, speaker, pastor, and emergent church leader, will speak about his latest book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crisis, and a Revolution of Hope, on Tuesday, April 15 from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., posing two questions: What are the world’s top crises? What do the life and message of Jesus say to those global crises?

McLaren graduated from the University of Maryland with degrees in English. He serves as board chair for Sojourners, and is a founding member of Red Letter Christians, a group of communicators seeking to broaden and deepen the dialogue about faith and public life.

The book series, free and open to the public (space is limited, so please register early), will be held in the Erdman Center, 20 Library Place in Princeton. To register online, go to www.ptsem.edu/ce, email coned@ptsem.edu, or call 609.497.7990.      

Princeton Theological Seminary was founded in 1812, the first seminary established by the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church. It is the largest Presbyterian seminary in the country, with more than 700 students in seven graduate degree programs.