'Life After Death' conference planned

A specialist in the intersection of Judaism and Christianity is the keynote speaker at a West Michigan full-day conference, “Life After Death,” sponsored by the West Michigan Academic Consortium and the West Shore Committee for Jewish/Christian Dialogue.

The conference, on Thursday, October 11, will be held at the Hope College Maas Conference Center, 264 Columbia Avenue, in Holland. The public is welcome to all events, which are free but require registration. Lunch is available for $10 by advance registration.

Keynote speaker Alan F. Segal is a professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at Barnard College, Columbia University. The author of numerous publications, his latest book, “Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion” (Doubleday, 2004), was published to wide acclaim.

Segal will give two lectures: his morning keynote, “The Self and Transformation: How the Hereafter Affects Who We Are,” at 10:30 a.m.; and his evening keynote, “The Mirror of our Souls and Societies: What Jews, Christians, and Muslims Believe About the Hereafter,” at 7 p.m. Afternoon breakout sessions will be led by West Michigan scholars on a variety of related topics.

The consortium is comprised of Aquinas College, Calvin College, Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Valley State University, Hope College, and Western Theological Seminary.

For more information visit www.jewishchristiandialogue.org or call (616) 331-5702.


Biographical Information

Before moving to Barnard College at Columbia University, Segal was appointed to Princeton University for two three-year terms starting in 1974 and to the University of Toronto. He received tenure at the University of Toronto in 1977, less than three years after beginning his teaching career.

Segal was also invited to the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies in Aspen, Colorado, and to leadership training at Aspen's Wye Plantation in Maryland. While living in Israel from 1977-1978 on a Guggenheim Fellowship, he lectured at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv University, and Bar Ilan University. He has served as guide on trips to Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and Israel and traveled extensively in Europe. He has held fellowships from the Woodrow Wilson Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, The Annenberg Institute, the Mellon Foundation, and the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation.

In the summer of 1988 at the Jubilee celebration in Cambridge, England, Segal became the first Jewish member of the Studiorum Novi Testamenti Societas to address the society. He was elected into membership of the American Society for the Study of Religion and the American Theological Association. Segal was also the first American not living in Canada to be elected president of the Canadian Society for Biblical Studies.

Professor Segal's publications include:

Jews and Arabs: A Teaching Guide (UAHC Press), Two Powers in Heaven (Brill), Deus Ex Machina: Computers in the Humanities (Penn University Bulletin Board), Rebecca's Children: Judaism and Christianity in the Roman World (Harvard University Press), The Other Judaisms of Late Antiquity (Scholars Press).

Paul the Convert: The Apostasy and Apostolate of Saul of Tarsus was published by Yale University Press in Spring 1990 and was the Editor's Choice, the main selection of the History Book Club's summer list. It was also a selection of The Book of the Month Club.

Professor Segal’s latest book, Life After Death: A History of the Afterlife in Western Religion (Doubleday, 2004), is the Editor’s Choice, the featured Summer Selection of the History Book Club, as well as an alternate selection of the Book of the Month Club and the Behavioral Science Book Club. It was voted one of the four best books in religion in 2004 by the Associated Press. He has also written many scholarly articles for journals in the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Segal lives in Ho-Ho-Kus, N. J., with his family. His wife, Meryl Segal, is the director of social work at the Forum School for emotionally disturbed children and children with autism.