The Capps Center at UCSB presents public lectures that seek to advance discussion of issues related to ethics, values and public life, and to encourage non-partisan, non-sectarian civic participation.
As chatbots trained on Large Language Models become more sophisticated, their responses can sometimes seem uncanny, as if they come from a source that is mysterious, inexplicable, or even divine. Webb Keane, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, examines what happens when people treat artificial intelligence as a kind of “metahuman.” He explains how this reflects a broader human…
What does it mean to rethink religion from the ground up? University of Colorado's religious studies professor Sam Gill draws on biology, philosophy, and decades of research and dance practice to argue that we are moving, whole organisms before we are divided into mind and body. Gill proposes that humans possess a biologically enabled capacity to hold together what we know to be different as if it…
The extractive linear economy and policies focused on endless growth have produced unparalleled socioeconomic inequality and the climate crisis. Communities around the world are calling for new economic models that are regenerative towards people, place, and ecosystems. Ancestral ʻŌiwi (indigenous Hawaiian) economic systems were built around people's relationships and understandings of wai…
How are Indigenous communities in the U.S. facing challenges to their ways of life in the current political moment? Focusing on questions concerning repatriation, land access, education, and diverse forms of sovereignty, our panelists explore the intersection of Indigenous religious traditions and law. The discussion begins at the regional level, with specific reference to Chumash contexts, and…
How should federal governments attempt to right, or at least remedy, past wrongs? Is it appropriate for victims of group-based harms or their descendants to press current generations to atone for the sins of their predecessors? Grace Kao, Professor of Ethics and the inaugural Sano Chair in Pacific and Asian American Theology at Claremont School of Theology, explores these questions by drawing upon…
Is sacred space protective space? This question lies at the heart of the Sanctuary Movement. From the 1980s to the present, this practice has protected undocumented immigrants at risk of deportation by offering them refuge in churches, where federal immigration agents to this day still fear to tread. In this lecture, Lloyd Barba, Assistant Professor of Religion and Core Faculty in Latinx and Latin…
What are the future horizons for indigenous repatriation work? What are best practices in repatriation settings, and how might they inform repair work in other contexts, such as education or land returns? This panel discussion looks at the work of Chumash leaders and broader Indigenous repair work nationally and globally. Series: "Ethics, Religion and Public Life: Walter H. Capps Center Series"…
What’s next for the battle over abortion? In this lecture, Mary Ziegler argues that undoing Roe v. Wade was never the endpoint for the antiabortion movement. Since the 1960s, the goal has been to secure recognition of fetuses and embryos as persons under the 14th Amendment, making abortion unconstitutional. The battle for personhood also aims to overhaul the regulation of in vitro fertilization…
Through a focus on Spanish-speaking Catholics, Amanda Baugh sheds light on environmental actors hiding in plain sight. Drawing from ethnographic research conducted across Los Angeles, Baugh, Professor and Associate Chair of Religious Studies and Director of the MA Program in Sustainability at California State University, Northridge, demonstrates that minority communities are not merely victims of…
The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence went viral in conservative media in June 2023 when the L.A. Dodgers announced plans to honor the local house of the order at the team’s annual Pride Night. Reporting on the ensuing scuffle focused largely on sports, politics, and culture wars, not on religion, and it largely misrepresented or overlooked the international order of queer and trans nuns at the…
