Simpsons Scholar to Lecture at NSU in January

Simpsons Scholar to Lecture at NSU in January

TAHLEQUAH Religion journalist and author Mark I. Pinsky will share his insights on The Gospel According to The Simpsons, the subject of his best-selling book, with the Tahlequah community at 2 p.m. on Jan. 22, 2009 in the Northeastern State University NET auditorium.

The lecture is presented by the NSU Centennial Lectureship Committee as part of the NSU Centennial Countdown and is free and open to the public.

Committee members wanted to bring a popular culture scholar to campus to spark dialogue about a potentially controversial topic, said Dr. Amy Aldridge Sanford, chair of the Centennial Lectureship Committee.

A lectureship series should present speakers who make the audience think. The speakers should support a scholarly, academic, thought-provoking atmosphere, said Sanford. I believe Mark will do that when he talks about the intersections of popular culture and religion.

Sunday schools and Christian youth ministries around the United States use Pinskys book for study.

Ministers have recognized that popular culture is a non-threatening way to begin a conversation about profound matters, said Pinsky. You can use what seems to be a silly beginning to move to a serious place.

A new edition of a companion book, A Leader's Guide to Study, will be published in the fall of 2009. The new study guide includes sections on The Simpsons Movie and other animated shows like Futurama, Family Guy and King of the Hill.

Pinsky is a former religion writer for the Orlando Sentinel and Los Angeles Times. He is a contributor to USA Today, the Wall Street Journal, as well as the Harvard Divinity Bulletin, and was recently cited in the New Yorker magazine. Last summer, he was a Templeton-Cambridge Fellow in Science and Religion at the University of Cambridge in Britain.

In addition to his Simpsons Gospel, which has 150,000 copies in print, Pinsky has also written The Gospel According to Disney: Faith, Hope, and Pixie Dust, and A Jew Among the Evangelicals: A Guide for the Perplexed.

Pinsky has appeared on CNN, ABC-TV and the BBC, discussing religion and popular culture, as well as the role of American evangelicals in politics. In October, he wrote columns about evangelicals unease with vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin for the Chicago Sun-Times and Religion News Service.

Pinsky is the second speaker in the Centennial Lectureship Series. Elizabeth Eckford of the Little Rock Nine was the first speaker; Larry Coker, former college football coach, will be the third and final speaker. Coker will speak on the Broken Arrow campus in April.

Pinskys website can be found at www.markpinsky.com.

12/3/2008

Published: 2008-12-03 00:00:00