Leadership Second: D. Michael Lindsay

On Thursday, October 30, SBS welcomes sociologist Michael Lindsay as part of its Leadership Second Speaker Series. Lindsay teaches at Rice University, and is a specialist in American religion and politics.

Prior to teaching sociology at Rice, Lindsay worked with the Gallup Company, one of America's noted polling institutions and survey/data collection corporations. He also completed a Ph.D. in sociology at Princeton, studying under the noted sociologist Robert Wuthnow.

Some of Lindsay's recent sociological work involved interviewing over 300 elite corporate, business, political, academic, economic, and ministry leaders about how their evangelical faith influences and informs how they conduct business, do politics, etc. Much of this data, published in his book Faith in the Halls of Power ponders what it means to be a committed evangelical Christian and a "culture shaper" and servant leader in spheres of elite influence. Finally, Lindsay's work supports the idea that evangelicals can take their gifts into the world, the marketplace, etc., and live out their faith in many arenas and work for the "common good."

Read more about Dr. Lindsay here, and listen to him speak about his book here and about "cosmopolitan intelligence" here. Visit this site for an interesting interview about his book. Purchase his book Faith in the Halls of Power here and read selections from Google Books. Here's a link to the Christianity Today article we read in class.

Take a few minutes to acquaint yourself with Dr. Lindsay and his work, so you can take full advantage of this great opportunity for the SBS community.

Around the World with Jared Diamond: Guns, Germs, and Steel

During the last two weeks, we've covered the social, cultural, political, and economic dimensions of the Age of Exploration. Next week we turn to environmental, climactic considerations of this age of contact.

We'll spend quite a bit of time reading, discussing, and watching documentary clips related to Jared Diamond's award-winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel. Diamond's thesis is provocative and controversial, but challenging and thoughtful as well.

Thus, by the end of the week we will chart out the Age of Exploration through its social, cultural, political, economic, and environmental dimensions.

Before Monday, read about and be able to identify the 5 variables that are integral to Diamond's thesis. (Bring your notes on these variables to class on Monday.) As for the documentary, we'll spend some time viewing episodes 2 and 3. By week's end we'll take a look at the world, its climatic zones, and those zones' effects on history.

For more on Diamond, his work, and his teaching, check out this interview from the journal World History Connected. The first part of the interview deals with the reception of Guns, Germs, and Steel among readers--including high schoolers--as well as research, writing, and teaching. Leave your thoughts in the comments section.

The Winds of Time

The pun in the title of this post is not meant to make light of storms and the destruction they sometimes havoc, but to draw attention to the historical study of Caribbean storms. I thought this might be of interest given our discussions about Ike and given that the Caribbean forms a major part of our unit on the Age of Exploration.

While I'm sure I'm leaving important titles out, one of the most interesting studies is Matthew Mulcahy's fascinating book Hurricanes and Society in the British Greater Caribbean, 1624-1783 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005). Read a review of the book here, and sections of it at Google Books here. One of the interesting tidbits of info I found in the book: did you know that hurricanes inspired Shakespeare's play The Tempest?

According to his website, Mulcahy is now working on a study of the 1692 earthquake in Jamaica. Much more was going on in the greater Atlantic world this year than witch hunts (perhaps not the one you are thinking of) and other assorted happenings. Should be an interesting book.

Other topics of discussion for storms and their impact are found here (Katrina and society), here (Katrina and religion), and here (Katrina and culture). Read more about Spike Lee's Katrina documentary here. In addition, here are some links relative to Ike you might find of interest: A Houston Chronicle blog, Houston Independent Media's Ike stories (you may have to scroll down the page), a Weather Underground blog, and a local CBS affiliate's Ike site. Here's a resident from Houston who posted some YouTube videos of Ike, another video of a neighborhood close to SBS and some AP aftermath footage.