AAR responds to the election cycle

It is a credit to the AAR that the election cycle and the outcome of the Trump election provoked last minute additions to the program. The president of the AAR, Dr. Serene Jones, gave her address with the title "Revolutionary Love." She also presided over a panel discussion on "Love and Hate in American Religion", which included Cornel West, Eddie S. Glaude, Mayra Rivera, and Amir Hussain. Michelle Alexander spoke this morning. Tomorrow morning Julian Castro, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, will speak. And tomorrow night, surely to a packed room, will be Rev. William Barber, who will speak on "A Revolution of Love." At the last minute the program committee added a panel discussion around the theme "Critical Thinking, Inclusion, and Moral Responsibility in the Wake of the 2016 Election." And last, AAR and SBL have jointly organized a session for tomorrow morning called "Forum:Post-Trump Election." Needless to say, the guild is responding in a robust way to what I think many here consider to be an acute emergency in our national and perhaps global life. Yes, at AAR there is a lot of technical, insider discussions, speculations and assorted esoterica. But there is also a strong commitment to apply the creativity and scholarship of an amazing assortment of people to face squarely and responsibly the times in which we live. This ivory tower is porous.