Joy can be elusive. It can be fleeting. Throughout the story of humanity, a consistent source of joy has been from one’s system of spiritual beliefs. Joy can also arrive in different forms. It can be a feeling like happiness. It can be like a sense of satisfaction from doing something good. It can be transcendent and liberating.

In this lecture series, we hear three different perspectives on joy and its sources, from Dr. Rebecca Esterton, Dr. Mahjabeen Dhala, and Dr. Nancy Lin. The three speakers examine joy and its spiritual underpinnings through three different lenses—through the optimism of Helen Keller’s Swedenborgian faith, through the understanding and practice of the Quran, and within the context of early Buddhist texts.

In each context, the presenters examine the subject’s relationship to joy, on a personal level, in the setting of community, and the interconnection between joy and big ethical and societal concerns such as liberation and justice.

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Rebecca Esterson is the Dean of Swedenborgian Studies. She earned her PhD from the Graduate Division of Religious Studies at Boston University. She earned her Masters of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School with a focus in world religions, and also studied at Hebrew University in Jerusalem as a visiting graduate student. After receiving her master’s degree, she worked at Harvard’s Center for the Study of World Religions for 9 years where she was able to further develop her interest in comparative studies and interfaith learning. Her teaching and research interests include: the history of biblical interpretation, hermeneutics, Jewish and Christian mysticism, Jewish-Christian relations, eighteenth century intellectual culture, Christian Hebraism, and comparative religious studies.

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Nancy Lin joined the faculty in 2021 after previously teaching at Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. Her research focuses on how literary and visual cultures have shaped Buddhist traditions of Tibet and the Himalaya. Her current book project is a study of worldly Buddhists and courtly cultures of Tibet in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Her teaching emphasizes how people draw from the resources of their historical and living traditions, including rituals, narratives, values, objects, environments, and cosmologies.

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Dr. Dhala is Director of the Madrasa-Midrasha Program and Assistant Professor of Islamic Studies at the GTU. She received her PhD from the GTU in 2021 and her MA in Islamic Studies from the GTU in 2017. Prior to her matriculation at the GTU, she pursued traditional Islamic seminary studies for over seven years and has led Muslim communities worldwide for nearly two decades.

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