Wilson College will host the 2019 Orr Forum on Monday, April 15, in the John Stewart Memorial Library. The forum will feature guest lecturer Nora Rubel, Ph.D., of the University of Rochester in New York. 

Rubel, who is the Jane and Alan Batkin Professor in Jewish Studies, associate professor and chair of the Department of Religion and Classics at the university, teaches and writes on a wide variety of topics related to gender, race and ethnicity in American religion, particularly in relation to food and popular culture.

During the Orr Forum, she will present at two sessions in John Stewart Memorial Library’s Lenfest Learning Commons. Both are free and open to the public. The first lecture, which begins at noon, is entitled Reading Cookbooks: An Exercise in Religious Material Culture. The second session, to begin at 6 p.m., is called Recipes for the Melting Pot: Reading the Settlement Cook Book. 

The Orr Forum, established in 1964, is an endowed lecture series focused on reflecting the wide and shifting interests in religion studies in America. This year’s forum is sponsored by the Office of the Chaplain, the Philosophy and Religious Studies Program and the Office of Academic Affairs.