Guest Lecturer:
Brianna Dagostino, a member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape and Montclair alum

We will be celebrating Indigenous People’s Day with a presentation and panel discussion about tribal recognition and sovereignty in New Jersey. Our lead speaker is Brianna Dagostino, M.A.,  a member of the Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape tribe and MSU Alum. Panelists will include MSU faculty.

Sponsored by NAIS and the CHSS Dean’s office

View and download event flyer here!

10 copies of All for Liberty will be given away in a free raffle to MSU students who attend this event on Zoom.

All for Liberty tells the powerful story of Nicholas Kelly, the enslaved craftsman who led the Charleston Workhouse Slave Rebellion, the largest slave revolt in the history of the antebellum American South. With two accomplices, some sledgehammers, and pickaxes, Nicholas risked his life and helped 36 fellow enslaved people escape the workhouse where they had been sent by their enslavers to be tortured. All for Liberty centers his rebellion as a decisive moment leading up to the secession of South Carolina from the United States in 1861. This compelling micro-history navigates between Nicholas’s story and the Age of Atlantic Revolutions, while also considering the parallels between race and incarceration in the nineteenth century and in modern America. Never before has the story of Nicholas Kelly been so eloquently told.

Dr. Jeff Strickland is Professor of History and History Department Chair at MSU. He teaches undergraduate courses on the Civil War Era. His first book was Unequal Freedoms: Ethnicity, Race, and White Supremacy in Civil War–Era Charleston (University Press of Florida, 2015.

Dr. Kate E. Temoney is a former Assistant Dean of Students and currently an Assistant Professor of Religion at MSU. She is the co-chair of the Religion, Holocaust, and Genocide Unit of the American Academy of Religion and a co-founder of the Genocide Education and Prevention Project: /religion/events/genocide-education-and-prevention-project-geapp/. She earned a BA from Wake Forest University, an MEd from The College of William & Mary, and an MA and PhD from Florida State University. Trained as a comparative religious ethicist, she teaches courses on Religious Ethics, the Holocaust, African Religions, Jewish Applied Ethics, Religions of the World, and Religion & Human Rights.

This event is sponsored by the MSU Honors Program; all are invited to attend.

Download the flyer

For admittance to this meeting, please email religiondept@montclair.edu

To view a complete and up-to-date list of available Religion courses, course descriptions and meeting times, please log into .

How To Look Up Classes
Red Hawk Central has created a step-by-step instructional video on how to look up classes using the “Look Up Classes” option in NEST. This guide walks you through all the steps from logging into NEST to recording your Course Registration Numbers necessary for registration. .”

Download PDF of Religion Courses  – updated on April 15th 2020.
For a current list of available courses, please log into .

Astrobiology, Gaia, and the Anthropocene Ironies
October 30, 2019, 5:30pm
Feliciano School of Business 101

What is the Anthropocene? Why does it matter? And how should we assess it? Dr. Frederick V. Simmons’ lecture will explore scientific, ethical, and religious answers to these questions and argues that they are inextricably linked. He proposes that the new science of astrobiology’s use of the religious idea of Gaia offers a fruitful perspective on these matters by suggesting that the Anthropocene is most distinctive when least conspicuous.

Frederick V. Simmons, PhD, holds a PhD in Religious Ethics from Yale University and is a Research Associate Professor at Boston University School of Theology and an Affiliate Faculty Member at Princeton Theological Seminary. He was previously the Houston Witherspoon Fellow in Theology and the Natural Sciences at the Center of Theological Inquiry. Dr. Simmons has taught at Yale Divinity School, Amherst College, La Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador, and La Universidad Politécnica Salesiana.

Download flyer here

For more information please contact the Department of Religion, Dickson Hall 446
relgdept@montclair.edu • 973.655.368 •

John-Manuel Andriote has written about LGBT, HIV-AIDS, and other health and medical subjects since the early 1980s. In addition to Stonewall Strong, he is the author of Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America; Hot Stuff: A Brief History of Disco/Dance Music; Tough Love: A Washington Reporter Finds Resilience, Ruin, and Zombies in His ‘Other Connecticut’ Hometown; and a ‘fable for kids ages 5 to 105’ called Wilhelmina Goes Wandering. His articles have appeared in the Washington Post, The Atlantic, the Huffington Post, and leading LGBT publications across America.  Andriote regularly speaks to audiences at conferences and universities and is interviewed by print and broadcast media. He has been an adjunct communication and journalism instructor at Eastern Connecticut State University and Three Rivers Community College, and has served as a communication and senior technical advisor for U.S. government-supported and non-governmental HIV-AIDS projects since the late 1980s.

Co-sponsored by:  Department of Religion|Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies|Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer Studies|Medical Humanities Program|Center for Health & Wellness|Office of Health Promotion

Featured in major news outlets, such as the New York Times, The Guardian, BBC, CNN and Al Jazeera, his lecture will provide the normative framework for the right to freedom of religion or belief in international law, discuss the legal regime pushing for its implementation, and explore some of the most pressing issues and challenges preventing its full realization.

Co-sponsored by: Holocaust, Genocide, and Human Rights Project, The Center for Faith and Spirituality, Justice Studies, Political Science and Law

The standing-room only program was full of energy all evening and focused on indigenous rights & environmental justice efforts here in New Jersey. A clip was shown of the HBO documentary Mann v. Ford, based on the Ramapough Tribe’s legal fight with Ford Motor company over the contamination of Ringwood, NJ. It was followed by remarks from Micah Fink, the Producer/Director of the film, the Turtle Clan Chief Vincent Mann (Ramapough Nation), Vivian Milligan (Ramapough), Wayne Mann (Ramapough), Wenke Taule (former mayor of Ringwood), Dr. Anita Bakshi (Rutgers), and Dr. Jessica Miller (Montclair State). A very lively conversation rounded out the event, with almost everyone remaining to the very end.

“It was pretty inspiring to see our students so engaged by such critical, current issues affecting the environment and indigenous communities of our own state — especially issues that cut across so many disciplines,” said Mark Clatterbuck, associate professor of Religion.