As part of its yearlong Religion and Violence Speakers Series, the Josef Korbel School of International Studies is teaming up with the Iliff School of Theology for a special black history month event on Thursday, Feb. 7.

After opening remarks by Denver Mayor Michael Hancock, noted professor Willie Jennings, of Duke Divinity School, will discuss his research on the contradictions between the universality of Christianity as a religion and racist thinking in early modern times in his lecture “Religion and Race: The Colonial Experience Considered.”

“I certainly hope that my presence on campus will add to the already lively and learned conversations about matters of racial identity, place, the environment and forming communities of belonging that can resist the forces of fear, despair and xenophobia that continue to plague this country,” Jennings says.

Panel members including Korbel Professor Alan Gilbert, Iliff Professor Edward Antonio and Professor Arthur Jones, associate dean of the Women’s College and founder of the Spirituals Project at DU, will further discuss the topic.

In a second event, on Feb. 14, Korbel professors Arthur Gilbert and Alan Gilbert will lead a roundtable discussion of Quentin Tarantino’s Oscar-nominated film Django Unchained, which explores racism and slavery in the American South before the Civil War.

Both events will be held in the Arthur Gilbert cybercafé in Cherrington Hall and are open to the DU community. The Feb. 7 event will start at noon. For more information, visit the Korbel website.