The President's Arts Commission presented a lecture on the new Blanchard gallery exhibition "Wrestle On, Jacob" by Dr. Willie Jennings. The lecture accompanied the exhibition's opening reception.
Wrestle On, Jacob, the title of the exhibition, is derived from the title of a Negro spiritual. The works of art and visual culture in this exhibition represent views of African American aspiration, accomplishment, commitment, religious zeal, and struggle -- all realized while wrestling with a painful history and forbidding social realities.
Dr. Jennings is associate professor of systematic theology and Africana studies at Yale Divinity School. His book, The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race (Yale 2010) won the American Academy of Religion Award of Excellence in the Study of Religion in the Constructive-Reflective category the year after it appeared, and, in 2010, the Grawemeyer Award in Religion, the largest prize for a theological work in North America.
Free and open to the public, this lecture was held in room 339 of Blanchard Hall on Monday, February 6, at 7 p.m. Blanchard Hall is located at 501 College Avenue in Wheaton. For more information, please contact David Hooker, associate professor of art and department chair, at david.hooker@wheaton.edu.
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