Campus guest discusses Creole culture

By Courtney Westlake

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UIS Music hosted guest Dr. Sybil Kein, Creole scholar and composer on Friday, May 2. Kein presented a public lecture titled "Gumbo People: Celebrating and Teaching the Creole Culture of New Orleans," on Friday afternoon, which featured poetry, folklore and personal stories collected from Creole muscicians, entertainers and other historical and cultural figures.

Kein, a professor emeritus at the University of Michigan, is a recognized expert in Creole culture and history, as well as a musician, composer and poet. She has numerous books and CDs to her credit and recently served as a translator and dialect coach for the Screen Gems production Bolden, a film about early jazz in New Orleans.

Kein discussed where many beliefs about different races came about, and how various races were "assigned" a color at some point in time, such as black, red, yellow and white. People need to understand that many beliefs about race were invented in the beginning and are still fiction.

"The key word in all of this is 'folklore,' but it has stuck," Kein said.

Kein described her family tree dating back to her great-grandparents, with roots in the Jewish religion, France, Ireland and more. Multicultural is really the definition of Creole, Kein said.

"We have 17 million multicultural people in the United States. As Creole people in the culture and language, we are more than 55 million in the world," she said. "And one of the things I like about the news laws is that the law cannot tell you who you are. It's up to you to decide who you identify with in your ancestry. If you have that culture, that is a part of you."

Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series Pays Tribute to Founder

By Courtney Westlake

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In memory of the late Professor Phillip Shaw Paludan, a highly respected Abraham Lincoln scholar, hundreds of people took part in the Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series on Thursday evening, October 4, which contained laughter, moments of respect and the sharing of knowledge and memories.

The Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series was started by Paludan, Naomi B. Lynn Distinguished Chair in Lincoln Studies at UIS, who had served as host of the series and who passed away on August 1. Paludan's wife and two daughters were present on Thursday in his honor.

"In the all too short period, six years, that Professor Phil Paludan was (here at UIS), he immeasurably enriched our lives and stimulated our minds," said Cullom Davis, UIS professor emeritus of history, during a tribute and dedication to Paludan. "This is an evening of poignant memories, interesting coincidences and notable milestones. Aptly named the Lincoln Legacy Series, it also stands conspicuously as the Paludan Legacy."

The annual Lincoln Legacy Lecture Series brings nationally renowned scholars to Springfield to present lectures on public policy issues that are of contemporary interest and that also engaged Abraham Lincoln and the citizens of his era, said Barbara Ferrara, director of the UIS Center for State Policy and Leadership, which co-sponsors the program.

Thursday's focus was on "Lincoln and the Law." Featured speakers included Dr. Mark E. Steiner, who spoke about "'The Sober Judgement of Courts': Lincoln, Lawyers, and the Rule of Law," and Dr. Brian R. Dirck, who discussed "Abraham Lincoln: The Lawyer in the White House." Davis served as the moderator for the event.

Steiner and Dirck, both published authors with books on the topic of Lincoln and the law, said they believe that Lincoln's law practice is a very relevant issue in today's society, especially in Illinois.

"I think you have to remember that he spent a significant portion of his life as a lawyer," Dirck said. "In fact, I think he's the most experienced trial attorney we've ever put in the White House. He practiced law for 25 years, litigated several thousand cases, and it had to have a tremendous influence on the way he approached leadership issues and what he did during the Civil War."

The Lincoln Legacy Series is held each year in the Brookens Auditorium and is free and open to the public. The two speakers said they were thrilled to be invited to UIS for the event.

"I was honored to be asked; I was asked last spring by Professor Paludan, and it meant a lot professionally to be asked by him," Steiner said. "Through my discussion, I hope to be able to bring out the variety and depth of Professor Paludan's scholarship."

New Professor Uses Religion as Way to Explore World

By Courtney Westlake

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Dr. David Bertaina has found that more can be learned from the study of religion than most people think, from understanding wars and historical events to comprehending and appreciating differences between various cultures.

Bertaina, a new professor to the University of Illinois at Springfield this fall, is the history department's first specialist in comparative religion. He received his Ph.D. in Semitic Languages and Literatures from the Catholic University of America in 2007 and previously taught courses on Islam at California State University in Chico.

Bertaina said he has always held a fascination with history, especially with both of his parents being teachers, and first studied traditional Western history. As he then began to study Christianity’s presence in the Middle East, he also became interested in languages in that particular area of the world.

“For my doctorate, I studied many Middle Eastern languages: Arabic, Syriac, Coptic, Ethiopic and Greek,” he said. “Plus some French and German had to be done for all of the reading. So I had an opportunity to delve into the literature and appreciate the historical development of the cultures.”

The history and literature of the medieval Middle East with an emphasis on Christian-Muslim dialogs is now Bertaina’s forte. Through extensive research on these subjects, Bertaina said he found his professional interest begin to expand into personal interests in other cultural aspects of the Middle East, primarily music.

“From the languages, I had an appreciation for the way of life and how they express themselves,” he said. “Expression relies on language, art and music, and I gained an appreciation for the many forms of music. It’s a way to look back into time.”

Bertaina is teaching two classes this semester. One of them is an online course on Islamic history. The other, called “Scriptures and World Religions,” teaches religion from the historical perspective and examines how religion developed in history, he said.

Bertaina said he hopes his students develop an understanding and appreciation for religion on a deeper level: each religion’s history, scriptures, culture and the way its followers view the world.

“I want my students to take away from my classes an understanding of a particular religious tradition – each religious tradition in its own right,” he said. “Every religion has a world view that is how they identify themselves and look at the world based upon their identity as a religious person, so it’s important to step into this religious world view.”

While UIS doesn’t have a specific religion department, Bertaina anticipates filling that void in the department of history.

“The University of Illinois at Springfield was interested in having someone in comparative religion because they saw a need for not only studying politics, but also the fact that religion is a reason and driving force behind politics today, behind issues of culture and behind issues of cultural wars,” Bertaina said. “(I want) to communicate to the students the complexity of each individual religious tradition, and also how they interact with one another and with other areas, such as the area of intellectual life or literature or gender issues.”