Tuesday, February 7, 2006
2005-2006/034

UIUC religion professor to discuss women’s
reflections on service during World War I

Jonathan H. Ebel, assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will give a talk entitled, “Souls Beyond Beautiful: American Women Encounter the Great War,” on Friday, Feb. 17, at noon in Lucy Ellis Lounge, 1080 Foreign Languages Building, 707 S. Mathews Ave., in Urbana.

The talk is free and open to the public.

In his lecture Ebel will discuss women’s reflections on service in World War I through the lens of Christian / Western social thought on gender roles in war-time. Ebel argues that women saw their war experiences as religious experiences and used them both to exemplify a long-standing type, the Beautiful Soul, and to revise that type in light of war’s complex revelations.

Ebel received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 2004. He teaches courses in American religious history. Ebel is most interested in studying the place of religion in rendering meaningful the traumatic experiences of individuals and communities.

Ebel's presentation is part of a new Works in Progress Series of talks sponsored by the Program for the Study of Religion. The program's purpose is to provide a vehicle for receiving reaction to work in progress by the program's faculty and others with an interest in the academic study of religion. Presenters will give a brief account of a project they are currently working on, leaving time for questions and comments from the audience.