NDSU's Department of History, Philosophy and Religious Studies has announced Larry Alderink, professor emeritus of comparative religion at Concordia College, Moorhead, will present the first talk in the department's 2011-12 colloquia. The talk is scheduled for Friday, Sept. 23, at 3 p.m. in Putnam 101. Refreshments will be served.

Alderink's talk, “Religion and History: What’s Next?” combines elements of religious studies, history, and social sciences. He contends the long and complex history of the academic study of religion in Western academic institutions originates in theological concerns, philosophical inquiry, historical investigation, contact with non-European and non-American cultures and, more recently, theoretical work and the social sciences. The past quarter-century has seen the growth of the cognitive study of religion, owing to developments in neuroscience, anthropology, psychology and comparative studies.

He will explore themes and issues in the cognitive study of religion, especially as it offers a rigorous scholarly approach to investigating and explaining religious phenomena that does not rest on a particular religious faculty or religious experience, a revelation from a deity or deities or the control of religious specialists or political rulers.

Alderink majored in classics and philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich. and earned a master’s degree and doctorate in history of religions at the University of Chicago. He has published articles in scholarly journals, book reviews and “Creation and Salvation in Ancient Orphism.”

For more information or special accommodations, contact Dennis Cooley at 1-7038 or dennis.cooley@ndsu.edu.