Lectures, Lecture Series, & Tours

September 28, 2026 (6 PM): Museum of the Bible

“Rumi Night” dinner: organized as climax of a conference on Religious Freedom organized by the Afghan Institute for Strategic Studies (AISS)

October 7, 2026 (9:30 AM EST): Delhi, India (on Zoom):

Indialogue Foundation: “A Life of Hizmet: Fethullah Gulen and the Importance of Interfaith dialogue”

October 14, 2026 (6 PM): St Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

City of Bridges Foundation, 22nd Annual Friendship Dinner: “Across Faiths, Ethnicities, and Traditions: Fixing the World”

October 19, 2026 (7 PM): Boston Hebrew College (on Zoom)

“The Book of Esther in Art”

December 9-11, 2026: Guadaloupe (in French)

International Conference on Modern and Contemporary French Poetry and Spirituality, organized by University of Quebec and Toronto Metropolitan University: “A Reconsideration of Mallarme’s “l’Apres-midi d’un Faune”and Its Diverse Spiritual Significance”

February 7, 2027, (10 AM): Greater Washington Coalition for Jewish Life (on Zoom)

“Jewish Artists in the Twentieth Century”

April 12, 2027, (7:30 PM): Keese School, Gaithersburg, MD

“The Plunder of Art by the Nazis and the Question of Restitution”

August 5, 2026: Case Western University

Siegel Life Long Learning: “Untangling the Web of the Middle East”

June 8, 2026: Athens, Greece

Athens Institute for Education and Research Conference on the Arts: “Ethos, Pathos, and Transformation in Western Art: From the Parthenon to Abstract Expressionism”

June 1, 2026: Athens, Greece

Athens Institute for Education and Research Conference on History: “The Casting and Recasting of Reality: From Mythos to Historia to History and Myth”

May 25, 2026: Athens, Greece

Athens Institute for Education and Research Conference on Theology and Philosophy: “From Plato’s Kratylos to Derrida: The Problem of Language for Philosophy”

April 16, 2026: Wheaton College

“From Physics and Metaphysics to Magic and Religion in the Greco-Roman World: How Does What They Thought Then Affect What We Think Now?”

Feb 4, 2026: Delhi, India

International Hizmet Conference, Indialogue Foundation: “The Dharma of Hizmet and Its Dharma-based Cousin”

November 22 – 24, 2025: Athens, Greece

Book talks: Between Thought and Action: An Intellectual Biography of Fethullah Gulen

November 15, 2025: John Carroll University, Cleveland:

The Future of Risale-I Nur Studies in the West Conference: “Furthering Said Nursi through the Lens of Hizmet”

October 29, 2025: USC Capitol Campus, Washington D.C.

“The Legacy We Inherit: Remembering Fethullah Gulen Hocaefendi

October 20, 2025: 307 W 38^th St, Suite 1505, NYC

“Jihad in the Life and Thought of Fethullah Gulen

October 14, 2025: Emmanuel College, Toronto, Ontario

Fethullah Gulen’s Thought and Legacy conference: “Fethullah Gulen as the Reluctant and Eager Mystical Thinker”

June 4, 2025: Quebec City (in French)

Mediators and Mediation Toward Spiritual Transcendence: Between the Spoken and Unspeakable conference, organized by University of Quebec at Rimouski: “Diverse Modes of Mediation in Seeking Spiritual Transcendence”

May 28, 2025: Nazareth University

Hickey Center Conference, Race, Racism, and Xenophobia in Sacred Texts and Human Contexts conference: “Race and Religion: From the Bible to Modern Western Academic Thought”

May 26, 2025: Athens, Greece

Athens Institute for Education and Research Conference on Theology and Philosophy: “The Linguistics and Theology of Defining, Understanding, Misunderstanding, Liking and Disliking Jews and Judaism”

November 21 – December 1, 2024: Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, Frankfort, Stuttgart, Germany; Geneva, Lausanne, Switzerland

“A Life of Hizmet“

November 17, 2024: Edlavitch Jewish Community Center of Washington D.C.

“Catholics, Jews, and Conversos in the American Southwest”

November 13, 2024: Temple Micah, Washington D.C.

“Varian Fry and the Rescue of Jews in Vichy France”

October 21-28, 2024: Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, Rome

“A Life of Hizmet“

October 4, 2024: Respect Graduate School, Bethlehem, PA,

Dialogue Between Religion and Science conference: “Jihad and Transformation in the Life and Thought of Fethullah Gulen”

October 2024: Raleigh, Greensboro, Charlotte, NC

“A Life of Hizmet“

May 29, 2024: Athens, Greece

Athens Institute for Education and Research: “Shaping God in Modernity: From Descartes to Spinoza”

May 28, 2024: Oxford Interfaith Forum (Zoom)

Panel discussion of  the recent publication of a new edition and study of the Lailashi Pentateuch

April 17, 2024: Haberman Institute (Zoom)

“The Changing Face of ‘Jewish Art’ in the Modern and Contemporary World”

April 3, 2024: Fritz Ascher Society (Zoom)

Discussion of Bruno Schultz: An Artist, A Murder, and the Hijacking of History with author Benjamin Balint

March 18, 2024: Fordham University

Book Launch for Welcoming the Stranger: Abrahamic Hospitality and Its Contemporary Implications edited by Ori Z. Soltes and Rachel Stern

March 14, 2024: Maryland Turkish American Inhabitants Center

Keynote Talk for MARTI Annual Ramadan Dinner: “From Fasting to Hizmet”

February 14, 2024 Smithsonian Institution

“Crypto-Jews in the American Southwest”

July 19-23, 2027: Chautauqua Institution

“United We Swing: Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.” The lecture is focused on the history of jazz within the history of music and the importance of music—its creation and its performance—among the arts, as a source of transformation and spiritual elevation in times of constancy and times of change.

July 2026: Chautauqua Institution, Art and Artists Against the Odds

Considers the ways artists across history and media have operated under duress and succeeded—or apparently failed—against the odds, in serving patrons, themselves, and their communities, as well as how those individuals and communities have themselves faced difficult circumstances and how artists have reflected on those conditions across media, from the visual arts and music to literature, dance, and film.

July 2025: Chautauqua Institution, Art in Action: Building Community Through the Arts

Addresses four questions: what is art, conceptually and historically? What is “community”? How have both concepts evolved over time? And what might it mean today to “build community through the arts”? The series considered the arts broadly, with a primary focus on the visual arts and, given time constraints, on the Western tradition.

July 2024: The AI Revolution: AI Between Past and Future

Focused on the idea and history of Artificial Intelligence, from Plato’s Phaedrus and the Golem of Prague to contemporary film, and on increasingly urgent questions about AI’s potential positive and negative role in the human future.

August 2023: Wonder and Awe Across Time and Space

Explores the idea and history of wonder and awe: what they are, how they differ, how different cultures have understood them, what gives rise to them, and how they relate to both human and transcendent experience—as well as to concepts such as love.

July 20, 27, August 3, 2026: 92nd Street Y (Zoom)

“Israeli Art and Jewish Identity”

July 6, 13, 2026: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland (Zoom)

Siegel Life Long Learning: “What is Jewish Art?”

Mar 13, 20, 27, 2026: 92nd Street Y (Zoom)

“Inseparable Art and Life: Jewish Émigré Artists, from Albers to Hesse”

October 13, 20, 25, November 3, 2025: 92nd Street Y (Zoom)

“Seeing the Sublime: Finding Awe in Modern and Contemporary Art”

Sept 10, Oct 8, Nov 12, Dec 10, 2025: Washington, D.C.

Rumi Forum and Focolare Forum for Dialogue: “A Sacred Piece of Home”: Four-Part Doc Film Series and Discussion

November 17, 24, 2025: Metropolitan Washington Oasis (Zoom)

“A Sacred Piece of Home”: Four-Part Doc Film Series and Discussion (in two parts at each showing)

November 6, 13, 20, 2024: Cleveland Park Library

“Jerusalem: City and Symbol”

May 14-19, 2026: Virginia Theological Seminary

“The Shaping of Interfaith Dialogue” A seminar co-taught with Sandra Collins and Gulsum Kucuksari. Intended for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Seminarians.

January 2-7, 2025: United Lutheran Seminary, Philadelphia, PA

“The Shaping of Interfaith Dialogue” A seminar co-taught with Sandra Collins and Gulsum Kucuksari. Intended for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Seminarians.

January 4-8, 2024: United Lutheran Seminary, Philadelphia, PA

“The Shaping of Interfaith Dialogue” A seminar co-taught with Sandra Collins and Gulsum Kucuksari. Intended for Jewish, Christian, and Muslim Seminarians.