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Russell Lecture on Spiritual Life

Save the Date: Russell Lecture on Spiritual Life and Solomont Speaker Series Event

On Wednesday, October 28 we will host Dr. Fatimah Fanusie for the 2026 Russell Lecture. This event is co-sponsored with Tisch College. The keynote will be 5:00 p.m.-6:30 p.m. with a Q&A session. A reception of light refreshments will be held in Eaton 260 from 6:30p.m.-7:30p.m. Please RSVP below.

Her Russell Lecture talk is titled, "America's Buried Inheritance: The Forgotten Story of the Qur'an and the Formation of Human Freedom." 

We are told, with increasing confidence and from many directions, that Islam is foreign to the West, an outsider to the civilization that produced modern liberty. It is a historical error, and a consequential one. A civilization that misremembers the sources of its own freedom will misunderstand both what that freedom is and to whom it belongs. This lecture follows a strand of the shared inheritance of the Abrahamic traditions that the West has largely forgotten it owes: a current of Qur’anic thought that shaped the vocabulary of liberty and reason the modern West would claim as native to itself, and reached the founding of the American experiment, before it was buried by coercion, by chattel slavery, and by the historical amnesia that followed. Descendants of the enslaved, including the community led by Imam W. Deen Mohammed, have been at the forefront of the movement to cross that severance and recenter this tradition in American life today. This is an invitation, across religious traditions, disciplines, and backgrounds, to recover the fuller story of where our freedom came from, because a people that forgets the sources of its freedom cannot fully possess it.

Dr. Fatimah Fanusie is a Twentieth-Century U.S. historian and lecturer whose work is at the heart of an evolving reappraisal of the study of African American Islam, the modern Civil Rights Movement and African Diaspora culture.  She is currently the Lead Historian working on the Reverend Dr. Jefferson P. Rogers and Mary Grace Rogers Papers at the Howard Thurman Historical home in Daytona Beach, Florida.

Several of Dr. Fanusie’s forthcoming articles are based off of her dissertation research, “Fard Muhammad in Historical Context: An Islamic Thread in the American Religious and Cultural Quilt,” which traces the development of Islam in America during the first half of the twentieth century through an exploration of  the Indian Ahmadiyya background of Fard Muhammad and an examination of the Nation of Islam within a comparative Islamic framework.  Two separate book length projects examine the relationship of bebop and jazz musicians to the spiritual and cultural transformations African Americans underwent from the end of World War II until the present and the influence of India on the 20th century religious thought and liberation practice of African Americans.

Dr. Fanusie’s publications include the article “Ahmadi, Beboppers, Veterans and Migrants: African-American Islam in Boston, 1948-1963”, ed. Ted Trost and Wilson J. Moses, The African Diaspora and the Study of Religion, New York, NY: Macmillan-Palgrave Press, January 2008, 49-69; “African Americans” entry in Volume I of the Encyclopedia of Islam in the United States, ed. Joselyn Cesari, Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2007, 13-15 and “Elijah Muhammad” in Religious Leadership: A Reference Handbook, ed. Sharon Henderson Callahan, Seattle, WA: SAGE Publications, 2013, 634-638.  Dr. Fanusie received her BA in History and Arabic from Lincoln University in 1997, her MA in American History from Tufts University in 2001 and PhD in American History from Howard University in 2008. She resides in Columbia, MD with her husband and their three children. This biographic is taken from Dr. Fanusie's website.

James A. Russell Lectureship on Spiritual Life

The Russell Lectureship is the oldest lectureship at Tufts University, established by James Russell of West Cambridge (now Arlington) in 1867. In accordance with the provisions of the donor’s will, each year the university invites a distinguished lecturer to speak on a topic relating to spiritual life. (Source: Miller, Russell E. Light on the Hill: A History of Tufts College 1852-1952. Boston: Beacon Press, 1966.)

Past Russell Lectureship Speakers

2025 - Rev. Dr. Emma Jordan-Simpson and Rev. Dr. Patrick Reyes "Leading With Love: Learning from Histories and Reimagining Futures"

2024 - Dee-1, "My Joy Is My Weapon: Lyrics, Prayer, and Spiritual Repair"

2023 - Dr. Ofelia Zepeda, "Our Language is our Strength"

2022 - Valarie Kaur, "Revolutionary Love In Action"

2021 - Reverend Adam Russell Taylor, "The Work Ahead: Building a Just, Beloved Community"

2020 - Lecture not held, due to the coronavirus pandemic

2019 Eboo Patel "Division or Unity: Religious Diversity and the American Promise"

2018 The Reverend Dr. Thandeka "Why Love Beyond Belief Today?"

2017 150th Anniversary – The Reverend Osagyefo Sekou “The Role of the Prophet in a Time of Monsters”

2016  Professor Diana Eck “The Crisis of American Religious Diversity: Excluding or Engaging Difference”

2015  The Reverend Janet Cooper Nelson G72 “Questions without Answers: Education, Worth, and Empathy”

2014 James Carroll “Christianity and Anti-Semitism”

2013 Sister Simone Campbell

2012 Sherman Teichmann, Tufts Institute for Global Leadership

2011 The Reverend Peter Morales, President of the Unitarian Universalist Association

2010 Michael Flaherty A90

2009 Professor Elizabeth Prodoromou

2008 The Reverend James W. Skehan

2007 Professor Max L. Stackhouse, “Faith and Globalization”

2006 The Reverend Dr. Gloria White-Hammond, “A Career in Medicine vs. a Ministry of Healing”

2005 Dr. Ingrid Mattson

2004 The Reverend J. Bryan Hehir, “War, Peace and Terror: Defining the Relationship”

2003 The Reverend Professor Peter J. Gomes, Plummer Professor of Christian Morals and Pusey Minister in the Memorial Church, Harvard University (Rededication Ceremony of Goddard Chapel after Renovation)

2002 Archbishop Desmond Tutu

1989-2001 [No record]

1988 Professor George Ursul, Emerson College

1985-1987 [No record]

1984 Professor Brian Smith

1983 Dr. Lamin Sanneh

1982 Dr. Spencer Lavan

1981 [No record]

1980 Professor George Goethals

1979 Dr. George Rupp

1978 The Reverend Dr. Victor Carpenter

1977 The Reverend Dr. Constance Parvey

1976 Dr. J. Robert Nelson

1975 Professor William Jones

1974 [No record]

1973 [Professor Mary Daly scheduled but did not speak]

1972 Roger Hazelton

1971 The Reverend Frederick Buschner

1970 The Rev. Theodore Lockhart

1969 The Rev. Dr. Harvey Cox

1968 100th Anniversary: The Rev. Ralph Norman Helverson, “Theseus and the Minotaur”

1967 Dr. Joseph N. Barth

1966 Dr. C. Conrad Wright, “Piety, Morality, and the Commonwealth”

1965 Dr. Rhys Williams, “The Future of Man”

1964 Dr. Bradford Eugene Gale, “The Religion of Time and the Religion of Eternity”

1963 Dr. Edwon Prince Booth

1962 Dr. Brainard F. Gibbons, “Christian Principles and Business Practices”

1961 Dr. Samuel Howard Miller, “Character and the Sacraments of the Self”

1960 Dr. Albert J. Penner, “Christian Faith and Ethical Decision”

1959 The Right Rev. Anson Phelps Stokes, Jr., “The People of God”

1958 Dr. Philip Randall Giles, “The Christian Faith, the Good Man, the World Citizen”

1957 Dr. Roy Messer Pearson, “The Prophetic Voice of the Church”

1956 Dr. Dana McLean Greeley, “Religion Makes the Difference”

1955 Dr. George A. Buttrick, “Beyond Idolatry”

1954 Dr. Henry J. Cadbury, “The Application of Religion to Public Affairs”

1953 James Luther Adams, “Affirmative Religion the Vocation of Citizenship”

1952 Parker McCollester

1951 Herbert Gezork, “The Fate of Religion Under Totalitarianism”

1950 Charles Whitney Gilkey, “Contemporary Religious Trends Among American Students”

1949 Robert H. Pfeiffer, “Is the Gospel Obsolete?”

1948 Harold A. Bosley, “The Nature of Religious Liberalism”

1947 Eugene G. Bewkes, “Reflections on Religion and Ethics”

1946 Clarence Russell Skinner, “Superstition, Reason and Faith”

1945 Bruce W. Brotherston

1944 Julius S. Bixler

1943 William Wallace Rose, “Religion and the Religious”

1942 Frederick M. Eliot

1941 Willard L. Sperry, “The Dilemma of Christianity”

1940 Robert Cummins, “Religious Implications of the Democratic Process”

1939 Rufus Jones

1938 Lee S. McCollester, “Religion, Learning and Men of the Free Spirit”

1937 John Haynes Holmes, “The New Warfare of Science and Religion”

1936 Laurence H. Seelye

1935 Charles E. Park, “Faith with the Mind’s Permission”

1934 Paul D. Moody

1933 Louis C. Cornish

1932 William E. Hocking, “Religion and Philosophy in Occident and Orient”

1931 J.A.C. Fagginger Auer, “A Religion for Today”

1930 Russell Henry Stafford, “The Indispensable Gospel”

1929 F. O. Hall

1928 Harold E.B. Speight, “Gains for Religion in Modern Thought”

1927 J. Edgar Park, “Creation in Literature and Life”

1926 Samuel A. Eliot

1925 Gaius Glann Atkins

1924 Charles R. Brown

1923 Kenyon L. Butterfield

1922 Nehemiah Boynton, “The Importance of Christian Faith and Belief”

1921 S. M. Crothers

1920 J. F. Newton

1919 F. W. Perkins

1918 [No lecture due to wartime conditions]

1917 Francis G. Peabody, “Religion After the War”

1916 Marion D. Shutter, “A Working Theory of Life”

1915 I. M. Atwood

1914 C. R. Henderson

1913 W.H.P. Faunce, “The Sufficiency of the Gospel to Meet the Reasonable Needs of Men Both in Time and Eternity”

1912 John van Schaick

1911 F. O. Hall

1910 C. A. Barney

1909 H. I. Cushman

1908 L. M. Powers

1907 F. W. Perkins

1906 A. W. Grose

1905 F. W. Hamilton

1904 Herbert Ernest Cushman, “What Is Christianity?”

1903 John Vannevar

1902 G. W. Penniman

1901 Vincent H. Tomlinson

1900 D. M. Dodge

1899 H. W. Rugg

1898 W. H. Ryder

1897 W. S. Perkins

1896 J. C. Snow

1895 C. E. Nash

1894 T. E. Busfield

1893 G. L. Demarest

1892 E. E. Hale

1891 J. C. Adams

1890 C. H. Eaton

1889 A. P. Putnam

1888 I. C. Knowlton

1887 C. F. Lee

1886 A. A. Miner

1885 Edward J. Young, “The Sufficiency of Christianity”

1884 W. H. Ryder

1883 A. P. Peabody

1882 Henry Blanchard

1881 J. Smith Dodge

1880 [No record]

1879 [No record]

1878 C. H. Leonard

1877 W. R. Shipman

1876 W. E. Gibbs

1875 A. St. John Chambre

1874 I. M. Atwood

1873 E. C. Bolles

1872 T. J. Sawyer

1871 Thomas Baldwin Thayer, “Christianity Sufficient for the Present and the Future”

1870 Elbridge Gerry Brooks

1869 Ebenezer Fisher

1868 First Lecture: The Reverend Massena Goodrich