Emergence: The Futures We Can’t Yet Imagine
2025 Lawrence Lecture
How Do We Nurture Spiritual Exploration and Activation in the Face of Catastrophe?
We’re excited to announce, in partnership with Starr King School for the Ministry and the Visioning Multigenerational Futures Collective of the Pacific Western Region of the UUA, the 2025 Lawrence Lecture Conference “Emergence: The Futures We Can’t Yet Imagine,” with keynote speaker Ruha Benjamin, on April 18-19, 2025. The keynote address will be livestreamed.
The conference will start on Friday evening on April 18 with a sunset worship service and dinner. Saturday April 19 will continue with breakfast, followed by a presentation and dialogue with keynote speaker Ruha Benjamin. Lunch will feature a simple, delicious meal sourced from after-market foods gleaned from farms and specialty food stores (mostly). Afternoon workshops and a closing worship will weave it all together.
Registration options start at: $20 for dinner on Friday night; $45 for virtual attendance to the Saturday morning lecture only; sliding scale $95-$200 for in person attendance all day on Saturday; $30 discounted rate available for students, activists, non-profits, youth, and young adults.
“Emergence” is a transformative conference that seeks to answer the question: how do we nurture spiritual exploration and activation in the face of catastrophe? It is part of UUCB’s Lawrence Lecture Series, which aims to establish a public forum for inquiry into the nature and relevancy of religion (either institutionally, philosophically, or as an ethical force) in a world of accelerating technological and social change, as well as sharpening human crisis and conflicting social values.
Dr. Ruha Benjamin is an internationally recognized scholar and speaker whose work examines the relationship between innovation and inequity, knowledge and power, health and justice. She is also an award-winning author of “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code” (2019), “Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want” (2022), and “Imagination: A Manifesto” (2024), among many other publications.
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Location:
Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley
Dates
April 18-19, 2025
Pricing:
Friday Night Dinner: $20
Saturday Full Day:
$95/minimum – $150/suggested – $200/Support
Keynote Lecture Livestream (Saturday Morning Only): $45
Student/Activist/Non-Profit/Youth/Young Adult Rate: Pay What You Can: $30 |
This gathering is for those willing to be with the composting and develop our capacities to attend to what is dying. Come sit together at the precipice of the new worlds that need our dreams and our nurturance.
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Conference Overview
Liberal religious communities and public institutions are struggling with their adequacy and relevance to the needs of the times. What imagining makes remembrance, release, and renewal possible?
We can not imagine new worlds without hospicing the crumbling structures around us. It is in attending to this death with dignity that we have the possibility of birthing new worlds with integrity.
This gathering is for those willing to be with the composting and develop our capacities to attend to what is dying. Come sit together at the precipice of the new worlds that need our dreams and our nurturance.
Conference Schedule
- Friday Night: Church du Soleil (sunset worship service) and Community Dinner (6PM-8PM)
- Saturday: Lecture and Workshops (9:30AM-4:30 PM)
- Breakfast (9AM-10AM)
- Keynote Lecture and Dialogue with Dr. Ruha Benjamin (10AM-12PM)
- Lunch and Live Music (12PM-1:30PM)
- Workshops (1:30-3:30PM)
- Closing Worship: Weaving It Together (3:45-4:30PM)
The Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley (UUCB), Starr King School for the Ministry, and the Pacific Western Region of the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Click Here to Register
