5:00-6:30 PM (ET) - Grawemeyer Lecture

6:30-8:00 PM (ET) - Meet & Greet Reception & Book Signing

The lecture will be held outside in the lawn area of the Rose Garden in Gardencourt on the campus of Louisville Seminary.

The event underscores our commitment to accessibility and will include American Sign Language (ASL) interpretation for both in-person and livestream audiences.

At 6:30 join us for a Meet & Greet Reception and Book Signing in Hundley Hall/Courtyard of Gardencourt.

Carmichael’s Bookstore will have copies of Loving Our Own Bones available for purchase.

Out of care for our entire community—including those with underlying health conditions—we kindly encourage face mask and hand sanitizer use throughout the event.

"Disability Wisdom, Spiritual Subversiveness, and the Soul Work of Justice"

About the Lecture:

Disability can be a powerful catalyst for reimagining religion. Reading biblical texts through the prism of disability can help us challenge ableism and injustice—and crack open potent new ways of thinking about God’s presence and power. Disability wisdom also offers us an invitation to turn with gentleness toward our own flesh, to build a world that honors the complexity and the sacredness of all our bodies and minds.

Rabbi Belser intends to be at Louisville Seminary to deliver the lecture in person with an option for online viewing.
Registration is required whether attending in-person or online.

Print the PDF flyer

About the 2025 Grawemeyer Religion Winner and Award-Winning Book

For reconsidering the relationship between disability and spirituality, Georgetown University Professor of Jewish Studies, Rabbi Julia Watts Belser will receive the 2025 Grawemeyer Award for Religion, the University of Louisville and Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary announced today.

Not only younger people with apparent disabilities, but also all those who manage to grow old – and everyone who loves a member of either group – will appreciate the ideas Belser set down in her book Loving Our Own Bones, which also won a National Jewish Book Award. In it, Belser uses disability theory and her own experience to rethink Biblical texts and rabbinic literature. The result is a rereading of Biblical characters such as Moses, Isaac, and Jacob, leading to an engaging analysis of ableism, and a refreshing political and social view of disability.

“Instead of grounding her work in the standard question of what the Jewish and Christian traditions say about disability, Belser asks how disability experience can serve as a ‘generative force,’ a ‘source of embodied knowledge’ about our spiritual lives,” said Grawemeyer Religion Award Director and Interim Dean of the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary Tyler Mayfield. “Loving Our Own Bones and Rabbi Belser are worthy additions to our revered list of Grawemeyer winners.”

The first Grawemeyer Religion Award went to E.P. Sanders in 1990 for his provocative book Jesus and Judaism. Acclaimed author Marilynne Robinson won the 2006 Grawemeyer Religion Award for Gilead – the only time a novel has won. Rabbi Belser also joins the company of distinguished professors Stephen L. Carter (The Culture of Disbelief) and Diana Eck (Encountering God) in winning the Grawemeyer Religion Award.

Charles Marsh, who won the 1998 Grawemeyer Award in Religion for God’s Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights, later described the impact the prize had on his career: “The Grawemeyer Award encouraged me to imagine concrete strategies for integrating the lessons I had learned into the practices of academic teaching and research of a new generation. It inspired me to think creatively of ways I might encourage other scholars to make journeys of their own.”

About the Grawemeyer Award

The Grawemeyer Award in Religion is made possible by the creative generosity of the late H. Charles Grawemeyer. Louisville Seminary, jointly with the University of Louisville, awards the $100,000 prize to honor and publicize creative and significant insights into the relationship between human beings and the divine. The award also recognizes ways in which this relationship may inspire or empower human beings to attain wholeness, integrity, or meaning, either individually or in community.

*Please note that the lecture may be recorded. By registering and participating, you understand that your video may be included in the recorded video, and you consent to this recording and its use in any and all media throughout Louisville Seminary and its partners.

**Due to weather or other circumstances, this event may shift to being streamed live only. Notification of a change may be communicated up until one-day prior to the event.

Disability Wisdom, Spiritual Subversiveness, and the Soul Work of Justice

2025 Grawemeyer Lecture presented by Rabbi Julia Watts Belser