Vanderbilt’s Melissa Snarr to Discuss Living Wage Movement in Third Annual Ethics Lecture

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For the University of Evansville’s third annual Ethics Lecture, Melissa Snarr, associate dean and associate professor of ethics and society at Vanderbilt Divinity School, will present “Jesus was a Low Wage Worker: Religious Activism for Living Wages.”

Snarr will speak at 7:00 p.m. Tuesday, April 3 in Vectren Lecture Hall (Room 100, Koch Center for Engineering and Science). Her lecture is free and open to the public.

In 1994, a coalition of Baltimore churches initiated a campaign that would change the face of worker justice organizing in the United States. Since then, over 150 cities have passed living wage ordinances in an effort to counter the growing phenomenon of “working poverty.”

“Religious activists have offered important resources to this successful movement through their ethical framing, racial bridge-building, and ritualized protests,” Snarr said. “This lecture will explore lessons — both positive and negative — from the activism of people of faith in the movement.”

Snarr focuses her work on the intersection of religion, social change, and political ethics. Her most recent book, All You That Labor: Religion and Ethics in the Living Wage Movement (NYU Press, 2011), draws on extensive participant observation to analyze and evaluate the contributions of religious activists in the living wage movement. Snarr is also the author of Social Selves and Political Reforms (Continuum, 2007) and several articles in the area of feminist ethics. Her current research projects center on Protestant resources for unionization, as well as an analysis of interfaith organizing as a peace-building practice.

The Ethics Lecture Series, sponsored by UE’s Department of Philosophy and Religion, brings ethicists from both religious and philosophical backgrounds to explore questions of value, justice, responsibility, and meaning in the realm of human conduct and the moral life.

“Lecturers examine significant ethical issues in the contemporary world and ways in which moral reflection might be brought to bear on them,” said Dianne Oliver, chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion and associate professor of religion. “The series is intended to bring focus to the study and practice of ethics among our students and the larger community.”

Previous Ethics Lecture topics have included ethical eating and ethical considerations of faith and politics.

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1 COMMENT

  1. Dear Dr. Snarr,

    I am unable to find your direct e-mail address, but I hope this message finds you.

    For a PhD course that I am currently taking on Organization Development, I am writing a paper on organizations and institutions across a broad spectrum, which are bound–or potentially could be bound–by an interest in a living wage. My area of focus is economic inequality. My paper’s question is “Could the solution to nationalizing a living wage exist through organizing a comprehensive coalition of solidarity?”

    Naturally I found your 2009 article, “Religion, race, and bridge building in economic justice coalitions” to be an invaluable aid to my paper. My inquiry for you follows:
    I am interested to know whether you have organized your interfaith movement directly toward Jewish or Muslim congregations along with living-wage or other economic justice campaigns. For instance, have you been involved with “Jews for Racial & Economic Justice” or “Islamic Economy & Social Justice”?

    Incidentally, I think perhaps years ago our paths may have crossed while I was heavily involved with the “Tennessee Health Care Campaign” and “Tennesseans for Fair Taxation.”

    Thank you…

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