How does one celebrate a 100th birthday? For a human or Galapagos tortoise, a centennial celebration would likely include a birthday cake heavy with candles or becoming a first-time mother.
This year, Swift Hall, home of the University of Chicago Divinity School, is marking a century by cataloging and examining 100 objects from its history.
From bowties to vivid murals, 100 items on and within Swift’s walls tell the history of the academic study of religion at UChicago. In the Swift 100 digital exhibition and audio tour, the voices of the Divinity School community delve into the significance of the diverse collection.
Visitors can tour Swift Hall, accompanied by the audio guide, from Oct. 18-19 during the Chicago Architecture Foundation’s Open House Chicago. Swift will also celebrate its 100th birthday with a party on Nov. 7.
“Celebrating the centennial of Swift 100 is to celebrate the centrality of the study of religion and its import in answering the most profound human questions,” said James T. Robinson, dean of the Divinity School and Nathan Cummings Professor of Jewish Studies. “Our location on the main quad of the University of Chicago campus underscores that centrality and propels us into a new century, a new beginning, with new questions about how to be human in an ever-changing society.”
The following 10 (or so) items provide a small sample of the objects—and their stories—that encapsulate Swift Hall’s history.
1-3. Lambs, phoenixes and dragons
Two stone carvings flank Swift’s main entrance. On the left, spot UChicago's coat of arms, showcasing the phoenix rising from the ashes above the University’s motto: Crescat scientia; vita excolatur/Let knowledge grow from more to more; and so be human life enriched.
Look to your right to find a carved representation of the Lamb of God, also known as an “agnus dei,” representing Jesus Christ and the significance of his sacrifice in Christian theology.
Taken together, the two carvings are emblematic of founding UChicago President William Rainey Harper’s vision for the home of the Divinity School. Also a Baptist clergyman, Harper believed the academic study of religion was essential to a great university.
Above the west entrance, try to find the relief of Saint George slaying a dragon tucked into the gable. In Christian art, the story of St. George’s defeat of the terrorizing monster is a famous motif symbolizing the triumph of Christianity over evil.
4. Harper’s Bible
Described by his biographer as “a young man in a hurry,” UChicago’s first president left an indelible mark on the University. A renowned scholar of the Hebrew Bible, one of Harper’s first acts as president was moving the Baptist Theological Union Seminary to Hyde Park in 1891.
That same year, it became the Divinity School and UChicago’s first professional school.
“Harper’s conception of the role of religion deeply informed the value system of the University,” wrote Prof. John Boyer in The University of Chicago: A History.
Harper also left his mark—quite literally—in his copy of the Hebrew Bible. Held in the UChicago Library’s Special Collections, the bible’s margins are filled with Harper’s notes on translation and interpretation.
Though Harper’s era was steeped in Christianity, his broader vision helped pave the way for scholarship on diverse religious tradition that is foundational to the Divinity School today.
“He saw the possibility of pursuing the study of Christianity and other religions,” said Hebrew Bible scholar Prof. Jeffrey Stackert. “He was also interested in issues of comparative religion and comparison more generally. For me, coming to Swift was an opportunity to stretch even further than I had before.”
More historic Bibles, many of which are older than Swift itself, can be found framed on the walls of Swift 403, along with carved reliefs depicting stories from the Bible. A metal plaque featuring Harper’s bronze likeness can be found just around the corner from the metal bas relief of St. Thomas the Apostle by Swift’s west entrance.
5. A room of many faiths
The Divinity School is open to students of many traditions, a principle reflected in the decor of the Ministry Suite found on Swift’s fourth floor.
On the suite’s walls, find artwork representing the Bahá’í, Muslim, Jewish, Daoist and Christian traditions.
The suite serves as a central meeting place for graduate students earning a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree, a three-year program that prepares students for leadership in religious communities.
“When I think of the Ministry Suite, a couple of stories come to mind,” said Erika Dornfield, MDiv’14. “Most of them involve people sleeping. My friend, John, who was in MDiv with me back in the day, would drive from the suburbs at 6 a.m. to beat traffic and get parking on the Midway, come into the Ministry Suite, nap for an hour, and then be up for Greek at 8 a.m. every day.”
6-7. Wendy Doniger’s office
Room 207, or the Wendy Doniger History of Religions Seminar Room, is named for its last iconic faculty occupant.
Doniger, the Mircea Eliade Distinguished Service Professor Emerita of History of Religions, is a renowned scholar of South Asian religions. Over her 50-year-long career, Doniger has authored over 40 works about Hindu literary traditions and mythologies.
Throughout the room, find items and art collected by or gifted to Doniger hidden on bookshelves or on walls. On the western wall hangs a wooden gandhārvī, a celestial being in Hindu and Buddhist theologies associated with dance and music. The statue holds a veena, a lute-like instrument, in her hands.
Look for artwork depicting the Sanskrit conceptualization of the creation of the world near a framed face adornment for a horse.
Doniger’s portrait can also be found in the common room on the first floor of Swift, where she can be seen holding her dog, Raja.
8. Angels in the rafters
Students and faculty are not the only avid readers in Swift—its angels are, too. Affixed to the rafters of Swift’s third-floor lecture hall, oaken angels can be found with their wings spread and a good book in hand.
These reading angels hearken back to the lecture hall’s original purpose as Swift’s library until the completion of the Joseph Regenstein Library in 1970.
Swift’s lecture hall also once hosted a beloved annual tradition: a used book sale.
“Another fun memory of the third-floor lecture hall was that it served as the location for the Divinity School book sale, which was an annual institution when I was here as a student,” recalled alum Ken Bigger, PhD’05. “It’s now a long-lost tradition, but it was great for stocking one’s grad student library and for various kinds of book-endipity.”
9. Martin Marty’s bowtie
Beloved and prolific writer, Martin E. Marty, PhD’56, authored over 50 books over the course of his 35-year-long career as the Fairfax M. Cone Distinguished Service Professor of the History of Modern Christianity. Time magazine once described him as the “most influential interpreter of religion” in the United States.
Marty was also well-known for his collection of bowties.
“When I think of folks like Martin Marty, Chris Gamwell or Anne Carr—who were very formative people for me—they represent folks who were very committed to the forms of activism that their values drove them to, but also they were very good scholars,” recalled theologian Emilie M. Townes, AB’77, AM’79, DMN’82. “So many folks were saying you had to be one of the other and they proved that wasn’t necessarily true.”
The Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion—founded by Marty in 1979—was renamed in his honor to the Martin Marty Center for the Advanced Study of Religion, which lives on the second floor of Swift Hall.
10. Where God drinks coffee
“In God we trust; all others pay cash,” is the unofficial official creed of Grounds of Being. Founded in the 1950s, the student-run, not-for-profit coffee shop resides in Swift’s basement.
Originally named “The Swift Kick,” Grounds of Being has transformed from “a coffee pot in the corner” to an essential “third space” for the Divinity School and broader University community.
Plucked from the rack of hooks hanging over the cashier’s head, a mug from Grounds of Being might be filled with a “Hail Mary” (drip coffee and espresso) or, special this year, the "Swift Kick" (a spicy mango latte).
It’s rare to see Grounds of Being empty—and the walls are no exception. Among the multitude of art hangs a multifaith mural depicting the Taj Mahal, the Kaaba in Mecca and the familiar facade of Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. Jesus Christ and Ganesha engage in conversation; past faculty members of the Divinity School also make appearances.
“It’s a rare place where people come together from lots of different backgrounds and lived experiences,” said Paul Pribbenow, AM’79, PhD’93, who managed the cafe in the 1980s. “My fondest hope would be that the Divinity School doesn’t lose that—both that place and also that commitment to in-person community.”
