The Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College presents "The Sign of Jonah," a lecture by Wheaton College Associate Professor of Art History Dr. Matthew Milliner on Thursday, October 3 at 7 p.m. in the Wade Center's Bakke Auditorium. A reception and book signing will follow the lecture.

In this academic year’s Hansen Lectureship series titled “Turtle Island Renaissance,” Dr. Milliner uses insights from G.K. Chesterton as a guide to understanding the broad sweep of Native American art, especially in the Midwest. In conversation with Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man, this first lecture focuses on paintings of underwater panthers—mythological beings from the Native American people of the Great Lakes. In making way for settlers, forced Midwestern Indian removals embodied this swallowing monster. Today, however, Native painting is being revived, a Renaissance in which Christianity plays a surprisingly prominent, if neglected, role.

The faculty respondent for this talk is CAPT David Iglesias, the Jean and E. Floyd Kvamme Associate Professor of Politics and Law, and the director of the Wheaton Center for Faith, Politics and Economics.

Following the lecture, there will be a reception and book launch/signing for Dr. Christine A. Colón’s Choosing Community: Action, Faith, and Joy in the Works of Dorothy L. Sayers, the third volume in the Hansen Lectureship series published by InterVarsity Press Academic. The book will be available for purchase at a 15% discount during this event.

The Ken and Jean Hansen Lectureship is an annual faculty lecture series named in honor of former Wheaton College trustee Ken Hansen and his wife Jean, and endowed in their memory by son Walter and Darlene Hansen.

The remaining two lectures in the series will be on February 6 and March 19. All lectures, which are free and open to the public, will be at 7 p.m. in the Wade Center Bakke Auditorium. The Wade Center is located at 351 Lincoln Ave. on the northwest corner of campus at the intersection of Washington St. and Lincoln Ave. For more information, contact the Wade Center at 630.752.5908 or wade@wheaton.edu.