Talking Religion

Rebecca “Becca” Hartman’s goal is to foster communication between people of different faiths, one dialogue at a time.

The religion and philosophy major from Green Bay, Wis.,was awarded two Undergraduate Research Grants. She spent the summer before her junior year examining high school and college students’ understanding of abortion in her hometown. The following summer she studied how the issue of sexual orientation is being addressed by the American Baptist Churches. The latter became her senior honors thesis.

Hartman spent her entire junior year abroad, first in South Africa, where she lived with a Zulu family. While there, she conducted an independent research project on the representation of culture and identity by Russian producers who were filming a Survivor-based reality television series in a Zulu village they had constructed.

She spent the second semester studying at King’s College in London.

Hartman participates in University Christian Ministry and is a member of a “queer Bible study.” In the spring she helped teach a course on difficult dialogue and the potential for peace between religious groups. She hopes to pursue her passion for interfaith programming in Chicago and abroad after graduation. Her greatest accomplishment at Northwestern, she says, was “building a network of breathtaking people from diverse backgrounds.

“I’ve been blessed in so many countless ways in my life,” says Hartman. “A supportive and loving family, freedom to explore who I am, luxury to be at this resort, also to be in a place where I can just sit back and observe and be awestruck, where I don’t need to be consumed by the kind of goals our society seems to have. I’m moved by the beauty in the world.”

— Robert Brenner (J07)