This year’s Martin E. Marty Lecture on Religion in American Life will be delivered by Richard Rodriguez, author of several books including Brown, Hunger of Memory, and Days of Obligation. Rodriguez, who received the National Endowment for the Humanities Medal in 1993, is at work on a book about the desert origins of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. His lecture, titled The Desert and the Experience of God, will be drawn from this forthcoming work. The free talk, sponsored by the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life at UCSB, starts at 8 p.m. Thursday, April 21, at the Lobero Theatre (33 E. Canon Perdido St.). Call 963-0761 for more info.