Alan Wolfe, political science professor and director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College, will discuss “Who’s Afraid of American Religion? Politics and Religion in the 2008 Elections” Tuesday, Sept. 30, at 7 p.m. in the Nott Memorial.
His talk, co-sponsored by the Office of Minerva Programs’ Dinner & Discussion Series,Office of the President, Department of Political Science, Religious Studies Program and Catholic Chaplaincy, is free and open to the public. Dessert will follow the lecture.
Before his talk, Wolfe will have dinner with members of the campus community at Beuth House.
“Wolfe’s talk will offer yet another perspective from which to understand this election season – the heightened role religion has been playing in the campaigns,” said Catholic Chaplain Tom Boland, noting the College’s emphasis on the elections this term (including the summer reading for incoming first years of the two presidential autobiographies, political blogger Joshua Micah Marshall’s recent campus talk and this term’s interdisciplinary course on the elections).
A contributing editor of The New Republic and Wilson Quarterly, Commonwealth Magazine and In Character, Wolfe also writes for Commonweal, The New York Times, Harper’s, The Atlantic, the Washington Post and other publications. He was an advisor to President Clinton in preparation for his 1995 State of the Union address and has lectured widely at American and European universities.
Wolfe’s recent books include "Does American Democracy Still Work?" (Yale University Press, 2006), "Return to Greatness: How America Lost Its Sense of Purpose and What It Needs to Do to Recover It" (Princeton University Press, 2005), "The Transformation of American Religion: How We actaully Practice Our Faith" (Free Press, 2003) and "An Intellectual in Public" (University of Michigan Press, 2003).
His upcoming book, to be published in February, is titled "The Future of Liberalism" (Knopf).