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PUBLIC EVENTS
Intended to serve as an ongoing forum for civic education and intellectual debate, the Institute organizes lectures, workshops, conferences, essay contests, and colloquia for scholars, the Trinity College community, and the public at large.
Each year, ISSSC conducts an annual scholarly conference featuring leading experts from around the world on a particular topic related to secularism. The first such conference, held in Hartford on June 28-29, 2006, addressed the question "Who Is Secular Today?" The second international conference, held at the Trinity College Rome Campus in Italy on June 28-July 2, 2007, was called "Prospects of the Secular State in the Mediterranean World."
Recent Events:
October 16, 2009
"Science Policy & Indian Secularism" - ISSSC Lunch Meeting with Professor J.N. Nanda
Presenter: Professor J.N. Nanda
Professor J.N. Nanda is a distinguished geophysicist, marine scientist, thinker and public intellectual. A former Executive Secretary of the Indian National Science Academy, he holds doctorates from the Universities of the Punjab and Cornell. Aside from his many scientific publications Prof. Nanda is author of Science and Technology in India’s Transformation, 1986 and Glimpses of India’s History and Culture. He is the founder and General Secretary of the Secular Life Society of India.
October 14, 2009
"Obama and his Withering Defense of Secularism" - Program on Public Values Lunch Seminar
Presenter: Dr. Karin Fry, Associate Professor of Philosophy at University of Wisconsin
Dr. Fry is the author of Arendt: a Guide for the Perplexed, as well as articles in Philosophy Today and Revue Philosophique, and chapters in Philosophy and South Park, The Materiality of Johanna Hällsten’s Art, and Philosophy and the Narnia Chronicles.
Click Here for Paper
March 31, 2009
"Nuancing Nominalism: Religious Belonging in Contemporary Britain" - Program on Public Values Seminar
Presenter: Dr. Abby Day, Research Fellow, University of Sussex, U.K.
Click Here for Synopsis
December 2, 2008
“A Preview of the 2009 Israel Elections and Electorate: Secular v. Religious – Right v. Left” -ISSSC and Jewish Studies Program Public Lecture
Presenter: Professor Asher Arian - Distinguished Professor of Political Science, CUNY Graduate Center
 Professor Asher Arian, one of the world’s best-known experts on Israeli elections, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and received his Ph.D. in political science from Michigan State University. Since 1986, Arian has been a Distinguished Professor in political science at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is also currenty Research Director of the Guttman Center at the Israel Democracy Institute which recently held a joint IDI-ISSSC conference in Jerusalem devoted to identifying secularism in Israeli society.
Click to View Press Release
October 9, 2008
"The Current Condition of Rationalism, Science and Secularism in India" - Program on Public Values Seminar
Presenter: Dr. Innaiah Narisetti, Chairman, Center for Inquiry, Hyderabad, India
September 25, 2008
"Secularism & Scientific Temper in India:
The Global Reaction to the Trinity On-line Survey of Scientists" - Trinity College Common Hour Program
Presenters: Barry Kosmin, Ariela Keysar and Meera Nanda
Click Here for Synopsis
September 19, 2008
"Areligious, Irreligious and Anti-Religious Americans: The No Religion Population of the U.S. - 'Nones,' 2008"
- Presentation by Barry A. Kosmin at the Religion Newswriters Association 59th Annual Conference,Washington, D.C.
August 7, 2008
Identifying Indicators for Secularism: Joint Conference - ISSSC and the The Guttman Center of The Israel Democracy Institute
-The Israel Democracy Institute, Jerusalem, Israel
ISSSC aims to construct a series of metrics that can be applied internationally to measure and monitor the trend line of secularism in different societies and cultures over time. This conference focused on the challenge of creating and identifying operational indicators of secularism and secularity in a systematic way using Israel as a case study. The types of measures that need to be considered for “an international observatory on indicators of secularism” in the 21st century, a period of unprecedented globalization, go beyond those traditionally associated with religion and irreligion. Areas of inquiry include public support for Enlightenment values and traditions, affirmatively secular worldviews, and the role of the state and civil society institutions.
View Summary
View the Program and Collected Articles
June 16-18, 2008
Secularism and the Enlightenment: Joint Research Conference - Claremont-McKenna College and ISSSC
- Claremont-McKenna College, Claremont, California
This conference developed comparative and multidisciplinary teaching tools that took into account regional and national distinctions within Europe and North America. We mapped out the operations of secularism and the characteristics of its culture in relation to several discursive and scholarly fields: The study of the natural world; human nature, and race and gender differentiations; social order, law, and political government; knowledge, literary and aesthetic criticism.
View the Program
View Pictures
June 5, 2008
Release of the Summary Report of the International Survey Worldviews and Opinions of Scientists - India 2007-08
United Nations Plaza, New York City
View the program
First row (left to right): Dr. Meera Nanda; Professor Elli Findly, Trinity College; Professor Ariela Keysar, Trinity College; Professor Shyamala Raman
Second row (left to right): Dr. Austin Dacey, Center for Inquiry, New York; Professor Barry A. Kosmin, Trinity College
May 20-22, 2008
Teaching Conference on Secularism and the Enlightenment
Lenox, Massachusetts
List of conference attendees
June 28-July 2, 2007
International Research Conference:
"Prospects for the Secular State in the Mediterranean World"
Trinity College Rome Campus, Rome, Italy
Conference Theme
Full conference program
From left to right: Sadiye Mine Eder (Turkey), Frank Pasquale (U.S.A.), Frances Raday (Israel), Barry Kosmin (U.S.A), Renny Fulco (U.S.A.), Hassan Krayem (Lebanon), Binnaz Toprak (Turkey), Kada Akacem (Algeria), Rafael Gallego Sevilla (Spain), Boutheina Cheriet (Algeria), Jay Demareth (U.S.A.), Mark Silk (U.S.A.), Peter Coy (U.S.A.), Ariela Keysar (U.S.A.), Asher Arian (Israel), Lina Molokotos-Leiderman (Greece), Silvia Sansonetti (Italy), Manar El Shorbagy (Egypt), Christopher Nadon (U.S.A.), Camille Froidevaux-Metterie (France), Emilio Gentile (Italy)
Conference Participants' Biographies
Conference Photo Gallery
Pictures from the event can be seen in the Gallery.
May 21, 2007
Smith House, Trinity College
CT High School Science Education Essay Contest: Why do so many young Americans today show little interest in science education?
ISSSC sponsored an essay competition to all high school students in Connecticut. More than 80 students from a dozen public and private high school submitted essays. The award winners were the two freshman, one junior and one senior named in the certificate and pictured below with ISSSC Director, Professor Barry Kosmin.
The award ceremony was held at Trinity College on May 21. The guest speaker, Dr. Austin Dacey (below), is contributing editor with Skeptical Inquirer magazine and a representative to the United Nations for the Center for Inquiry. Dr. Dacey addressed an audience of high school students, parents, teachers, and Trinity faculty on the topic of the role of a secular and scientific outlook in public affairs.
 March 8, 2007, 4:15 PM
Washington Room, Trinity College
Lecture: "Is East Asia Secular?"
Ian Buruma, Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights & Journalism at Bard College
Synopsis of Lecture
December 12, 2006
Art and Secular Consciousness: An Illustrated Symposium
Trinity College, Hartford, CT
Presenters:
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Alden R. Gordon (Trinity College), “Secular Shrines and Places of Meaning in Modern Culture”
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Danielle Rice (Executive Director of the Delaware Museum of Art), “Museums and Their Publics in Secular Culture”
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Benjamin Bet-Hallahmi (University of Haifa),”Secularizing the Human Imagination: Psychological Perspectives”
September 7, 2006
Seminar: "The Gulf Between Religious Culture and National Culture in England Today"
 The Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture, along with Trinity's Program on Public Values, welcomed prominent British Catholic writer and pastor, Father Terence Tastard, to present a paper titled, "The Gulf Between Religious Culture and National Culture in England Today." The paper deals with the repercussions of the profound secularization that England has undergone in recent decades.
Read "The Gulf Between Religious Culture and National Culture in England Today" by Father Terence Tastard
Read Terence Tastard's biography
June 28-29, 2006
International Research Conference & Workshop for Journalists:
"Who is Secular Today?"
Trinity College, Hartford, CT
The event program and speech abstracts are available by clicking below.
page one
page two
Pictures from the event can be seen in the gallery
Event photo gallery
Press release
Secularization with Salsa
Anthony M. Stevens-Arroyo, Director, Center for Religion in Society and Culture (RISC) and Professor Puerto Rican and Latino Studies, Brooklyn College, SUNY
Efrain Agosto, Professor of New Testament and Director, Programa de Ministerios Hispanos, Hartford Seminary, CT
February 21, 2006
Lecture: "Church-State Separation and the New Supreme Court"
The Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society in Culture welcomed Marc Stern to Trinity College on February 21, 2006, to give a lecture titled, "Church-State Separation and the New Supreme Court." Mr. Stern is the Assistant Executive Director of the American Jewish Congress and author of articles dealing with religion, the law, and public morality. The lecture was sponsored by ISSSC, Trinity's Program on Public Policy and Law, and the Program on Public Values.
Excerpts
November 2, 2005
Inauguration of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture
More than 200 students, faculty members, and members of the general public attended the lively inaugural event of the Institute on November 2, 2005. The discussion was colorful and wide-ranging, covering topics from the insignia on the dollar bill to intelligent design to the addition of “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. The first panel of the day, "Secularism in American Public Life," moderated by Program on Public Values Director Mark Silk, featured Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens; “Freethinkers” author Susan Jacoby (view remarks), and New York Times religion columnist Peter Steinfels (view remarks). The second panel, “Secularism in the Academy,” moderated by Trinity President James F. Jones Jr., included David Hollinger (view remarks) of the University of California at Berkeley, Michael Ruse of Florida State University, and Eileen Barker of the London School of Economics. The remarks of all the panelists will be featured in Religion in the News Vol. 8 #3, forthcoming February 2006.
Event photo gallery
Event schedule
Press release
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