Distinguished Voices on Secularism Gather at Trinity:
Inauguration of the Institute for the Study of Secularism
 

October 13, 2005 Hartford, Conn.--A half-dozen of the world’s most prominent contemporary voices on secularism and religion will gather at Trinity College to examine the controversial line of separation between church and state and the contested relationship between public culture and religion at the inauguration of the new Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture (ISSSC). The seminal event will take place on Wednesday, November 2, at 1:30 p.m., in the Washington Room in the Mather Hall Campus Center.

The Institute will examine “Secularism in American Public Life and in the Academy.”  The two sessions feature distinguished panelists including Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens, Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, New York Times columnist Peter Steinfels, David Hollinger, University of California Berkeley, Eileen Barker, London School of Economics, and Michael Ruse, Florida State University.

The ISSSC aims to advance understanding of the role of secular values and the process of secularization in contemporary society and culture.  It will serve as a forum for civic education and debate through lectures, seminars, and conferences. Made possible by the generous support of the Posen Foundation of Lucerne, Switzerland, the Institute is part of the College's new Program on Public Values, an initiative designed to foster a comprehensive understanding of some of the central issues and ideas of the contemporary world. The inaugural event is free and open to the public. For more information, call 860-297-2353. The complete schedule and brief descriptions of the leading panelists are below.

Schedule:        1:30-3:00 p.m.   Panel I: “Secularism in American Public Life”

Christopher Hitchens, columnist, Vanity Fair

Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers: A History of American        Secularism

Peter Steinfels, religion columnist, New York Times

Mark Silk, director of the Trinity Program on Public Values, moderator

3:00-4:00         Break  

4:00-5:30         Panel II: “Secularism in the Academy”

                        Eileen Barker, London School of Economics    

David Hollinger, University of California, Berkeley

                        Michael Ruse, Florida State University

                        James Jones, president of Trinity College, moderator

 Panelist Bios:           

Christopher Hitchens is the author of numerous books, including, A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation of Iraq (2003), Why Orwell Matters (2002), and The Trial of Henry Kissinger (2001). He contributes an essay on books each month to The Atlantic Monthly and is a contributing editor to Vanity Fair. His articles have appeared in numerous American and English periodicals, including The Nation, The London Review of Books, Harper’s, New Left Review, Slate, The New York Review of Books, The Times Literary Supplement, and The Washington Post.  Hitchens began his career as a writer for the New Statesman and the Evening Standard and worked as the book critic at New York Newsday from 1986 to 1992.  He has taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Pittsburgh; and the New School of Social Research.  Hitchens received a degree in philosophy, politics, and economics from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1970.

Peter Steinfels, a prominent Catholic writer, educator, and senior religion correspondent for the New York Times from 1988 to 1997, writes “Beliefs,” a biweekly column for the Times. Steinfels joined the staff of Commonweal magazine in 1964 and was editor from 1984 to 1988. His articles regularly appear in Nation, Dissent, and New Republic.  Steinfels is the author of The Neoconservatives: The Men Who Are Changing American Politics, co-editor of Death Inside Out: The Hastings Center Report, and author of A People Adrift: The Crisis of the Roman Catholic Church in America, published this past summer. He and his wife, Margaret O’Brien Steinfels, were recipients of the 2003 Notre Dame Laetare Medal for service to church and society.  He has been a visiting professor of history at Georgetown University and of American studies at the University of Notre Dame. Steinfels received his A.B from Loyola University in Chicago and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.

Susan Jacoby is the author of Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism, Wild Justice: The Evolution of Revenge, a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1984, and Half-Jew: A Daughter's Search for Her Family's Buried Past.  She began her writing career as a reporter for the Washington Post.  Jacoby has been a contributor for more than 25 years, on topics including law, religion, medicine, women's rights, and Russian literature, to a wide range of periodicals and newspapers. Her articles and essays have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Los Angeles Times Book Review, Newsday, Harper’s, and The Nation, among other publications.  Jacoby has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, from the Guggenheim, Rockefeller, and Ford Foundations, as well as the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2001-2002, she was named a fellow of the Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library.  She is currently program director of the Center for Inquiry-Metro New York, a rationalist think tank.

Eileen Barker, Ph.D., Ph.D. h.c., O.B.E., F.B.A., is professor emeritus of sociology with special reference to the study of religion at the London School of Economics (LSE). Her main research interests are cults, sects, and new religious movements, and the social reactions to which they give rise.  Since 1989 she has been investigating changes in the religious situation in post-communist countries. Her publications include the award-winning The Making of a Moonie: Brainwashing or Choice? and New Religious Movements: A Practical Introduction.  In the late 1980s, with the support of the British government and mainstream churches, she founded INFORM, a charity based at the LSE which provides information about the new religions that is as accurate, objective, and up-to-date as possible. She is a frequent adviser to governments, other official bodies and law-enforcement agencies around the world; and is the only non-American to have been elected president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion. In 2000 she was the recipient of the American Academy of Religion’s prestigious Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion.

Michael Ruse is Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida State University. The author of many books, including The Philosophy of Biology and Taking Darwin Seriously, he is also the founder and editor of the journal Biology and Philosophy. He has appeared on “Quirks and Quarks” and the Discovery Channel.  He has contributed articles to edited volumes, including “Natural Selection: An Idea Before Its Time? (But Which Time?),” “Darwinism as Religion: Are the Christians Right?” and “Darwinian Understanding: Ethics.”  He has been a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the American Society for the Advancement of Science, and a recipient of the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.  He received his Ph.D. from the University of Bristol, in England, in 1970.

David A. Hollinger is department chair and Preston Hotchkis Professor of History at the University of California at Berkeley.  His books include Cosmopolitanism and Solidarity: Studies in Group Affiliation in the United States (University of Wisconsin Press, forthcoming early 2006), Science, Jews and Secular Culture, and Postethnic America: Beyond Multiculturalism. His recent articles include “Damned for God’s Glory: William James and the Scientific Vindication of Protestant Culture,” and “Jesus Matters in the USA.” He is the co-editor of Reappraising Oppenheimer: Centennial Studies and Reflections.  Hollinger currently serves as chair of the Academic Freedom Committee of the American Association of University Professors.  Has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, a two-time member of the Institute for Advanced Study, and Harmsworth Professor of the University of Oxford.  He received his Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 1970.

Institute Director Bios

Barry A. Kosmin, a sociologist, is director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture and research professor in public policy and law at Trinity College. Principal investigator of the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey, he is co-author of One Nation Under God and of the forthcoming Religion in a Free Market.

Ariela Keysar, a demographer, is associate director of the Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture and associate research professor in public policy and law at Trinity College. She was study director of the 2001 American Religious Identification Survey and is co-author of the forthcoming Religion in a Free Market.

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