Month: April 2017

29th April Encounters series. Join community members in critical small group discussion about the U.S. Constitution.

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Join community members in critical small group discussion about the U.S. Constitution.

The Encounters series is a public discussion program created by a partnership with the Hartford History Center at Hartford Public Library, UConn’s Humanities Institute, and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. The partners provide discussion leaders to engage in topics aimed at strengthening our ability to know ourselves and one another through respectful and challenging dialogue.

For more information about the Encounters series visit our page.

Please read the U.S. Constitution prior to the event: http://constitutionus.com/

Hartford History Center
500 Main St, Hartford, Connecticut 06103

National Issues Forum: Moderator Training Interested in supporting democratic dialogue and deliberation? Learn to be a National Issues Forum Moderator!

National Issues Forum

In partnership with the Dodd Center, and E.O. Smith High School, Humility & Conviction in Public Life hosted a National Issues Forum (NIF) Moderator Training designed to introduce participants to the concepts, skills, and issues associated with moderating and recording public deliberations that could facilitate intellectually humble dialogue. This was followed by a forum with students and faculty from E.O. Smith High School. Run by Glenn Mitoma (Dodd Center), and planned in collaboration with Joe Goldman (E.O. Smith) and Brendan Kane (HCPL), the forum considered the issues of food justice and security, making use of the brand new NIF Guide:Land of Plenty: How Should We Ensure that People Have the Food They Need?.pdf


There were over 130 E.O. Smith students, and was facilitated by UConn undergrads, graduate students, staff, and UConn and E.O. Smith faculty.

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The Quiet Power of Humility | Peter Wehner at NYTimes

The Quiet Power of Humility

April 15, 2017

“Over breakfast with a social psychologist I know, I asked him what constructive contribution Christians could make to public life. An atheist who finds much to admire in religion, he answered simply: “Humility.”

That is a perfectly reasonable hope. Unfortunately, however, humility is a neglected Christian virtue. This is rather odd, given that humility should be a defining trait of Christians. The resurrection, celebrated by Christians throughout the world on Easter Sunday, was made possible only by an act of unsurpassed humility…”

Read the full piece by Peter Wehner at the NYTimes here.

Congratulations to Associate Prof. Micki McElya (H&C Core Faculty) whose book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

Finalist: The Politics of Mourning: Death and Honor in Arlington National Cemetery, by Micki McElya (Harvard University Press)

For a luminous investigation of how policies and practices at Arlington National Cemetery have mirrored the nation’s fierce battles over race, politics, honor and loyalty.Politics of Mourning, McElya

José Casanova on “Religious Conviction and Intellectual Humility in Public Life: Socio-Theological Reflections”, 4:00-5:30pm, April 21

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Keynote Address

Jose CasanovaJosé Casanova, Georgetown University

Keynote address: 4:00-5:30pm, April 21st (reception to follow)

Religious Conviction and Intellectual Humility in Public Life: Socio-Theological Reflections

What does it mean to have a religious conviction in our global secular age? Why is it necessary that when we enter public life, even if motivated by deeply held religious convictions, our public interventions ought to be informed by intellectual humility? In addressing these questions I will proceed with the assumption that our age is characterized by profound religious, cultural and moral pluralism, that requires that we encounter the other with deep intellectual humility and respect. Precisely because not truths or convictions but persons have rights, each person has the inalienable right to seek the truth and to hold his/her convictions publicly. I will ground my reflections on the historical experiences of the Jesuits as pioneer globalizers in the early modern age, and on the deeds and words of the Jesuit Pope Francis.  The Jesuits combined a deep religious conviction as global missionaries with a peculiar openness, controversial at their time, to accommodate other cultures and to enter into deep intercultural encounters, what Pope Francis calls the “culture of the encounter.”

José Casanova is Professor of Sociology, Theology and Senior Fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University, where he heads the Program on Religion, Globalization, and the Secular. He is also a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University, in Melbourne, where he directs a project on Asian/Pacific Catholicism and Globalization. Previously he served as Professor of Sociology at the New School for Social Research in New York and has held visiting appointments at numerous American and European universities. He has published widely in the areas of sociological theory, religion and politics, transnational migration, and globalization. His best-known work, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago, 1994) has become a modern classic in the field and has been translated into various languages, including Japanese, Arabic, and Turkish, and is forthcoming in Indonesian, Farsi, and Chinese. Presently he holds the Kluge Chair for Societies and Cultures of the Northern Hemisphere at the Library of Congress, where he is writing a book on “The Jesuits and Globalization.” He is also the recipient of the 2012 Salzburger Hochschulwochen Theological Prize.