National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar 2007
Over a six-week period during the summer of 2007, Alan Wolfe and the Boisi Center hosted a seminar for college professors from across the United States on the topic “Religious Diversity and the Common Good.” The fifteen participants were selected from a large pool of applicants as part of the National Endowment for the Humanities’ series of summer programs in higher education. Meeting each week for six hours of formal discussion and another two hours of informal lunch conversations, the group delved into the seminar themes from a wide variety of perspectives.
The first four weeks were dedicated to philosophical, historical, sociological and legal approaches to religious diversity and the common good. Participants discussed Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue alongside Stanley Fish’s The Trouble with Principle and Amy Gutmann and Dennis Thompson’s Democracy and Disagreement. They analyzed Will Herberg’s Protestant, Catholic, Jew and asked whether Diana Eck’s A New Religious America represented an updated model of American religion. They examined Alan Wolfe’s sociological work in The Transformation of American Religion and discussed Michael Sandel’s Democracy’s Discontent. In the final week, they used Philip Hamburger’s Separation of Church and State to guide the discussion of an array of controversial Supreme Court cases. A more thorough overview of the themes of the course is available in the “Courses and Seminars” section of the Boisi Center’s web site.
Five guest speakers joined the seminar at various points to discuss their work, including a number of their books and articles assigned to the seminar: government professor Michael Sandel of Harvard University, law professor Jay Wexler of Boston University, theology professor David Hollenbach, S.J. of Boston College, First Amendment scholar Charles Haynes of the First Amendment Center in Washington, D.C. and political science professor Jytte Klausen of Brandeis University. Participants took advantage of the speakers’ expertise by posing challenging questions and drawing out numerous themes for future consideration.
The participants themselves brought a wealth of experience and knowledge to the conversation along with a diversity of backgrounds and perspectives. Coming to the seminar from a variety of academic fields—religious studies, history, philosophy, sociology and communications, to name a few—helped to foster a deeply interdisciplinary conversation. Many of the participants presented their own work in progress and welcomed constructive criticism from their peers. Outside of their academic setting, the group also took advantage of the New England summer, with outings to Cape Cod, the Museum of Fine Arts, a local mosque and Fenway Park—another of Boston’s sacred spaces. We were delighted to host the participants for the summer and wish them all the best in their future endeavors.