It is widely acknowledged that the jurisprudence of the religion clauses of the First Amendment is up for grabs once again. What can we say about the cases decided in the last eight years? Is the Court leading or following—or perhaps doing something tangential—when it comes to the religion of most Americans?
Join us for a lecture by Winnifred F. Sullivan, Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University at Bloomington, as she explores the complicated relationship of American Constitutional Law and religion.
Professor Sullivan’s lecture is part of the IRCPL’s Religion and Politics in American Public Life lecture series, coordinated by Professors Karen Barkey (CU Sociology), Jean Cohen (CU Political Science, and John Torpey (CUNY GC Sociology). Throughout the 2013 Fall term, the IRCPL will present four public conversations that explore the often contentious role of religion in American political and public life. Seeking to further understand the relationship between religion and politics in the United States, the series continues to explore a number of timely topics that intersect with religion, such as civil religion, public discourses of morality, and reproductive and sexual rights.
Sponsored by the Institute of Religion, Culture, and Public Life, The Department of Political Science at Columbia University, and the PhD Program in Sociology at the Graduate Center, CUNY.
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan is professor and chair of the Department of Religious Studies and affiliate professor of law at Indiana University Bloomington. She is the author of Prison Religion: Faith-based Reform and the Constitution (Princeton, 2009), The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Princeton, 2005), and A Ministry of Presence: Chaplaincy, Spiritual Care and the Law (forthcoming from Chicago, 2014; and editor, with Robert A. Yelle and Mateo Taussig-Rubbo, of After Secular Law (Stanford 2011).