James Davison Hunter (UVA)<\/u><\/p>\n
James Davison Hunter is LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia and serves as Executive Director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He earned his BA at Gordon College and his MA and PhD at Rutgers University. Professor Hunter has written ten books, edited four books, and published a wide range of essays, articles, and reviews\u2014all variously concerned with the problem of meaning and moral order in a time of political and cultural change in American life. His newest book is Democracy and Solidarity: On the Cultural Roots of America\u2019s Political Crisis<\/em> (2024). A few of his other published works are The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age without Good or Evil<\/em> (2000); Is There A Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life<\/em> (with Alan Wolfe, 2006); To Change the World<\/em> (2010); and Science and the Good: The Tragic Quest for the Foundations of Morality<\/em> (with Paul Nedelisky, 2018). With his colleague John M. Owen, IV, he also edits the series, Politics & Culture<\/em> at Yale University Press. These works have earned him national recognition and numerous literary awards. In 1988, he received the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion for Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation<\/em> (1987). In 1991, he was the recipient of the Gustavus Myers Award for the Study of Human Rights for Articles of Faith, Articles of Peace<\/em> (1990). The Los Angeles Times<\/em> named Hunter as a finalist for their 1992 Book Prize for Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America<\/em> (1991). In 2004, he was appointed by the White House to a six-year term on the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2005, he won the Weaver Prize for Scholarly Letters. Hunter also has served as a consultant to the White House, the Bicentennial Commission for the U.S. Constitution, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Commission on Civic Renewal.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Christian Smith (Notre Dame)<\/u><\/p>\n Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor of Sociology, Emeritus, and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. He earned his BA from Gordon College and his MA and PhD from Harvard University. Smith is known for his research focused on religion, adolescents and emerging adults, and social theory. He was a Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 12 years before his move to Notre Dame. Professor Smith is the author or editor of over 25 books and has published dozens of articles and book chapters. His most recent work is Why Religion Went Obsolete: The Demise of Traditional Faith in America<\/em> (2025). Other previous works include: The Secular Revolution<\/em> (2003); Moral, Believing Animals<\/em> (2003); Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of <\/em>American Teenagers<\/em> (with Melinda Lundquist Denton, 2005); Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults<\/em> (with Patricia Herzog, 2009); What is a Person?<\/em> (2010); Lost in Transition: The Dark Side of Emerging Adulthood<\/em> (with Patricia Herzog, 2011); Youth Catholic America <\/em>(with Kari Christoffersen and Kyle C. Longest, 2014); To Flourish or Destruct<\/em> (2015); Religion: What It Is, How It Works, and Why It Matters<\/em> (2017); Atheist Overreach: What Atheism Can\u2019t Deliver<\/em> (2018); Religious Parenting: Transmitting Faith and Values in Contemporary America<\/em> (with Bridget Ritz and Michael Rotolo, 2019); and Handing Down Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion on to the Next Generation<\/em> (with Amy Adamczyk, 2021). Smith has won many awards for his books, teaching, and mentorship. He was also honored with a Distinguished Career Award by the American Sociological Association (ASA).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" James Davison Hunter (UVA) James Davison Hunter is LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory at the University of Virginia and serves as Executive Director of the Institute […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":365,"featured_media":2179,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tribe_events_status":"","_tribe_events_status_reason":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[],"tribe_events_cat":[12],"class_list":["post-2178","tribe_events","type-tribe_events","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tribe_events_cat-lecture","cat_lecture"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/2178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/tribe_events"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/365"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/2178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2181,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events\/2178\/revisions\/2181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2178"},{"taxonomy":"tribe_events_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/academics\/tocqueville-program\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tribe_events_cat?post=2178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}