Writer Peter Manseau Presents “Twenty Gods or None” September 27 at Washington College

CHESTERTOWN, MD— From the Republican presidential primary race to debates over same-sex marriage, questions about the role of religion in public life are once again front and center in American politics. On Tuesday, September 27, author Peter Manseau, newly arrived in Chestertown for a year’s residence as Washington College’s 2011-2012 Patrick Henry Writing Fellow, will delve into the deep and controversial history of religious diversity in America. The event, hosted by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience, will be held at 5 p.m. in Litrenta Lecture Hall.

When Thomas Jefferson declared that it did him no injury if his neighbor believed there were "twenty gods or no god," he was not merely advocating tolerance of difference. He was making the case that difference of opinion in matters of religion was good for the country. Manseau has taken Jefferson’s declaration as the launching point for his fellowship project, a major new narrative history of the United States told through the prism of the diverse religious traditions that have shaped the nation.

In his September 27 talk, Manseau will share stories of the “secret Jews” who sailed with Columbus and the deeply religious Taino Indians who swam out to meet them, the devout Muslims who arrived on America’s shores in chains, the Hindu scriptures that inspired transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau, and the Buddhism that Chinese railroad workers brought to the American West in the 19th century.

Peter Manseau is a historian, novelist, journalist and memoirist whose writings on religion and society span a remarkable range of genres. His books include the widely acclaimed memoir Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2005) and the travelogue Rag and Bone: A Journey Among the World's Holy Dead (Henry Holt, 2009), which the St. Petersburg Times called an “eloquently crafted tribute to the ways in which life and death connect.” His essays and articles have appeared in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Vanity Fair, and many other publications.

Manseau’s novel, Songs for the Butcher's Daughter (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 2005), was internationally acclaimed as a “picaresque novel with an epic sweep” and was translated into Dutch, German, Hebrew, Italian, French and Spanish. The story of a fictional Yiddish poet in turn-of-the-century Russia, it won the 2008 National Jewish Book Award and the American Library Association's Sophie Brody Medal for Outstanding Achievement in Jewish Literature.

The Patrick Henry Writing Fellowship, provided by the Starr Center, offers a yearlong residency to authors doing innovative work on America's founding era and its legacy. Manseau will use his time at Washington College to complete his forthcoming book, Twenty Gods or None: The Making of a Nation from the Margins of Faith, which is under contract to be published by Little, Brown and Company in 2013. During the spring semester he will teach a course entitled “American Religious Diversity: Idea, Law, and History,” in the Departments of Political Science and Philosophy and Religion.

Manseau’s September 27 talk, “Twenty Gods or None: The Making of a Nation from the Margins of Faith,” offers an opportunity to hear from one of the most intellectually adventurous young scholars writing today. A book signing will follow; admission is free and open to the public. Manseau’s talk is co-sponsored by the Rose O’Neill Literary House.

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Founded in 1782 under the patronage of George Washington, Washington College is a private, independent college of liberal arts and sciences located in colonial Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. The College’s C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience is dedicated to fostering innovative approaches to the American past and present. Through educational programs, scholarship and public outreach, and a special focus on written history, the Starr Center seeks to bridge the divide between the academic world and the public at large. For more information on the Center and its fellowships, visit http://starrcenter.washcoll.edu.

Noted Author David Campbell To Share Research On America’s Mix of Religion and Politics Sept. 29

CHESTERTOWN, MD—A scholar whose study of America’s religious attitudes and institutions has revealed a surprising mix of polarization and tolerance will discuss his findings at Washington College, Thursday, September 29. David Campbell, co-author of American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us (Simon & Schuster, 2010), will speak at 4:30 p.m. in Hynson Lounge on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue.

Campbell is the John Cardinal O’Hara, C.S.C. Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame and the founding director of the Rooney Center for the Study of American Democracy. He is also the author of Why We Vote: How Schools and Communities Shape Our Civic Life and the editor of A Matter of Faith: Religion in the 2004 Presidential Election.

As an expert on religion, politics, and civic engagement, he has often been featured in the national media, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal and National Public Radio, as well as the major television networks. American Grace, which Campbell co-wrote with Harvard professor Robert Putnam, won the 2011 Woodrow Wilson Award from the American Political Science Association, an honor given annually for the best book on government, politics, or international affairs. Booklist called American Grace “an essential resource for anyone trying to understand twenty-first-century America,” and the Washington Post called it “the most sweeping look yet at contemporary American religion.”

Offering a mix of historical sweep and detailed narrative, American Grace follows the decline of religious observance in the 1960s, its resurgence in the 1970s and 80s with the rise of evangelicalism and the Religious Right, and the exodus of young people from organized religion in the 1990s. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly applauded Campbell and Putnam for persuasively arguing two apparent contradictory theses: “First, that a ‘new religious fault line’ exists in America, a deep political polarization that has transcended denominationalism as the greatest chasm in religious life; and second, that the culture is becoming so much more accepting of diversity that the first thesis will not tear the country apart.”

Examining data from two large national surveys, Campbell and his co-author reveal surprising aspects of the nation’s religious life today, among them that between one-third and one-half of all American marriages are interfaith, that some one-third of Americans have switched religions at some point in their lives, that 89 percent of Americans believe others outside their faith can still get to heaven, and that young people are more opposed to abortion than their parents but more accepting of gay marriage.

In mid-August of this year, Campbell and Putnam co-wrote an op-ed piece for the New York Times in which they discussed what their research had revealed about the origins of the Tea Party, its particular mix of religion and politics, and its dwindling popularity. “Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics,” they wrote. “The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.”

Campbell’s visit to Washington College is sponsored by the College’s Institute for Religion, Politics and Culture and C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. The lecture is free and open to the public. A book signing will follow. For more information about Campbell and the book, visit http://americangrace.org/index.html.

Panel to Assess State of International Trade, Assess Impact of Faith on Free-Trade Policy

CHESTERTOWN, MD—On Thursday, April 14th the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture at Washington College will host a roundtable discussion on the status of international trade today and the role of religious faith in supporting free-trade initiatives around the globe. The presentation, “Trade: Routes that Build Nations, Religions and Cultures,” will feature Ambassador Clayton Yeutter, a former U.S. Trade Representative; Jolanta Iwanicka, the top economist with the Polish Embassy; and Bob Grace, a Maryland executive whose manufacturing company does business on five continents. Part of the Institute’s Project on Faith and Free Markets, the roundtable will take place at 4:30 p.m. in the Casey Academic Forum on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue and is free and open to the public.

Clayton Yeutter was U.S. Trade Representative under President Reagan from 1985 to 1988. In that role, he negotiated the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement, which was the precursor to the North American Free Trade Agreement, and helped launch the historically ambitious 100-nation Uruguay Round, which led to the creation of the World Trade Organization. Yeutter was appointed Secretary of Agriculture by President George H.W. Bush in 1989 and spent one year (1991) as chairman of the Republican National Committee before returning to the Bush Administration as a Counselor to the President.

Prior to becoming U.S. Trade Representative, Yeutter spent a decade (1978-85) as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. He is now a Senior Adviser with the Washington law firm Hogan and Lovells. Yeutter holds a Ph.D. in agricultural economics and a law degree from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.

Jolanta Iwanicka is First Secretary, Economic Section, for the Embassy of the Republic of Poland. In that role, she tracks developments in the United States economy and trade relations between the two countries, including regulatory issues and development cooperation. She previously spent eight years in Warsaw as Manager of the European Union’s PHARE programs (Poland and Hungary: Assistance for Restructuring their Economies), preparing Poland for its 2004 entry to the EU. Working with the European Commission and other institutional partners in Western Europe, she oversaw required changes in areas of regional development, institution building, health, taxation and the procurement of equipment. Iwanicka completed graduate studies in Economics at the University of Warsaw and holds bachelor’s degrees from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln (political science) and the University of Lodz, Poland (English Philology).

Bob Grace is president and chief operating officer of Dixon Valve & Coupling Company, a leading manufacturer and supplier of hose fittings and accessories with international headquarters located in Chestertown. Grace earned a bachelor’s degree in business management from Towson University, and a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Baltimore. A 21-year veteran of the company, he manages all eight of its divisions. Dixon’s products are used in a variety of industries, from fire protection and food processing to mining and chemical processing. The company has manufacturing, warehouse, sales and/or service facilities in 13 U.S. states and in Canada, Mexico, Australia, England, Germany, China, India, Russia and Singapore.

Founded in 2009, the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture is an academic program of Washington College dedicated to the objective study of religion's historic and continuing role in cultural and political life, both in the United States and abroad. For more information, please visit http://irpc.washcoll.edu/

Lecture Examines How Protestant-Catholic Conflicts Impacted Early Exploration in America

CHESTERTOWN—Dr. Andrea Frisch, Director of Graduate Studies in French at the University of Maryland, will lecture Monday, March 21 at 5 p.m. in the Sophie Kerr Room of Miller Library on the Washington College campus. Her talk, entitled "Multicultural Encounters: How European Religious Disputes Shaped Early Modern Images of Amerindians," will explore the role played by religious differences between Catholics and Protestants during the early stages of the exploration of the Americas.

A specialist in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Frisch received her Ph.D. in Romance Languages and Literatures from the University of California at Berkeley. She researched law and literature for the 2004 book The Invention of the Eyewitness: Witnessing and Testimony in Early Modern France (University of North Carolina Press, 2004) and recently completed a book about the impact of the civil wars of the sixteenth century on the literature and aesthetics of seventeenth-century France.

Her work has appeared in Representations, Romanic Review, Discourse, Esprit Créateur and Modern Language Quarterly. Frisch has received fellowships from the Newberry Library, the Folger Shakespeare Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities and, most recently, from the National Humanities Center.

Sponsored by the College’s Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture, the Department of Modern Languages, and the Department of Art and Art History, the lecture is free and open to the public.

From Descartes to Sinatra, Oxford Scholar To Discuss Impact of Religion on Culture

CHESTERTOWN—A distinguished Oxford scholar will talk about the role of religion in social life, from the European Enlightenment to the present day, when he visits Washington College on Monday evening, January 31. The lecture by Dr. Nicholas Wood—playfully titled “Do Be Do Be Do,” or “Descartes, Sartre and Sinatra: Religion, Culture and the Modern World”—will take place at 7 p.m. in Hynson Lounge, Hodson Hall, on the College campus, 300 Washington Avenue. Sponsored by the Washington College Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture, the event is free and open to the public.

Dr. Wood is a member of the Faculty of Theology, University of Oxford, and director of the Oxford Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture. An expert on the relationship between faith, culture, and society, he has been an important partner of the new Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture (IRPC) at Washington College. While in Chestertown, Wood will meet with students who will be participating in the Oxford Research Seminar this coming June.

That Oxford seminar will each summer welcome up to 12 high-achieving Washington College students for seminars that explore the impact of religion on politics and society. Participating students will reside at Oxford, meet in tutorials with Oxford professors and conduct research at the renowned Bodleian Library. In addition, students will engage in faculty-led study trips to culturally significant sites in the region.

Established in fall of 2009, the Institute for Religion, Politics, and Culture is dedicated to the objective study of religion’s influence on American and world history and its contemporary role in political and cultural life. For more information, please visit http://irpc.washcoll.edu/.