Co-hosted by the Center for Catholic Studies and the Zeta chapter of Phi Beta Kappa at Fairfield University, Dr. Kaveny of Boston College will present a lecture titled “Nostalgia, Nationalism, and American Public Life.”
Cathleen Kaveny, JD, PhD, has taken note of the many political commentators warning about the resurgence of nationalism in American politics. She has heard the public being called to put America first, to maintain traditional values, and to resist immigration. Behind many of these comments, she hears a wistfulness for a lost time when the United States was more powerful and life was simpler.
Dr. Kaveny will explore these connections between a certain nostalgia for the past and concerns about present-day public life in the U.S. when she presents “Nostalgia, Nationalism, and American Public Life,” the 17th Annual Commonweal Lecture, on Tuesday, April 9 at 7 p.m. in Fairfield University’s Dolan School of Business Event Hall. This event is free and open to the public.
Dr. Kaveny's work focuses on the intersections of law, religion, and ethics in a divided, pluralistic society. She has published more than 100 articles and essays, and her books include Law's Virtues: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society (2012); Prophecy without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square (2016), and Ethics at the Edges of Law: Christian Moralists and American Legal Thought (2018).
In 2018-19, Dr. Kaveny served as the Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the Kluge Center at the Library of Congress. She is currently the Phi Beta Kappa 2023-24 Carl F. Cranor Visiting Scholar, and the Darald and Juliet Libby Millenium Professor at Boston College, where she has dual appointments in the Law School and the Theology Department.
Dr. Kaveny received her BA from Princeton University, and her MA, M.Phil, JD, and PhD from Yale.
A popular speaker on Catholicism and public issues, her frequent essays in Commonweal magazine bring careful analysis to bear on charged topics such as the relationships between law, religion, and morality in pluralistic societies.
Join us for the 17th Annual Commonweal Lecture with M. Cathleen Kaveny at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, April 9 at the Quick Center for the Arts, located at 1073 North Benson Road, Fairfield, CT 06824. This event is free and open to the public.
