Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture Series

James Davis, Professor of Religion will give this week’s Carol Rifelj Faculty Lecture.

“Is Civility Dead? Religion, Political Virtue, and Deliberative Democracy in the Age of Trump”

Since the 2016 presidential campaign, many pundits have lamented the death of anything that resembles civility in American politics. But other observers argue that the idea of civility is unproductive or even dangerous, because it demands that we minimize our differences in the name of public nicety. In this talk, we will consider what it means to talk of civility as something more than politeness, but rather as a set of moral norms for political culture that is compatible with the honest negotiation of difference—and with social protest. We also will explore the potential for religious communities to serve as “schools of civility” for the larger society.