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The Institute for Constitutional Studies is pleased to announce its ninth annual residential summer research seminar, to be held at George Washington University from June 8-14, 2008. Applications are encouraged from advanced graduate students and junior faculty. This year's seminar will explore "The Influence of Religion on Constitutional Thought," and will be taught by Judge Michael McConnell (Tenth Circuit United States Court of Appeals) and Professor Mark Noll (University of Notre Dame).
Seminar Description:
Religious thinking has influenced many of the most fundamental features of American constitutional thought. This seminar will explore some of those developments, with focused discussion of selected readings in the morning sessions and paper presentations in the afternoon. Among the topics that may be considered are: (1) Puritan and Reformed Protestant contributions to constitutionalism, republicanism, and revolution; (2) the colonial Great Awakening (Jonathan Edwards) and ideals of society; (3) William Penn and Quaker ideas of political order; (4) Anglicanism, constitutional monarchy, and Loyalist protest; (5) Presbyterian ecclesiology (e.g., John Witherspoon) and ideas of federalism and representation; (6) Baptist theology (including the rejection of infant baptism, e.g., Isaac Backus) and rising individualism and rejection of religious establishment; (7) Masonic ideas (and opposition to them) in the formation of early republican ideology; (8) varying religious appropriations of the Enlightenment; (9) the Second Great Awakening and the rise of voluntarism and civil society; (10) the religious roots of abolitionism and proslavery thought; (11) Lincoln’s theology; (12) women as leaders in church and state; and (13) the nineteenth-century Roman Catholic critique (e.g., Orestes Brownson) of liberalism. Participants are not limited to these topics, but may prepare and present papers ranging across the modern history of constitutional democracy, based on any significant connection between religious and constitutional thought, broadly construed.
Participants will be required to identify their topics or research interests in advance and to provide a short bibliography of materials for seminar members to consult, and must also commit to reading a limited amount of common material in advance. Seminar leaders will guide discussions to include the participants’ particular interests, share their own research, and organize activities that take advantage of the opportunities in the Washington area for research on these subjects. Time outside of the scheduled meetings will be reserved for special events and individual consultation with the seminar leaders.
A modest stipend and travel reimbursement will be available for participants.
Applications are due by April 21, 2008. Please see our website for further information: http://docs.law.gwu.edu/ics/
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