Critical Summaries - Assignments


September 15: In Defense of Religious Argument

  • Jeffrey Stout, “Religious Reasons in Political Argument” (EC 261-292)

    • KIRK

  • Richard John Neuhaus, “The Vulnerability of the Naked Public Square” (EC 327-344)

  • Michael Sandel, “The Public Philosophy of Contemporary Liberalism” (EC 345-364)

    • NIDHI (both Neuhaus and Sandel)

September 22: Secular Discourse

  • Steven Smith, The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse (2010)

    • SOFIE

    • ELIAS

    • ELIJAH

September 29: Pluralism and Difference

  • John Inazu, Confident Pluralism: Surviving and Thriving Through Deep Difference (2016)

    • EVERYBODY COME WITH THREE QUESTIONS

October 6: Islam and Religious Freedom

  • Asma Uddin, The Politics of Vulnerability: How to Heal Muslim-Christian Relations in a Post-Christian America

    • SOFIE

    • ELIJAH

October 13: Evangelicals, Gender, and Patriotism

  • Kristin Kobes Du Mez, Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (2020)

    • SARAH

    • EMILY

    • NIDHI

October 20: Religion and Race

  • Jemar Tisby, The Color of Compromise: The Truth about the American Church’s Complicity in Racism (2019)

    • KIRK

    • ELIAS

    • SARAH

Oct 27: NO CLASS

  • [use this week for incorporating my feedback on your midterm drafts]

November 3: The Limits of Religious Pluralism

  • Eboo Patel, Out of Many Faiths: Religious Diversity and the American Promise (2018)

    • EMILY

    • KIRK

    • SARAH

November 10: Moral Intuitions

  • Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012) (Parts I and II)

    • EMILY (Part I)

    • ELIAH (Part I)

    • ELIAS (Part II)

    • NIDHI (Part II)

November 17: Binding and Blinding

  • Jonathan Haidt, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion (2012) (Part III)

    • SOFIE

    • ELIAS

November 24: NO CLASS (Thanksgiving)

December 1: Filling the Void?

  • Joseph Bottum, An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America (2015)

    • EMILY

    • SOFIE

    • SARAH

December 8: Finding Common Ground?

  • Jonathan Sacks, Morality (2020)

    • KIRK

    • ELIJAH

    • NIDHI