Published: March 24, 2008 02:42 pm            

Berry welcomes nationally recognized scholars for conference on government

Submitted by Berry College



ROME — Several nationally recognized scholars and speakers will join local students for the “The Science of Politics and the Politics of Science,” Berry College’s 11th annual government conference, Wednesday and Thursday, March 26-27.

Over the course of two days, participants will debate the implications of biotechnology and the 2008 presidential race, two of the most important issues on the horizon of political science. Each evening will feature a distinguished scholar as the keynote speaker. All events are free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Caitlin Carroll (caitlin.a.carroll@gmail.com or (770) 330-3870) or Peter Lawler (plawler@berry.edu) or (706) 233-4085).

Wednesday’s keynote will be delivered by Patrick Deneen, author of "Democratic Faith." He will address “Virtue, Technology and Wendell Berry” at 6 p.m. in the science auditorium. Deneen is associate professor of government at Georgetown University, where he holds the Markos and Eleni Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis Chair in Hellenic Studies and is founding director of “The Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy.”

Deneen’s address will be followed by responses from Kevin Pybas (Missouri State University), Joseph M. Knippenberg (Oglethorpe University), Jeffrey Lidke (Berry) and Elizabeth Amato, a Berry alumna and doctoral candidate at Baylor University.

Thursday’s keynote speaker will be Yuval Levin, a fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC). His address, “The Right, the Left and Science,” will be delivered at 6 p.m. in Evans Auditorium. Levin is director of Bioethics and American Democracy for the EPPC and senior editor for The New Atlantis. Before joining EPPC, Levin served as the associate director of the Domestic Policy Council at the White House and later joined the President’s Council on Bioethics as executive director.

Levin’s remarks will be followed by responses from Jack Moran (Kennesaw State University), Ivan Kenneally (Rochester Institute of Technology) and Michael Papazian (Berry).

The keynote presentations will be complemented by a series of panel discussions featuring local students and faculty from across the country. Noted faculty panelists will include Jocelyn Evans of the University of West Florida, Robert Jeffrey of Wofford College and James Poulos of Georgetown University. Evans is a Berry alumna.

The panel schedule is as follows:



Wednesday, March 26

“Science, Technology, and the Modern World” (student panel), 3:30 p.m. in the science auditorium.



Thursday, March 27

“Civic Literacy in Higher Education” (faculty panel), 9 a.m. in the Alumni Center Multimedia Room.

“Perspectives on the Election of 2008” (student panel), 1:30 p.m. in Evans Auditorium.

“Perspectives on the Election of 2008” (faculty panel), 3:30 p.m. in Evans Auditorium.



The conference is made possible by the Berry College Honors Program, Politics and Law Society, Student Government Association and the departments of Government & International Studies and Religion & Philosophy. External partners include the Association for the Study of Free Institutions and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

        

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