Author of “Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers” to speak at UNCA

” />
UNCA announces:

Brooke Allen, author of “Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers” (2006, Ivan R. Dee), will lecture about the religious beliefs (or lack thereof) among our nation’s founders. Her talk is free and open to the public, and begins at 7 p.m. Monday, Feb. 13, in UNC Asheville’s Humanities Lecture Hall.

Allen’s study focused on the religious and intellectual lives of six of the founding fathers – Washington, Franklin, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Hamilton – and concludes that that the United States was founded not on Christian principles, but on Enlightenment ideas.

Allen teaches literature at Bennington College. Her most recent book is “The Other Side of the Mirror: An American Travels Through Syria” (2011, Paul Dry Books). She is also the author of two collections of literary essays. Her essays and reviews have appeared in the Atlantic, the New York Times Book Review, The Wall Street Journal, and many other periodicals. She holds master’s degrees from the Université de Paris-Sorbonne and from Columbia University, where she also earned a Ph. D. in English literature.

Allen’s lecture is sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities Distinguished Teaching Professorship at UNC Asheville. For more information, contact Merritt Moseley, professor of Literature, at 828.251.6583.

SHARE
About Jeff Fobes
As a long-time proponent of media for social change, my early activities included coordinating the creation of a small community FM radio station to serve a poor section of St. Louis, Mo. In the 1980s I served as the editor of the "futurist" newsletter of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, a professional/academic group with a global focus and a mandate to act locally. During that time, I was impressed by a journalism experiment in Mississippi, in which a newspaper reporter spent a year in a small town covering how global activities impacted local events (e.g., literacy programs in Asia drove up the price of pulpwood; soybean demand in China impacted local soybean prices). Taking a cue from the Mississippi journalism experiment, I offered to help the local Green Party in western North Carolina start its own newspaper, which published under the name Green Line. Eventually the local party turned Green Line over to me, giving Asheville-area readers an independent, locally focused news source that was driven by global concerns. Over the years the monthly grew, until it morphed into the weekly Mountain Xpress in 1994. I've been its publisher since the beginning. Mountain Xpress' mission is to promote grassroots democracy (of any political persuasion) by serving the area's most active, thoughtful readers. Consider Xpress as an experiment to see if such a media operation can promote a healthy, democratic and wise community. In addition to print, today's rapidly evolving Web technosphere offers a grand opportunity to see how an interactive global information network impacts a local community when the network includes a locally focused media outlet whose aim is promote thoughtful citizen activism. Follow me @fobes

Before you comment

The comments section is here to provide a platform for civil dialogue on the issues we face together as a local community. Xpress is committed to offering this platform for all voices, but when the tone of the discussion gets nasty or strays off topic, we believe many people choose not to participate. Xpress editors are determined to moderate comments to ensure a constructive interchange is maintained. All comments judged not to be in keeping with the spirit of civil discourse will be removed and repeat violators will be banned. See here for our terms of service. Thank you for being part of this effort to promote respectful discussion.

Leave a Reply

To leave a reply you may Login with your Mountain Xpress account, connect socially or enter your name and e-mail. Your e-mail address will not be published. All fields are required.