Eminent Sociologist To Speak At Church-State Lecture Feb. 8
One of the pre-eminent sociologists of the 20th century will speak Tuesday, Feb. 8, as part of the second annual Hugh and Beverly Wamble Lectures on Religious Liberty. Dr. Peter Berger, director of the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs at Boston University, will lecture on "Religion and Global Pluralism" at 3:30 p.m. in Bennett Auditorium at Baylor University. The event, which is free and open to the public, is hosted by the J.M. Dawson Institute of Church-State Studies.
Berger previously taught at the New School for Social Research, at Rutgers University, and at Boston College. The author or editor of more than 40 books, and numerous articles, he has had no less than five books written about him. Among his more recent books are Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience (1997); Modernity, Pluralism and the Crisis of Meaning (with Thomas Luckmann, 1995); A Far Glory: The Quest for Faith in an Age of Credulity (1993); and A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural (1990). He is best known for his book, The Sacred Canopy.
For the past two decades, Berger's work has focused increasingly on issues of development and public policy and in the nature of religious belief in the modern world. He joined the faculty of Boston University in 1981 as University Professor of Religion, and founded the Institute on Culture, Religion and World Affairs in 1985. The Institute, which he still directs, is a research center committed to the study of relationships between economic development and sociocultural change in different parts of the world.
In 1992, Professor Berger was awarded the Mannes Sperber Prize, presented by the Austrian government for significant contributions to culture. In 2003, he received the Distinguished Alumni Award from the New School.
For more information, call the Dawson Institute at 710-1510.