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May 13-15, 1999
San Antonio, TX
Overview | Conference
Program
About the Speakers | Resources | Syllabi
Featured Speaker Diana Eck is
Professor of Comparative Religion and Indian Studies at Harvard University. She was one of
nine recipients of the National Humanities Medal in 1998, presented by President and Mrs.
Clinton. A scholar of the religious traditions of India, she has turned her attention for
the past decade to the United States. In 1991, she developed and became director of the
Pluralism Project, a Harvard-based research project aimed at studying and documenting the
rich religious diversity of America, with a special view to the nation's new immigrant
religious communities. Eck and her student research team have studied hundreds of
religious communities from the Sri Lakshmi Hindu Temple in Boston and the Sikh Gurdwara of
Oklahoma, to the All Nations Pentecostal Church in Denver and the Cambodian Buddhist
Temple in Long Beach, California. The project has sought to provide a better understanding
of how the American religious landscape has diversified in the past twenty-five years, how
various religious communities function within the greater society, and the ramifications
of increased religious diversity for American public life. The Pluralism Project's
award-winning multimedia CD-ROM, "On Common Ground: World Religions in America"
(Columbia University Press, 1997), features portraits of some 400 communities and an
in-depth analysis of the 15 major religious traditions in the United States.
Panelists and Workshop Leaders
Robin D. Barnes is a Professor of Law at the University of
Connecticut, where she teaches Constitutional Law, Legal Ethics, and Trusts & Estates.
She was a Hastie Fellow and lecturer at the University of Wisconsin School of Law from
1989-91. Her very first publication, which dealt with race consciousness in legal
scholarship, appeared in the Harvard Law Review. Her most recent publication,
which focuses upon race and choice in the school reform movement, appeared in the Yale
Law Journal. Professor Barnes is the Founder and Executive Director of Village
Academy Charter Elementary School in New Haven, Connecticut.
Michael Budde is Associate Professor in the Department of
Political Science, and affiliated with the Program in Catholic Studies, at DePaul
University. His scholarly work examines the interactions of political economy and
religious groups. He is the author of The (Magic) Kingdom of God: Christianity and
Global Culture Industries (Westview Press, 1997), and The Two Churches: Catholicism
& Capitalism in the World System (Duke University Press, 1992).
Lief H. Carter is the McHugh Distinguished Professor of
American Institutions and Leadership at The Colorado College. He has published widely on
constitutional law, the First Amendment, and administrative law. He is the author of Reason
in Law (Addison Wesley, 1997; 5th ed.) and An Introduction to Constitutional
Interpretation: Cases in Law and Religion (Longman, 1991).
Teresa S. Collett is a professor of law at South Texas
College of Law, affiliated with Texas A&M University. She has published numerous law
review articles addressing legal ethics and church-state relations, and recently
co-authored Cases and Materials on the Rules of the Legal Profession (West
Publishing). She is an elected member of the American Law Institute, and the chair-elect
of the AALS Section of Professional Responsibility. Collett joined the South Texas College
of Law faculty in 1990 and received the 1994 Vinson & Elkin Faculty Achievement award.
She has served as a visiting professor at the University of Houston Law Center, University
of Texas School of Law, Washington University School of Law, and the Notre Dame Law
School.
Lee Epstein is Professor and Chair of the Department of
Political Science at Washington University, St. Louis. She has written widely on judicial
politics, public law, and interest group politics; she is the author or co-author of such
books as The Supreme Court and Legal Change: Abortion and the Death Penalty (University
of North Carolina, 1992), The Choices Justices Make (Congressional Quarterly,
1997), and Conservatives in Court (1985).
Stephen Feldman is Professor of Law at the University of
Tulsa. He is the author of Please Don't Wish Me a Merry Christmas: A Critical History
of the Separation of Church and State (NYU, 1997), and numerous law review articles on
legal theory, the First Amendment, and civic republicanism.
Eric Michael Mazur is Assistant Professor in the Department
of Religion at Bucknell University, where he teaches in the areas of religion, law, and
politics. He is the author of The Americanization of Religious Minorities: Confronting
the Constitutional Order (Johns Hopkins, forthcoming). He actively uses the Web in
teaching such courses as "Church-State Controversies," "Sacred Space in
America," and "Religion and Popular Culture."
Nicholas Miller is the executive director of the Council on
Religious Freedom. A graduate of the Columbia University School of Law, he practices,
lobbies, and lectures on issues related to the First Amendment's religion clauses. His
recent publications include "Reconstruction: Restoring Free Exercise in America"
in Liberty magazine and "Wallbuilders or Mythbuilders: Revisionism and
Constitutional History" in the Journal of Christian Ethics. The Council on
Religious Freedom is a non-profit, publicly supported organization, which defends the free
exercise of religion and the separation of church and state in the courts, legislatures,
and the media.
Lucinda Peach is Assistant Professor in the Department of
Philosophy and Religion at American University. She teaches and publishes in areas at the
intersection of law, ethics, gender, and religion, including legal philosophy, bioethics,
feminist philosophy and jurisprudence, the role of religion in lawmaking, the
effectiveness of women's rights as human rights in international law, gender ideology in
law and religion, and feminist ethics in relation to war and violence. She is editor of
the book Women in Culture: An Anthology (Blackwell, 1998).
Winnifred Fallers Sullivan is Assistant Professor of
Religion at Washington & Lee University. She teaches courses in American religion and
modern Christianity and writes about the comparative study of religion and law. She
is the author of Paying the Words Extra: Religious Discourse in the Supreme Court of
the United States (Harvard, 1995).
Justin Watson is a Visiting Lecturer in the Department of
Religion at Florida State University, where he teaches courses on world religions and new
religious movements. He is the author of The Christian Coalition: Dreams of
Restoration, Demands for Recognition (St. Martin's, 1997), an institutional biography
of a powerful religious and political movement.
Alan J. Weisbard is Associate Professor of Law, Medical
Ethics and Jewish Studies at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has written widely
on such topics as informed consent and other medical ethics issues, end-of-life policy
issues, and the human genome project. He previously served as Executive Director of the
New Jersey Bioethics Commission.
Charles F. Williams is the Editor of Preview of U.S.
Supreme Court Cases, a publication of the American Bar Association Division for Public
Education that previews, before oral argument, every Supreme Court case. He clerked for
Judges James S. Getty of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals and John L. Coffey of the
7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and has held editorial positions at the ABA Journal,
the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin, West's Legal News, and the Minnesota
Lawyer, where he was the founding editor. |
