Why is democracy important? Why has America fought so hard to preserve its constitution and government? On Monday, Oct. 3, Samford University's Colloquium on American Citizenship will host Richard Avramenko to discuss Tocqueville, Law and the High Priests of Democracy at 6:30 p.m. in the Regions Community Resource Room: BSOB 400 at Cooney Hall.
During the lecture, Avramenko will examine why democracy is cherished by American citizens and how to keep it from dismantling from the challenges that confront it today.
“Richard Avramenko is one of the country's most renowned scholars on Alexis de Tocqueville and the nineteenth-century thinker's writings on American constitutionalism, citizenship and law,” said Department of Political Science Chair Lee Trepanier. “For those who care about our democracy and our Constitution, this is a lecture not to miss.”
Avramenko is a professor of Political Science and director of the Center for the Study of Liberal Democracy at the University of Wisconsin. He is the author of Courage: The Politics of Life and Limb. Avramenko has also edited several books and written on topics such as Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, St. Augustine, Dostoevsky, Tocqueville, Nietzsche, Voegelin, Heidegger, Canadian identity politics, mortgage, and housing policy.
Colloquium on American Citizenship is a program in Samford's Howard College of Arts and Sciences that explores the meaning and purpose of citizenship from the lens of Western intellectual heritage, American constitutional government, free market economics, and Judeo-Christian ideals. The lecture is sponsored by the Jack Miller Center, The Stockham Chair and the Departments of Political Science and History.
“One of the most important goals of Colloquium is to encourage reflection on the meaning of citizenship by examining the persistent historical ideas that make civic life possible. We are very excited that in our second year we can offer a speaker series that engages the uniqueness of the American project as an exercise in ordered freedom," said Stockham Chair of Western Intellectual History Jason Wallace.
Students receive convocation credit for attending the lecture. The event is also free and open to the public.
