ROME, Ga. – Identity politics, inequality and community on today’s college campuses is the topic of the upcoming annual Peter Augustine Lawler Lecture on Feb. 26 at Berry College.
The lecture, at 5 p.m. in the Krannert Center Ballroom, features William Egginton, director of the Johns Hopkins University Alexander Grass Humanities Institute, speaking about his book “The Splintering of the American Mind: Identity Politics, Inequality and Community on Today’s College Campuses.” In addition to his scholarly work, Egginton also contributes frequently to The New York Times and other publications.
Egginton will examine how identity politics, inside and outside of college classrooms, and the inequality that can be found in schools from the earliest years through college should cause concern for the common good and achieving genuine community.
“Today we are living in a time of extreme divisiveness…disagreement is the essence of democracy, but we seem to be incapable of having any kind of constructive debate about our disagreements,” he said.
The lecture series honors the late Berry College Government Professor Peter Augustine Lawler who died in 2017.
“Bill Egginton, like our former friend and colleague, Peter Lawler, cares deeply about education and what students learn in college about living well, and like Lawler he thinks the American experiment is threatened by our abandonment of the civility that undergirds democracy,” said Berry College Evans School Dean Tom Kennedy. “I’m very pleased that we’ve been able to arrange for Professor Egginton to speak at Berry, and that the Berry community and the community of Rome have the opportunity to hear this distinguished professor speak on a topic so important for our nation.”
This lecture is free and open to the public.
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Written by Public Relations Student Supervisor Megan Benoit
