Professor Gast?n Espinosa, the Arthur V. Stoughton Associate Professor of Religious Studies and chair of CMC's Religious Studies Department, will speak on the role religion may have played in the 2008 Presidential Election.
Religion has been invoked by political parties and presidential candidates to unite, divide, and mobilize the American people. Gast?n Espinosa, the Arthur V. Stoughton Associate Professor of Religious Studies and chair of CMC's Religious Studies Department, will examine the tightropes walked by candidates seeking to balance the separation of church and state and yet win the White House in his talk, "Religion and Presidential Politics: The Faith Factor in Barack Obama's 2008 Election Campaign."
The lecture is scheduled for Wednesday, March 10 at 4:15 p.m. in the Founder's Room at the Honnold/Mudd Library.
Espinosa's presentation will explore a number of questions about religion and the 2008 Election:
What impact did Obama's spiritual journey, Muslim heritage, and black church experience have on his campaign?
How and why did Obama, a liberal Protestant with a strong secular orientation, harness the power of religious rhetoric and conversion in his outreach to the American people?
How did Catholics, Evangelicals, Mainline Protestants, Jews, Seculars, Women, Blacks, Asian Americans, and Latinos vote for Obama?
What long-term trends may his election signal for the future American religion and politics?
Espinosa is chair of the 5-Colleges Religious Studies Program. He also is coeditor of the Columbia University Press Series in Religion and Politics, and his recent books include Religion and the American Presidency: George Washington to George W. Bush (2008), Religion, Race, and the American Presidency (2009), and the forthcoming Religion, Barack Obama, and the 2008 Election.
This presentation is "A Claremont Discourse Lecture" and is sponsored by The Claremont Colleges Library.