Mississippi State’s Shackouls Honors College continues its Orators lecture series Wednesday, Feb. 20 with Melvin Rogers. The associate professor of political science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, will present “Democratic Faith in Dark Times” at 2 p.m. in Griffis Hall, Room 401, on the MSU campus.
Rogers grew up in The Bronx and was educated at Amherst College, Cambridge and Yale University. After holding professorships at University of Virginia in political science, Emory University in philosophy, and UCLA in political science and African American studies, he joined Brown University as associate professor in political science.
He has wide-ranging interests in democratic theory and the history of American and African-American political and ethical philosophy. Key figures that shape Rogers’ intellectual outlook include David Walker, Frederick Douglass, John Dewey, W.E.B. Du Bois, Anna Julia Cooper, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Cornel West and, more distantly, Martha Nussbaum.
He is the author of “The Undiscovered Dewey: Religion, Morality, and the Ethos of Democracy” (2008), editor of “The Public and Its Problems: An Essay in Political Inquiry/John Dewey” (2012) , and co-editor of Oxford’s New Histories of Philosophy book series. Presently, he is the book review editor for Political Theory. In addition to his academic publications, he has also published on contemporary issues in Boston Review, Dissent and Public Seminar.
The Orators program kicked off in September 2018 during the Honors College’s annual Classical Week. It is a year-long program which invites speakers representing various academic disciplines and topics to engage and enrich the university and local communities in research, course work and public lectures. Since the Honors College touches all colleges at MSU through curriculum design, active research and special events, there is a specific theme for each year. The theme for this first year is “Searching for Self: Who Am I Anyway?”
A reception to meet the speaker follows the lecture.
This free program is made possible through a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council. For additional information, contact Donna Clevinger at [email protected] or 662-325-2522.
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