HESBURGH LECTURE SERIES 2013 Program - Alumni Association ...

James Daniel Philpott, Ph.D.
Associate Professor, Political Science; Professor, Joan B. Kroc Institute
for International Peace Studies
Biography
Daniel Philpott, associate professor of political science and peace studies at the University of Notre
Dame, pursues interests in international relations, political philosophy, and peace studies. Currently he is
publishing Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Political Reconciliation, a book that derives from theological
and philosophical roots an ethic of reconciliation that offers concrete guidelines to political orders facing
pasts of authoritarianism, civil war, and genocide. On the same topic, Philpott has edited The Politics of
Past Evil: Religion, Reconciliation, and Transitional Justice (Notre Dame, 2006).
Philpott also specializes in religion and global politics. He, along with two coauthors, Monica Duffy Toft
and Timothy Samuel Shah, has just published God’s Century: Resurgent Religion in Global Politics, with
W.W. Norton (March, 2011). With Gerard F. Powers, he also has edited Strategies of Peace (Oxford, 2010),
a collection of essays on strategic peace building authored primarily by faculty at the Kroc Institute of
International Peace Studies.
By conducting work in faith-based reconciliation around the globe, Philpott pursues an activist dimension of his scholarly interests. Between
2000 and 2006, he traveled regularly to Kashmir as a senior associate of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy. He now trains
political and religious leaders in reconciliation in Burundi and the broader Great Lakes region of Africa under the auspices of the Catholic Peace
Building Network.
A native of Pittsburgh, PA, Philpott received his B.A. from the University of Virginia in 1989 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1996.
Aside from his current position at Notre Dame, he has held fellowships and faculty positions at Princeton University, the University of California
(Santa Barbara), Harvard University, the Wissenschaftzentrum in Berlin, Germany, and the University of Virginia.
Lectures
After Atrocity: How Religious Leaders are Bringing Mercy and Reconciliation to Sites of War,
Genocide, and Dictatorship
All across the world, over the past generation, societies have sought to deal with the massive injustices of war, dictatorship, and genocide.
Religious leaders ranging from Pope John Paul II to South Africa’s Desmond Tutu have played a surprising role in these efforts, reaching
beyond globally dominant approaches based on rights and punitive justice to advocate reconciliation, mercy, and forgiveness.
God’s Century: Resurgent Religion in Global Politics
Religion is back. A generation after western intellectuals predicted that religion would exit the global stage, it has resurged in its political
influence all across the globe. It has created peace settlements and terrorist groups and has destroyed dictatorships as well as New York
skyscrapers. This lecture offers an explanation both of this world-historical comeback and of the diverse politics of religion. It is based
on Philpott’s new book, God’s Century.
How to Win the Argument for Life
Abortion remains the single most contentious issue in American life. Offered from a pro-life point of view, this lecture argues that a
pathway toward consensus on the rights of the unborn can be found in the great social justice movements of the past: the movement to
abolish slavery, the early feminist movement, and, most of all, the civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King Jr.
To Redeem the Time: Bringing Catholicism into Teaching of International Relations and
Peace Studies
This lecture reflects on one professor’s efforts to convince his students that their Catholic faith has everything to do with studying
politics among nations and the promotion of peace. Though his students often start out skeptical, he makes the case that faith
unavoidably shapes our basic political assumptions and that the church offers a vision of politics that differs from leading secular
alternatives.
80 The Hesburgh Lecture Series, 2013 Program
Categories
Church, Ethics, Government,
Social Concerns