The Tanner Humanities Center is proud to present
the 2011 David P. Gardner Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts

Please join us for a lecture by 

Richard Bushman

“Mormonism and the Public Good”

Recent events in Washington have demonstrated once again how much Americans differ on how to resolve the nation’s problem.  The parties to the debate cannot even agree on the nature of the public good.  The lecture will argue that these conflicts arise out of basic contradictions in our national values and therefore will perpetually recur.  The question the lecture will pose is: Can Mormonism, a religious tradition of particular relevance to Utahns,  contribute to the resolution of these fundamental disagreements.  Can a religion that is authoritarian in nature help solve the problems of a democracy?

 Richard Bushman is among the most widely known and highly regarded historians of Mormonism and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He is Gouverneur Morris Professor of History emeritus at Columbia University and recently finished his term as the Howard W. Hunter Visiting Professor in Mormon Studies at Claremont Graduate University. His publications include: From Puritan to Yankee:  Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765 (1967), King and People in Provincial Massachusetts (1985), The Refinement of America:  Persons, Houses, Cities (1992), and Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (2005).

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

7:00 PM

Saltair Room – University of Utah Olpin Union

200 S. Central Campus Dr.

This event is free and open to the public.

No tickets are required, but please arrive early for seating.

Please call 801.581.7989 for additional information.

The David P. Gardner Graduate Lecture in the Humanities and Fine Arts is administered by the Tanner Humanities Center in collaboration with the College of Humanities, the College of Fine Arts, and the Graduate School. The Gardner Lecture was founded in the University of Utah Graduate School in honor of former President David Pierpont Gardner. The Gardner Lecture features distinguished scholars and artists from the humanities and the fine arts in alternating years.

The lectures are free and open to the public. The lectureship is funded by the Tanner Lectures on Human Values.