The Ethics of Citizenship in the Trump Era
Abstract
What does it mean to be an American citizen in the Trump era? What vision of citizenship is the Trump Administration modeling, celebrating, and codifying? And what vision of citizenship is Trump inspiring or strengthening among those who resist his vision? At the final Boisi Center lunch colloquium of the year, Owens will discuss alternative visions of good citizenship, and the religious and moral resources we can bring to bear upon them.
Speaker Bio
Erik Owens听is interim director of the Boisi Center and associate professor of the practice in theology and international studies at Boston College. His research explores a variety of intersections between religion and public life, with particular attention to the challenge of fostering the common good of a religiously diverse society. His interdisciplinary scholarship bridges the fields of theological ethics, political philosophy, law, education, international studies, and public policy.听
Event Photos
Interim director of the Boisi Center Erik Owens led a luncheon discussion on the meaning and ethics of citizenship in the Trump Era.
Photos by MTS photography
Event Recap
At our final lunch colloquium of the year,听Boisi Center interim director Erik Owens spoke about the oppositional politics at the center of the new ethics of citizenship in the Trump era. Owens sketched two prevailing visions of citizenship that derive from liberal and civic republican political traditions, noting the inclinations of the latter toward protecting individual rights, and the former toward fostering collective self-government.
He argued that President Trump is promoting, implicitly and explicitly, an exclusive vision of citizenship driven by the binaries of trust/fear, popular/elite, chaos/control, patriotism/globalism, and that 鈥淎merica First鈥� is a rejection of so-called 鈥済lobal citizenship鈥� that frequently animates conversations work for human rights. Some of the most popular responses to Trump鈥檚 civic vision have been satirical or听 despairing, and some resistance movements have failed to offer any constructive vision. Owens argued that we ought to nourish the latent strain in oppositional politics that offers a more generative vision of human flourishing and inter-relationality, through conceptions of solidarity and the common good.
The ensuing discussion considered voting, impediments to the common good, political compromise, and the limits of 鈥済lobal citizenship.鈥�
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Read More
Local News
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McLaughlin, Nina. "Porter Square Books Promotes Civic-Engagement in Trump Era."听On the Jesuit Missionaries
Yu, Doris. "Silence": The True Story of the Jesuits in Japan.听
National News
Dionne, E.J.听"" Washington Post 8.24.2016
Galston, William, and William Kristol. ","听Weekly Standard听and听Brookings Report, 11.29.2016.
Haglund, David. "Evan McMullin Is Trying to Save Democracy."听
Harris, Elizabeth. "The Snapchat Cohort Gets Into Politics, and Civics Is Cool."听
Ignatieff, Michael. 鈥�,鈥� in Ronald Beiner, ed.,听Theorizing Citizenship听(SUNY, 1995)
Levin, Yuval. 鈥溾�澨�First Things, October 2014.鈥�
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McNeill, Erin. "Trump Inspires Civic Engagement, Media Literacy Shows the Way."听
Rosenberg, Alyssa. "Calling Basic Civics 'Resistance' Will Only Make It Harder to Stand Up to Trump."听
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Books
Barrett, Martyn D., and Bruna Zani, eds.听Political and Civic Engagement: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. London: Routledge, 2015.
Bretherton, Luke.听Resurrecting Democracy.听Cambridge: CUP 2015.
Callan,听Eamonn.听Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy. Oxford, 1997.
Dreher,听Rod.听The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.听Sentinel Press, 2017
Gorski, Phillip.听American Covenant: A History of Civil Religion from the Puritans to the Present.听New Haven: Yale, 201.
Gregory, Eric听Politics and the Order of Love: An Augustinian Ethic of Democratic Citizenship.听Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008.
Kaveny, Cathleen.听Prophesy without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square.听Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2016.
Levinson, Meira.听No Citizen Left Behind.听Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2012.
Macedo, Stephen听Diversity and Distrust: Civic Education in a Multicultural Democracy.听Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2000.
Nussbaum et al., Martha.听For Love of Country: Debating the Limits of Patriotism.听Beacon, 1996.
Mathewes, Charles听The Republic of Grace: Augustinian Thoughts for Dark Times.听Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010.听
Owens, Erik. (Edited, with John Carlson and Eric Elshtain.)听Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for Reckoning. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004.
Owens, Erik. (Edited, with John Carlson.)The Sacred and the Sovereign: Religion and International Politics. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2003.
Ravitch, Diane and Joseph P. Viteritti, eds.,听Making Good Citizens: Education and Civil Society.听Yale 2003.
Rosenblum, Nancy L., ed.,听Obligations of Citizenship and Demands of Faith: Religious Accommodation in Pluralist Democracies听(Princeton 2000)
In the News
Elizabeth Harris of the New York Times recently discussed how听.听