CIVIL RELIGION AND AMERICAN SELF-UNDERSTANDING
 
 
THE ANNUAL MEETING OF THE ACADEMY OF PHILOSOPHY AND LETTERS
 
 
BWI DOUBLETREE BALTIMORE, MD
JUNE 6-8, 2014

 
Friday
 
5:00-6:00 PM.  Registration
6:00-7:00 PM.  Reception/Cash bar (Harbor Room)
7:00-9:00 PM.  Dinner (Harbor Room)
 
Welcome
 
Speaker:  Patrick Deneen, Notre Dame, “Liberalism as a Civil Religion”
 
9:00-11:00 PM.  Hospitality Suite (Billie Holiday) hosted by The Imaginative Conservative.
 
Saturday
 
8:00-8:30 AM.  Late registration

8:30-10:30 AM.  PANEL/ROUND TABLE 1. Historical and Literary Sources/Recollections on Civil Religion (Harbor Room)
             
Chair: Lowell Gustafson, Villanova University
           
James Matthew Wilson, Villanova University, “Integral Humanism: Jacques Maritain’s Dream of a New Christendom”
Ryan Holston, Virginia Military Institute, “The Theology Behind Civil Theology:  Examining Rousseau’s Conception of the Divine”
Jeff Polet, Hope College, “Bellah’s Seminal Essay on American Civil Religion”
Jay Schalin, The Pope Center, “Civil Religion and the Millennial
Rejection of the American Identity”
 
10:30-10:45 AM. Break/Refreshments

10:45 AM -12:45 PM.  PANEL/ROUND TABLE 2:  Historical Perspective and Public Philosophy (Harbor Room)
 
Chair: Joe Baldacchino, National Humanities Institute
 
Chad Pecknold, Catholic University “Augustine and Civil Religion”
Jay Starliper, “The Politics of Misery: Peter Viereck and the Celestial State”
R.V. Young, Modern Age, “Cicero and Civil Religion”
Peter Haworth, Anamnesis, “Tocqueville and Public Philosophy”

12:45-1:00 PM.  Break

1:00-2:30 PM.  Luncheon (Harbor Room)
           
Chair: Dan McCarthy, The American Conservative
           
Speaker: Richard Gamble, Hillsdale College, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.”
 
2:30-3:30 PM.  Break
 
3:30-5:30 PM. PANEL/ROUND TABLE 3: American Civil Religion and the Rise of Majoritarian Democracy (Harbor Room)
 
Chair: TBA,
 
John Pinherio, Aquinas College, “Civil Religion and Westword Expansion”
James Wallner, Senate Steering Committee, “The End of the Filibuster?”
Michael Federici, Mercyhurst University, “Rewriting the Unwritten Constitution”
Lee Cheek East Georgia State College, “Scalia and Civil Religion”
Justin Litke, Belmont Abbey College, “Equality and Tradition: What’s at Stake in Basic Symbols”
 
5:30-6:30 PM.  Break
 
6:30-7:30 PM.  Reception/Cash bar (Harbor Room)
 
7:30-9:00 PM.  Dinner (Harbor Room)
 
Chair: William Byrne, St. John’s University

Speaker:  Claes G. Ryn, The Catholic University of America, “How Desperate Should We Be?”
 
9:00-11:00 PM. Hospitality Suite, hosted by The Imaginative Conservative (Billie Holiday)
 
Sunday
 
9:00-10:00 AM. Breakfast meeting of the membership (members only)
 
10:00 AM-noon.  PANEL/ROUND TABLE 4.  Civil Religion and Popular Culture (Harbor)
 
Chair: Brian Mitchell, Academy of Philosophy and Letters
 
Justin Garrison, Roanoke College, “Fight Club and American Civil Religion”
Greg Butler, New Mexico State University, “Bruce Springsteen’s Runaway American Dream”
Rob Delfino, St. Johns University, “Zombies and Vampires: Civil Religion and Popular Culture”
Jeremy Beer, American Philanthropic, “Booth Tarkington and Civil Religion”
 
12:30-2:00 PM.  APL Board of Directors Meeting (Hotel Restaurant)
 
                                                           Conference dress code: coat and tie