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2009-10 Schedule of Programs Fordham Center on Religion and Culture Programs and Events: all events are free and open to the public, unless noted otherwise. Please be advised that event details such as location, contact information, and RSVP information are specific for each program. Due to the popularity of our programs, seating is on a first come, first serve basis. Headline Forum: Consuming America What Have We Done to Ourselves? Tuesday, September 15, 2009 \|6-8 pm Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus Pope Auditorium, 113 West 60th Street Free and Open to the Public RSVP: CRCevent@fordham.edu, 212.636.7347 The economic meltdown has focused attention on the role consumers have played in driving the U.S. economy and on the consequences now when consumers no longer have the means or enthusiasm for spending and salvaging the economy. The Forum will look at this phenomenon from a variety of angles. Historically: How did the United States get here post-World War II. From the viewpoint of 2009, some people look back and see financial over-reaching and even greed. But it is a far more complex and constructive process producing a better life for millions of people. So, what went wrong? What was essentially right? What ideas and practices in the early decades laid the ground (or not) for our current situation? Sociologically: How has the consumer revolution changed Americans and our institutions, families, communities, workplaces; our patterns of work and leisure; and out understanding of ourselves as citizens. Theologically: How has the consumer revolution affected what people like to think of as their deepest values. How have our habits of consumption transformed our relationship to our religious beliefs? Americans tend to look back with nostalgia at some point in history where religion was in the driver’s seat, (the Protestant ethic and virtues of frugality and thrift), controlling and containing daily life and material goods. Does that catch the complexity of the past—or the present? Moderator: Paul Solman is business and economics correspondent for PBS’s NewsHour. A Nieman Fellow at the Harvard Business School, he has been business reporter at WGBH Boston since 1977, and was named a member of TV Guide’s "Dream Team" of television reporters. His numerous awards include four Emmys and two Peabodys. As a member of the Harvard Business School faculty, he taught media, finance and business history. He has also been a cab driver, kindergarten teacher, crafts store owner, and management consultant. Panelists: Lizabeth Cohen, is the Howard Mumford Jones Professor of American Studies and chair of the History Department at Harvard University. Her courses on 20th century America, include material and popular culture as well as gender, urban, and working-class history. She is author of A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, and Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939. She has taught at Carnegie Mellon and New York University as well as serving as a high school teacher. George Ritzer, is Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park. He is widely known for his contributions to the study of consumption, globalization, metatheory, and modern and postmodern social theory. Among many works, he is author of The McDonaldization of Society, (now in its fourth edition) and The Globalization of Nothing, (second edition), and Enchanting a Disenchanted World. In these works and other, Ritzer has expanded and developed his critical analysis of contemporary social life. Vincent Miller the Gudorf Chair in Catholic Theology and Culture at the University of Dayton, was Associate Professor in the Theology Department at Georgetown University. He is author of Consuming Religion:Christian Faith and Practice in a Consumer Culture, which considers how religious communities are being transformed from within by consumer attitudes and practices, and how they can work to counter this. His current research explores the impact of globalization and the “culture of choice” on the fragmentation of religious communities and the polarization of religious and political discourse. More 2009-10 programs to come... please check back soon! Transcript Coming Soon! Matters of Conscience When Moral Precepts Collide with Public Policy Tuesday, April 28, 2009 \| 6-8 pm Fordham University, Lincoln Center Campus Pope Auditorium, 113 West 60th Street A panel discussion on what happens when individuals or institutions are called upon to cooperate with actions that they consider gravely immoral but that the law and public policy allow.