The Emmett Till Memorial Commission
A Conversation with the Philadelphia Coalition
Duke Divinity Professor is Inaugural Speaker
for Will Campbell Lecture Series Nov. 27
OXFORD, Miss. – A renowned theologian from Duke University is the inaugural speaker for the Will D. Campbell Lecture Series on Faith and Social Justice at the University of Mississippi.
Stanley Hauerwas, Gilbert T. Rowe Professor of Theological Ethics at Duke’s School of Divinity, begins his discussion at 7 p.m. Nov. 27 in the Paul B. Johnson Commons Ballroom. His appearance is sponsored by the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, First Presbyterian Church of Oxford and the Reformed University Fellowship. The event is open to the public at no charge.
“Will Campbell’s life is an example of faith in action, especially when the consequences of living up to the Gospel are difficult,” said Susan Glisson, director of the Winter Institute. “As one of the country’s most well-respected ethicists, it is our honor to have Dr. Hauerwas reflect on the life of service of Reverend Campbell.”
A native of Liberty in Amite County, Campbell was a civil rights activist who served as a Baptist preacher in Louisiana two years before he was appointed Director of Religious Life at UM in 1954. After two years in that post, he and other faculty and staff who challenged the status quo and supported improved race relations were met with intolerance by university administrators and government leaders.
A graduate of Yale University, Campbell is a prolific “Stanley Hauerwas is the perfect speaker to inaugurate this important new lecture series,” said Charles R. Wilson, director of CSSC. “He is one of our leading theological thinkers, who can reflect on Campbell’s moral significance in taking his religious beliefs into areas of social reform at a seminal time in American history.”
Hauerwas’ work draws on a great range of literatures from classical, philosophical, and theological texts to contemporary political theory. He also works in medical ethics, issues of war and peace, and the care of the mentally handicapped.
The professor has been recognized as being among the first to reclaim the importance of character and the virtues for the display of Christian living. He has also drawn attention to the importance of narrative in explaining the interrelation of practical reason and personal identity, and correlatively the significance of the church as the necessary context for Christian formation and moral reflection.
A graduate of Southwestern University, Yale Divinity School and Yale University Graduate School, Hauerwas previously taught at Augustana College and the University of Notre Dame. He joined the Duke faculty in 1984 and served as director of Graduate Studies in 1985-91.
A member of the Society for Christian Ethics, American Academy of Religion and the American Theological Society, Hauerwas has delivered lectures across the United States and abroad. A prolific scholar, Hauerwas has been co-editor with Alasdair MacIntyre of the Revisions Series published by the University of Notre Dame Press and associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Bioethics.
