jjo205

J. Judd Owen

Associate Professor of Political Science

Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of Law & Religion

Emory University

Atlanta, GA 30322

404/727-6541

J. Judd Owen, B.A. Davidson College; M.A., PhD (1998) University of Toronto. Research Interests: Enlightenment and liberal political thought and their critics, religion and politics. He is currently Faculty Fellow with the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is the author of Religion and the Demise of Liberal Rationalism (Chicago, 2001) and is completing a book entitled The Democratic Soul: Religious Transformation and Civic Life in Tocqueville and the Enlightenment. He is co-editing a volume on Religion, the Enlightenment, and the New Global Order and editing a volume on Toleration and Truth: The Impact of Liberal Society on Religion. He has published in the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Polity, the Law and Politics Book Review, and Books in Canada. He has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Political Science at Boston College and a research fellow with the Center on Religion and Democracy at the University of Virginia. Currently he is a Senior Fellow with the Center for the Study of Law and Religion and the Emory School of Law.

Curriculum Vitae (html)

CURRENT RESEARCH

“The Struggle between ‘Religion and Nonreligion’: Jefferson, Backus, and the Dissonance of America’s Founding Principles.” American Political Science Review, August 2007. pdf

“Locke’s Case for Religious Toleration: Its Neglected Foundation in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” Journal of Politics, February 2007. pdf

"On Hobbes's Hope Regarding Religion." Bradley Lecture, February 2007, Department of Political Science, Boston College. pdf

The work listed above comes from a book in its final stages of completion, tentatively entitled The Democratic Soul: Religious Transformation & Civic Life in Tocqueville and the Enlightenment.

More Information on THE DEMOCRATIC SOUL

RELIGION & THE DEMISE OF LIBERAL RATIONALISM (University of Chicago Press, 2001)

"This is a very well conceived book and does a superb job of engaging a number of complex thinkers on a variety of important philosophical and political themes. It stands as a significant contribution to contemporary debates regarding the legitimacy of liberalism, and, unlike some, it takes seriously the philosophical challenges of metaphyiscal and theological pluralism. These issues were certainly the heart of early liberalism, but they have been obscured in our contemporary debates. Owen does a wonderful job of reminding us of what is at stake in these disputes, and we can only hope that this work and others like it will stimulate more constructive inquiriy along these lines."
-Brett T. Wilmot, Journal of the American Academy of Religion

"Does the success of liberalism - the great political philosophy of toleration, equal freedom, and moral and religious pluralism - rest on conformity to a faith that is unjustified and unjustifiable? This deeply learned and thoughtful book forces liberals and their critics to face difficult and enduring foundational questions. Those concerned with justice and public justification in conditions of deep moral and religious diversity need to confront this book."
-Stephen J. Macedo, Rockefeller Professor of Politics and the University Center for Human Values, Princeton University

"A remarkably well-written discussion of two figures who are central to much contemporary debate, Richard Rorty and Stanley Fish, and of the implications of their views for the role of religion in our political order. This is one of the best analyses of their work. As a result of reading this book, I surely have to reconsider some of my own positions."
-Sanford Levinson, Centennial Chair in Law and Professor of Government, University of Texas

More Information on RELIGION & THE DEMISE OF LIBERAL RATIONALISM

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