Date: Feb 28, 2007

Peter Manseau, author of “Vows,” speaks at Hofstra tonight

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY – Peter Manseau, author of the critically acclaimed memoir Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son, (New York: Free Press, 2005) will speak tonight, Wednesday, Feb. 28 at 6:30 p.m. in the Leo A. Guthart Cultural Center Theater, located on the first floor of the Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library, South Campus.

Vows is a memoir which tells the story of his family's struggle to reconcile the obligations of faith and the necessity of love. Manseau’s father is a censured priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston who refused to resign his ordination to the priesthood despite his marriage and three children. The author’s mother is a former nun who taught in Roxbury, MA.

Mr. Manseau is also coauthor of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible (one of Publishers Weekly's best books of the year) and editor of the award winning webzine KillingTheBuddha.com.
 
Manseau appears as part of the first annual Hofstra Religion Department Lecture Series in Catholic Studies: Catholicism and Literature. The series was established following the endowment of the Monsignor Thomas J. Hartman Chair in Catholic Studies at Hofstra and the installation in October 2006 of Julie Byrne, Ph.D., as the endowed chair.

The next speaker in the series is Mary Gordon, an award-winning novelist, essayist, and critic whose most recent works include The Stories of Mary Gordon (New York: Pantheon, 2006), a collection of short stories, and the novel Pearl (New York: Pantheon, 2005). She will speak at Hofstra on April 18 at 6:30 p.m.

Hofstra’s Department of Religion offers students the opportunity to explore the central role religion plays in social, political and economic events, as well as in the lives of individuals and communities. Courses examine the history of religions, the rituals that mark important life events, the human beliefs that underlie those rituals and the sacred texts and stories that shape the way so many people experience each other and the world.

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students find their edge to succeed in more than 140 undergraduate and 150 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business, communication, education and allied human services, and honors studies, as well as a School of Law.