Date: Oct 20, 2008

Faith, Prison and the Presidency

Scholar to examine religion’s place in the penal system

Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY – "The Bible, the Koran, and Dr. Seuss: Faith-based Prisons in the 21st Century" will be the subject of a lecture on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 that will look at the role of religion in our penal system and the views of the presidential candidates on the role and purpose of incarceration.

The lecture, part of Hofstra’s yearlong Educate '08 program, will be given by Winnifred Sullivan, Ph.D., associate professor and director of law and religion at the University at Buffalo Law School,  State University of New York. The program begins at 7 p.m. in the Rochelle and Irwin A. Lowenfeld Conference and Exhibition Hall, 10th Floor, Joan and Donald E. Axinn Library, South Campus.

Dr. Sullivan earned a J.D. in 1976 and a Ph.D. in 1993, both from the University of Chicago. In addition to numerous articles, she is the author of Paying the Words Extra: Religious Discourse in the Supreme Court of the United States (Harvard, 1995); The Impossibility of Religious Freedom (Princeton, 2005) and Prison Religion: Faith-based Reform and the Constitution (Princeton, 2009).

Dr. Sullivan serves on the editorial board of the Religion and Society series at deGruyter; and is currently on the executive committee of the National Association for the Study of Religion, the American Society for the Study of Religion and the Law, Religion and Culture Group of the American Academy of Religion. Together with Robert Yelle (U of Memphis), she was consultant on the legal entries for the second edition of the Encyclopedia of Religion and organizer of a series of conferences entitled, "Re-describing the Sacred/Secular Divide: The Legal Story" sponsored by the Baldy Center for Law and Public Policy in 2008 and 2009. During the 2007-2008 academic year, she was the Lilly Foundation fellow at the National Humanities Center.

The program, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Hofstra's Office of the Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, Hofstra's Department of Religion, Hofstra University Honors College, and First Year Connections. For more information about this event, please call (516) 463-5614.

Hofstra is proud to host Educate '08, an unprecedented series of lectures, conferences, artistic performances and exhibitions, town hall meetings and interactive forums focused on the issues, history and politics of presidential elections.  Educate '08 provides our students, faculty and the entire surrounding community with access to the newsmakers, scholars and policymakers who have unique insight and knowledge of the American political system.  Many of our programs and events are free and open to the public, and we encourage you to join us for what will be a fascinating series of events.  During spring 2008's Educate '08 schedule, Hofstra hosted more than 30 events, including guests such as Mary Matalin and James Carville, David Gergen, William Kristol and Maureen Dowd, Charlie Cook, and many scholars, historians, journalists and policymakers. 
 
Find out more about Educate '08 by visiting www.hofstra.edu/educate08

Hofstra University is a dynamic private institution where students can choose from about 140 undergraduate and 155 graduate programs in liberal arts and sciences, business, communication, education and allied human services, and honors studies, as well as a School of Law. With a student-faculty ratio of 14-to-1, our professors teach small classes averaging 22 students that emphasize interaction, critical thinking and analysis. Hofstra offers a faculty whose highest priority is teaching excellence. The University also provides excellent facilities with state-of-the-art technology, extensive library resources and internship programs that match students’ interests and abilities with appropriate companies and organizations.  The Hofstra community is driven, dynamic and energetic, helping students find and focus their strengths to prepare them for a successful future.