EPPC Welcomes Two New Scholars

The Ethics and Public Policy Center is delighted to announce that Hadley Arkes, the Edward Ney Professor of American Institutions at Amherst College, and Wilfred M. McClay, the SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, have each accepted a position as Senior Fellow at EPPC.

 

"This is a great day for EPPC," said EPPC President M. Edward Whelan III.  "Hadley Arkes and Bill McClay are two of this country's most accomplished public intellectuals. They will help make EPPC even more effective as we pursue our mission of promoting the core American values embedded in our Judeo-Christian heritage."

 

Professor Arkes is a leading expert on American political philosophy, public policy, and constitutional law. Professor McClay is a widely acclaimed expert on American intellectual and cultural history. For more information about them, please click here:
http://www.eppc.org/news/newsid.2155/news_detail.asp

Kerry's Contradictions: The Senator's Position on Gay Marriage Is Untenable
"Senator Kerry reflects the curious contradiction of many public figures: He opposes the appeal to the federal Constitution for the sake of preserving marriage as we know it, but he would allow activists to appeal to the Constitution for the sake of extending gay and lesbian marriage to the states." In a recent article on National Review Online, Senior Fellow Hadley Arkes exposes the many contradictions in Senator Kerry's effort to maintain a "stylish straddle" on same-sex marriage.
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2158/pub_detail.asp

 

Land of Hope and Fear: Nathaniel Hawthorne and the American Past
"The central premise in Hawthorne's imaginative world -- his insistence that the weight of the sinful human past, in one's own life, in the life of one's family, and in the life of one's city and country, can never be denied or wished away -- is completely lost on a generation raised on smug therapeutic platitudes." Senior Fellow Wilfred McClay explores the world of Nathaniel Hawthorne in this Weekly Standard essay.
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2157/pub_detail.asp

Senator Kerry's Stem-Cell Fairy Tales
Along with the war on terror and the economy, stem-cell research has emerged as a top issue in the presidential campaign, but the recent back-and-forth has shed little light on the question facing the country. In this Los Angeles Times article, EPPC scholar and New Atlantis editor Eric Cohen discusses the irresponsible claims and distortions put forward by this year's Democratic presidential candidate.
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2154/pub_detail.asp

 

Catholicism and Islam: A Strategic Dialogue
Can interreligious dialogue contribute anything to the struggle against terrorism? EPPC Senior Fellow George Weigel argues that Catholics should try to help Islamic religious leaders, scholars, and lawyers develop an Islamic case for the acceptance of pluralism, for a commitment to the method of persuasion in politics, and for the other basic elements of civil society.
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2144/pub_detail.asp

 

Memory and the Movies
The redemptive and destructive power of memory is a regular theme at the movies -- from recent classics like Memento and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to the Japanese film Afterlife about what it means to live forever with one's favorite memories. In the latest issue of our journal The New Atlantis, EPPC Resident Scholar James Bowman offers a survey of what movies can teach us about the nature of memory, and why only memories that bind us to others can make us truly happy.
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/5/bowman.htm

 

Too Much Spotty Thinking
The sun may have more to do with global warming than researchers anticipated, according to a recent study -- a finding that should give pause to those policymakers who support drastic environmental measures like the Kyoto Protocol. In this article, New Atlantis managing editor Adam Keiper discusses the study and its implications.
http://www.eppc.org/publications/pubID.2150/pub_detail.asp

The Price of Winning at Any Cost
The Olympic season is a time to reflect on the meaning of human excellence, and how performance-enhancing drugs distort athletic achievement. In this Washington Post article from February 2004, EPPC scholar Eric Cohen and Leon Kass, chairman of the President's Council on Bioethics, discuss sports and steroids in the age of biotechnology.
http://www.eppc.org/programs/biotech/publications/pubID.2025/pub_detail.asp

The Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society
EPPC recently concluded its annual Tertio Millennio Seminar in Kraków, Poland, on the social teaching of Pope John Paul II. To learn more, visit the seminar's homepage:
http://www.tertiomillennioseminar.org/

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