MEDIA CONTACT: Polly Burks
561-297-2595, pburks@fau.edu

FAU Lecture Explores "Religion and Politics: An American Tradition"
Second annual John O'Sullivan Memorial Lecture

BOCA RATON, FL (October 12, 2005) - Florida Atlantic University's Department of History presents "Religion and Politics: An American Tradition," a lecture by David Goldfield, the Robert Lee Bailey Professor of History at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte. The lecture will take place on Monday, October 31 at 2 p.m. in the Live Oak Pavilion at the University Center on FAU's Boca Raton campus, 777 Glades Road. The lecture is free and open to the public.

The current battles over church and state involving school prayer, the Ten Commandments, gay marriage and the teaching of evolution are part of an ongoing historical dialogue about the place of religion in American public life. Goldfield will look at these battles and explore such questions as - What did the Founding Fathers say about the role of religion in the political arena? How did the conflicts between church and state in the nineteenth century shape our nation? What can we learn about them to understand the current debate?

Goldfield is the author or editor of 13 books dealing with the history of the American South, including two works, Cotton Fields and Skyscrapers: Southern City and Region (1982) and Black, White, and Southern: Race Relations and Southern Culture (1991), which were nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in history. Still Fighting the Civil War: The American South and Southern History received the Jules and Frances Landry Prize. His most recent book is Southern Histories: Public, Personal, and Sacred, and he is currently working on a re-interpretation of the Civil War, "Rebirth of a Nation: America During the Civil War Era."

Goldfield was named Distinguished Lecturer in 2001 by The Organization of American Historians. He also serves as an expert witness in voting rights and death penalty cases, a consultant on the American South to museums and public television and radio, and serves as an Academic Specialist in the U.S. State Department, leading workshops on American history and culture in foreign countries.

The lecture, presented by the Department of History in FAU's Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, is the second in the John O'Sullivan Memorial Lecture Series. The series was initiated as a tribute to the late John O'Sullivan, a former chair of FAU's history department who devoted his entire academic career to FAU. Inspired by O'Sullivan's dynamic teaching, several of his former students donated money to initiate a lecture series in his honor.
For further information about the lecture or the series, call 561-297-3840.

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