Rhetoric and authority

At Notes from the Social Field, Ernesto Castañeda reflects on President Obama’s rhetorical performance in the aftermath of the shootings in Tucson:

The precedent was set by Professor Carlos Gonzales who gave a Native American blessing….Doctor Gonzales set out to bless the event following Yaqui traditions. Yet like the rest of the event, this was both a spiritual performance and act of civic participation through which the speakers renewed their legitimacy and grew in esteem, status, and authority.

Read Castañeda’s full post here.

Jonathan VanAntwerpen

Jonathan VanAntwerpen is program director for theology at the Henry Luce Foundation. Originally trained as a philosopher, he received his doctorate in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley. He is co-editor of a series of books on secularism, religion, and public life, including Habermas and Religion (Polity, 2013), Rethinking Secularism (Oxford University Press, 2011), The Post-Secular in Question (NYU Press, 2012), The Power of Religion in the Public Sphere (Columbia University Press, 2011), and Varieties of Secularism in a Secular Age (Harvard University Press, 2010). VanAntwerpen was the founding director of the SSRC's program on religion and the public sphere, and in 2007 he worked with others to launch The Immanent Frame, serving for several years as editor-in-chief.

Jonathan VanAntwerpen

Mobilizing social science for the public good.

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