Hope College and The Russell Kirk Center to Host a Unique Consideration on Thursday, Nov. 16, of President Trump One Year after His Election Featuring NY Times Columnist Ross Douthat and Two Other Prominent Public Intellectuals
The Russell Kirk Center and Hope College’s Department of Political Science will co-sponsor a unique public event reflecting on the state of American democracy, and its future prospects, one year after last year’s historic election. Popular New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, along with award-winning author and former New York Times Book Review editor, Sam Tanenhaus, and Emory University professor Mark Bauerlein will span the political spectrum, left to right. They promise an intellectually stimulating and unique evening of insight, humor, and much-needed bipartisan conversation concerning one of the most talked about elections in American history.
The event is the first of the Kirk Center’s new Kirk on Campus program. It will be held on Thursday, Nov. 16, from 7 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. in the Concert Hall of the Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The evening conversation will mark the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s election and will be moderated by Dr. Jeff Polet, professor of political science at Hope.
“Donald Trump’s candidacy and administration have been nothing short of iconoclastic, and he’s shaken up both conservative and progressive movements in America. We’re anticipating a spirited conversation with some of our nation’s sharpest political and cultural observers about what it all means for the future of our democracy,” Polet said. “We’re thrilled to be able to partner with the Russell Kirk Center to bring this important discussion to Hope’s campus.”
“Russell Kirk understood his work was to convey to America’s rising generations an understanding of the process by which a healthy culture is transmitted from age to age,” shared Jeff Nelson, director of Kirk on Campus. “The Kirk Center is committed to producing quality programs that explore the issues of our day from a culturally conservative perspective.
“As a liberal arts college rooted in the historic Christian faith,” Nelson observed, “Hope College is a great partner for this kind of event, which notably features a wide range of political perspectives. It’s the kind of discourse increasingly rare on the average campus but we hope will be common for Kirk on Campus.”
Ross Douthat is a columnist for the New York Times, where he writes about politics, religion, moral values and higher education. He is the author of Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (2012) and Grand New Party: How Republicans Can Win the Working Class and Save the American Dream (2008).
Sam Tanenhaus is the best-selling author of Whittaker Chambers: a Biography and The Death of Conservatism. He is the former editor of The New York Times Book Review and now contributes to the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and the New York Review of Books.
Mark Bauerlein is the senior editor of First Things journal and a professor of English at Emory University. His 2008 book The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future won the Nautilus Book Award.
The Jack H. Miller Center for Musical Arts is located at 221 Columbia Ave., between Ninth and 10th streets.