John Dickinson Forum: “Nicholas Buccola’s The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America”
On October 15, 2019, the John Dickinson Forum at George Fox University, a JMC partner program, is hosting JMC faculty partner Nicholas Buccola to speak on his new book, The Fire is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America.
On February 18, 1965, an overflowing crowd packed the Cambridge Union in Cambridge, England, to witness a historic televised debate between James Baldwin, the leading literary voice of the civil rights movement, and William F. Buckley Jr., a fierce critic of the movement and America’s most influential conservative intellectual. The topic was “the American dream is at the expense of the American Negro,” and no one who has seen the debate can soon forget it. Nicholas Buccola’s The Fire Is upon Us is the first book to tell the full story of the event, the radically different paths that led Baldwin and Buckley to it, the controversies that followed, and how the debate and the decades-long clash between the men continues to illuminate racial division today.
Tuesday, October 15, 2019, 6:30 PM
Hoover 105 • George Fox University
Nicholas Buccola is the Elizabeth & Morris Glicksman Chair in Political Science at Linfield College. His teaching and research interests are in political theory and public law. Professor Buccola is the founding director of the Frederick Douglass Forum on Law, Rights, and Justice, a partner program in JMC’s Pacific Northwest Initiative, and has written extensively on the political thought of Frederick Douglass. He has published essays on a wide variety of topics including the debate over same-sex marriage, Friedrich Nietzsche’s critique of socialism, and the political philosophies of Judith Shklar and Leo Strauss. He is a recipient of the Allen and Pat Kelley Faculty Scholar Award, and a two-time recipient of the Samuel Graf Faculty Achievement Award. Professor Buccola is also the book review editor for the JMC supported journal, American Political Thought.
Professor Buccola is a Jack Miller Center faculty partner.
Learn more about Nicholas Buccola >>
The mission of the John Dickinson Forum for the Study of America’s Founding Principles, a JMC partner program, is to promote thoughtful study, discussion, and debate about America’s founding principles. It hopes to encourage conversations about whether or how these principles are relevant today. The Forum supports a variety of activities including lectures, book/current event discussion groups, and debates. It also partners with other institutions to make programming available to students at other schools and to the general public throughout the Pacific Northwest.
Click here to learn more about the John Dickinson Forum >>
This event is supported by Jack Miller Center’s Pacific Northwest Initiative: Advancing Education in America’s Founding Principles and History. Thanks to the generous grant from MJ Murdock Charitable Trust, JMC is working with faculty to organize exciting campus events in the region. The Initiative also provides programs, conferences and other opportunities for professors in the PNW—all to help them make a difference in the education of their students.
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