Please join us for the Opening Seminar of the 2026-2027 academic year, to be held at Watson Manor on Friday, September 4th at 3:30pm.
Following opening remarks, sociologist Christian Smith will give a lecture titled, “Religious Decline and Cultural Re-Enchantment: The Ongoing Transformation of the American Religious Field.” Fellows, staff and their families are invited to join us afterwards from 5-7pm for heavy hors d’oeuvres and drinks.
Christian Smith is the William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Notre Dame. A leading American sociologist and theorist of critical realism and personalism, his research focuses on religion, culture, personhood, morality, and the religious lives of adolescents and emerging adults. Smith received his MA and PhD from Harvard University in 1990 and his BA from Gordon College in 1983. He was a Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for 12 years before his move to Notre Dame. His influential books include What Is a Person?, To Flourish or Destruct, The Secular Revolution, Moral, Believing Animals, and Soul Searching.
View the event page here.