UCC Best-selling author opens spring dialogue series at Elmhurst

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

Best-selling author opens spring dialogue series at Elmhurst

> Written by wire reports
> January 25, 2011

Robert Putnam, best-selling author of "Bowling
Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community," will present "American Grace: How
Religion Divides and Unites Us" at UCC-related Elmhurst College February 3.

Hailed as "the most influential academic in the
world today" by the "London Sunday Times," Putnam
is co-author of more than a dozen books,
including "Better Together: Restoring the
American Community and American Grace: How
Religion Divides and Unites Us" (co-written with David Campbell).

He serves as the Peter and Isabel Malkin

Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University
and is a visiting professor at the University of
Manchester (UK). Putnam's books have been
translated into 20 languages and are among the
most cited publications in the social sciences in the past half century.

Putnam's visit to Elmhurst is part of Still

Speaking: Conversations on Faith, the College's
yearlong series of dialogues on faith ? its
varieties, contradictions and influence in the
modern world. Still Speaking includes academic
work; lectures and cultural events; service and
outreach projects involving students and staff.

Still Speaking also is part of the College's
observance of the graduation centennial of two of
its most esteemed alumni, theologians Reinhold
Niebuhr (Class of 1910) and H. Richard Niebuhr (Class of 1912).

Putnam will speak at 7 p.m. in Hammerschmidt
Memorial Chapel, 190 Prospect Ave., Elmhurst,
Ill. The lecture, part of the Roland Quest
Lecture Series, is free and open to the public; no reservations are needed.

The Roland Quest Lecture was established at

Elmhurst College in 1996 and quickly became an
popular series. It honors Elmhurst alumnus Roland
Quest, Class of 1936, a former McDonnell-Douglas
engineer who performed design work on the original space shuttle.

For more information, visit elmhurst.edu or call 630-617-3390.