February 18, 1998 Contact: Lew Harris (615) 322-2706 Lewis.G.Harris@vanderbilt.edu

Carpenter Program in Religion,

Gender and Sexuality Hosts Symposium

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Is the family disappearing or simply changing? Are children, women and men better or worse off because of the transformations of American families? What are the positive and negative elements in the crisis over the family?

A Feb. 27 symposium at the Vanderbilt Divinity School will examine the answers to these questions in the book, From Culture Wars to Common Ground: Religion and the American Family.

The symposium, sponsored by the Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality, is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in room G-23 at the Divinity School.

Co-authored by Don S. Browning of the University of Chicago Divinity School and Bonnie Miller-McLemore of the Vanderbilt Divinity School and three other scholars, the book represents a mainline response to the conservative call for the renewal of traditional gender roles in the family.

From Culture Wars to Common Ground engages the major voices in the contemporary struggle over the family-feminism, the therapeutic, the Christian pro-family movements and advocates of the public family and market family.

The book's arguments are supported with extensive references to history, the Bible, Greek philosophy, evolutionary ecology, psychoanalysis, and European hermeneutics and critical theory. It concludes with a comprehensive list of recommendations to both church and society for the creation of a new critical familism.

The symposium brings together well-known specialists in Christian origins, family therapy, theology, feminist ethics, African American religion and the American family and includes responses from Browning and Miller-McLemore.

Panelists include Carolyn Osiek, Catholic Theological Union; John A. Coleman, Loyola Marymount University; Stephen J. Pope, Boston College; Alan J. Avery-Peck, The College of Holy Cross; William Doherty, University of Minnesota; Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, Colby College; Christine E. Gudorf, Florida International University; and Glen Stanton, Palmetto Family Council.

The Carpenter Program in Religion, Gender and Sexuality was established by the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation in 1995. The program is not based on any religious tradition, ideology or perspective; nor is it targeted solely to members of the academic community. Rather, it seeks to encourage conversation within and across religious affiliations, political persuasions and cultural contexts.

-VU-

Vanderbilt University is a private research university of approximately 5,900 undergraduates and 4,300 graduate and professional students. Founded in 1873, the University comprises 10 schools, a public policy institute, a distinguished medical center and The Freedom Forum First Amendment Center. Vanderbilt offers undergraduate programs in the liberal arts and sciences, education and human development, engineering and music, and a full range of graduate and professional degrees.

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