Voegelin Institute Presents Zoom Series Namesake

BATON ROUGE – The Eric Voegelin Institute will present a five-part series of talks this semester on “Who Was Eric Voegelin, and What Did He Think?” Hosted by Institute Director James Stoner, the talks will be given by experts on Voegelin’s thought from around North America and will be streamed via Zoom. Registration is free and can be found at this link: https://lsu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJMsde6oqTgpEtXmPl7WFWc–59_q3UYnlhf. 

The five talks in the series follow the five parts of “The Eric Voegelin Reader: Politics, History, Consciousness” (Missouri, 2017), edited by Charles Embry and Glenn Hughes; the essays in the “Reader” were culled in turn from the thirty-four volumes of “The Collected Works of Eric Voegelin,” published by the LSU Press and the University of Missouri Press under the direction of the Institute from 1990 to 2006. The talks will be given on five Wednesdays at 11:30 a.m. – 12:45 p.m. central time and will be archived on the Voegelin Institute website.

The schedule of talks and presenters is as follows:

• Session ONE (2/9/22): An Intellectual Biography of Eric Voegelin, Barry Cooper, University of Calgary
• Session TWO (2/16/22): Voegelin’s Philosophical Science of Politics, Lee Trepanier, Samford University
• Session THREE (2/23/22): Voegelin’s Modern Philosophizing, Carol Browning Cooper, University of Houston
• Session FOUR (3/9/22): Voegelin on Consciousness, Reason, & Divine Reality, David Walsh, Catholic University of America
• Session FIVE (3/23/22): Voegelin’s Philosophy of History, John von Heyking, University of Lethbridge

Barry Cooper, Professor of Political Science at the University of Calgary, is the author, editor, or translator of thirty-five books, including several about Voegelin and several volumes of Voegelin’s “Collected Works.” Lee Trepanier, Professor of Political Science at Samford University who earned his Ph.D. at LSU, was until recently editor of the online publication, “Voegelin View,” and is editor or author of two dozen books, several of which feature analysis of Voegelin and his thought. Carol Browning Cooper, who recently earned her Ph.D. from Catholic University, teaches in Political Science and the Honors College at the University of Houston. David Walsh, general secretary of the Eric Voegelin Society and Professor of Politics at Catholic University, is author or editor of a dozen books, including several volumes of Voegelin’s “Collected Works.” John von Heyking, Professor of Political Science at the University of Lethbridge, is the author of several books and numerous articles and serves as book review editor of “Voegelin View.” More information on the series is available here: https://sites01.lsu.edu/faculty/voegelin/who-was-eric-voegelin-what-did-he-think/.

“Taking advantage of the familiarity developed over the past couple years with Zoom technology, we’re very pleased to be able to gather a mix of senior and junior scholars from across the continent,” Stoner said. “Interest in Voegelin’s work is world-wide, and we look forward to being joined by scholars from abroad as well as those here at LSU who want to learn a little more about one of the most prominent scholars to have served on our faculty.”

The Eric Voegelin Institute is located in the Department of Political Science at LSU.  A humanities and social sciences research institute dedicated to exploring the ideas and questions that animated Voegelin’s thought, its primary activities involve scholarship, lectures, and conferences centered around the revitalization of teaching and understanding the great works of civilization. 

For more information, please contact James R. Stoner Jr. at 225-578-2538 or poston@lsu.edu.