Gaston Espinosa, assistant professor of philosophy/religious studies, has been awarded a Louisville Institute for the Study of American Religion Minority Postdoctoral Fellowship, one of three awards given annually to scholars across the nation and from any discipline for book-length projects addressing important developments in American religion.
During his fellowship in the 2005-06 academic year, Espinosa plans to complete three book projects: Religion and the American Presidency, Latino Religions and Politics in American Public Life, and Brown Moses: Francisco Olazabal and Latino Pentecostal Charisma, Power, and Healing in the Borderlands, the latter two for Oxford University Press.
Espinosa was the organizer of a week long conference at CMC in April, Religion and the American Presidency, exploring the critical role that religious leaders, symbols, values, and rhetoric play in presidential politics. Among the scholars and political leaders who participated in the campus conference were former TIME reporter and author David Aikman and Carol Moseley-Braun, former U.S. Senator and ambassador.