WWU's Paul Chen to Present Turning Points Lecture March 2

Contact: Fran Maas, coordinator, Western Washington University Turning Points Faculty Speaker Series, (360) 650-7545, or Fran.Maas@wwu.edu

BELLINGHAM – Paul Chen, associate professor of Political Science at Western Washington University, will present “Mixing Religion and Politics: Recent Developments in Political Science Research” at 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, March 2, in Communications Facility 110 on the WWU campus.

The event is free, open to the public and is part of WWU’s Turning Points Faculty Speaker Series, which celebrates and shares the wealth of knowledge and talent on Western’s campus.

According to Chen, political scientists have tended to neglect investigating religious components of political behavior, but a consequence of the Sept. 11 attacks has been the realization that religion is a powerful motivator for human action, both individually and collectively.  

In his talk, Chen will discuss the increasing attention that political scientists and other scholars have paid to religion, explain their traditional bias against studying religion, noting differences between older and more recent research on religion, and discuss what these differences mean for our understanding of the role of religion in the modern world.

Chen earned his doctorate in political science from the University of Southern California and law degree from Southwestern University School of Law.  Since 2002 he has taught courses within the WWU Political Science Department.

For more information on this lecture, contact Fran Maas, coordinator of WWU’s Turning Points Faculty Speaker Series, at (360) 650-7545 or Fran.Maas@wwu.edu.

For those attending Turning Points faculty lectures, no parking permit is required to park after 5 p.m. in the gravel lots 12A and the C lots south of the Communications Facility, near Fairhaven College.  Parking meters require payment all hours.