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On March 10th, Henry Holt and Co. released the first person account of Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng’s struggle for freedom and his fight for human rights in China: The Barefoot Lawyer.

The son of a poor farmer in rural China, Chen was blinded by illness in infancy and was fortunate to survive a difficult childhood. Despite his disability, he was determined to educate himself. He dedicated himself to fighting for the rights of his country’s poor, especially a legion of women who had endured forced sterilizations and abortions under the hated “one child” policy. Repeatedly harassed, beaten, and imprisoned by Chinese authorities, Chen was ultimately placed under house arrest. One morning in April 2012, he climbed over the wall of his heavily guarded home and made a daring escape. Days later, he turned up at the American embassy in Beijing, and only a furious round of high-level negotiations made it possible for him to leave China and begin a new life in the United States. [Read more…] about From Henry Holt: THE BAREFOOT LAWYER by Chen Guangcheng

The Institute is pleased to announce our 2015 Summer Seminars for high school, undergraduate, and graduate students. These intensive programs examine vital moral questions in social, philosophical, legal, and political thought and have attracted young men and women from across the world for over a decade. With discussions guided by leading scholars from the United States and Great Britain, the Summer Seminars comprise the core of the Institute’s efforts to assist the next generation of scholars in reflecting on distinctly human questions. 

For more information about seminar topics, faculty, readings, and application processes, visit the links to the seminar pages below. We look forward to seeing you in Princeton this summer!

[Read more…] about Summer Seminars 2015

The Witherspoon Institute, together with the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, is pleased to announce the 2014 Simon Lecture to be given by esteemed scholar George Marsden (University of Notre Dame, Emeritus). His lecture is titled “Beyond Liberalism and the Culture Wars: Principled Pluralism” on October 1, 2014, at 4:30PM in McCormick Hall 101 on the campus of Princeton University. The lecture is open to the public.
[Read more…] about Annual Simon Lecture to be given by George Marsden

The Witherspoon Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Research Fellow Daniel I. Mark to the U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. Mark is an assistant professor of political science at Villanova University, where he teaches political theory, philosophy of law, American government, and politics and religion.  At Villanova, he is a faculty associate of the Matthew J. Ryan Center for the Study of Free Institutions and the Public Good.  Mark holds his BA, MA, and PhD from the Department of Politics at Princeton University, where he was affiliated with the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions, the Program in Law and Public Affairs, and the Penn-Princeton Bioethics Forum. [Read more…] about Research Fellow Daniel Mark appointed to U. S. Commission on International Religious Freedom

Senior Fellow Thomas F. Farr, director of the Religious Freedom Project at Georgetown University’s Berkley Center, presents Pope Francis with a copy of Libertad Religiosa, a Spanish translation of the Witherspoon Institute’s Religious Freedom: Why Now? Defending an Embattled Human Right, at the Vatican, on December 14, 2013.  The pope gave a private audience to the sixty participants in a conference held in Rome titled “Christianity and Freedom: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives,” hosted by the Religious Freedom Project and co-sponsored by the Witherspoon Institute.  [Read more…] about “Libertad Religiosa” presented to Pope Francis at Christianity and Freedom Conference in Rome