Religion
Jerome E. Copulsky, Adam Jortner, Nichole M. Flores (Moderator)
Join us for a conversation on the role of religious thought in the shaping of American democracy and religious freedom with Jerome Copulsky, research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs at Georgetown University, and Adam Jortner, history professor at Auburn University. Copulsky’s American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order examines how religious criticism of liberalism, including during the founding period, continues to inform perspectives on the role of religion in American public life. Jortner’s A Promised Land: Jewish Patriots, the American Revolution, and the Birth of Religious Freedom illuminates the centrality of Judaism to the debates over religious freedom. The conversation will be moderated by UVA religious studies professor Nichole Flores.
A limited number of lunches will be available on a first-come, first-served basis beginning at 11:30 AM. Copulsky's and Jortner's books will be available for purchase. Parking is not available at Bond House. If you plan to drive, there is paid parking within walking distance at the Oakhurst Inn and Central Grounds Garage. For additional handicap accessible parking spots, consult the UVA accessibility map.
The Nau Lab's “Touchstones of Democracy” series explores key events, places, thinkers, and texts that inform the history and principles of democracy. Leading up to the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Declaration of Independence in July 2026, this event series is showcasing recent books that expand and deepen our understanding of the era of the American Revolution—and illuminate the connections of that period to the present.
The spring 2026 conversations are produced at the University of Virginia by the Karsh Institute of Democracy and the College and Graduate School of Arts & Sciences.
Speakers
Jerome E. Copulsky
Research Fellow, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, Georgetown University
Jerome E. Copulsky
Research Fellow, Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs, Georgetown University
Jerome E. Copulsky is a research fellow at the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace & World Affairs at Georgetown University. He co-directed Uncivil Religion: January 6, 2021, a digital resource created through a collaboration of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History and the University of Alabama's Department of Religious Studies. From 2016 to 2017, he was the American Academy of Religion/Luce Fellow and senior advisor at the U.S. Department of State's Office of Religion and Global Affairs.
Copulsky is the author of American Heretics: Religious Adversaries of Liberal Order (Yale University Press, 2024). His scholarly work has been published in the Journal of the American Academy of Religion, the Journal of Religion, Political Theology, and Perspectives on Political Science, with essays in Political Theology for a Plural Age (2013) and Judaism, Liberalism, and Political Theology (2013). His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, The National Interest, Christian Science Monitor, Washingtonian, Jerusalem Post, Jewish Review of Books, and Religion Dispatches. He earned a B.A. from Wesleyan University, an M.F.A. from Columbia University, and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
Adam Jortner
Goodwin-Philpott Eminent Professor of Religion, Department of History, Auburn University
Adam Jortner
Goodwin-Philpott Eminent Professor of Religion, Department of History, Auburn University
Adam Jortner is the Goodwin-Philpott Eminent Professor of Religion in the department of history at Auburn University. He specializes in the history of religion in the American Revolution and the early nation, with particular emphasis on religious liberty, patriotism and piety, theology, and new religious traditions.
Since coming to Auburn in 2009, Jortner has published The Gods of Prophetstown, a study of Native American religion, deism, and military conflict in the Old Northwest, and Blood from the Sky, a history of miracles in the early republic. Gods of Prophetstown won the 2013 James Broussard prize for the best first book in early American history.
Jortner is a frequent contributor to NPR's Backstory, and will soon release a series of lectures entitled God and the Founding Fathers on Audible.
Nichole M. Flores (Moderator)
Associate Professor, Religious Studies, UVA
Director, Catholic Studies Initiative
Nichole M. Flores (Moderator)
Associate Professor, Religious Studies, UVA
Director, Catholic Studies Initiative
Nichole M. Flores is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, where she is also the director of the Catholic Studies Initiative, co-director of the Forum on Religion and Democracy, and director of the Health, Ethics, and Society Program. She researches the relationship between religion, aesthetics, and democracy with emphasis on the Catholic and Latine theological and ethical traditions.
Flores is author of The Aesthetics of Solidarity: Our Lady of Guadalupe and American Democracy (Georgetown University Press, 2021). She also has published essays in the Journal of Religious Ethics, the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, and Modern Theology, among other academic journals and edited volumes. Her research on La Virgen de Guadalupe and democracy has been profiled on the popular podcasts "Things Not Seen" and "Know Your Enemy," and was featured on CBS Saturday Morning.
In 2015, Flores was honored with the Catherine Mowry LaCugna Award for best essay in academic theology by a junior scholar from the Catholic Theological Society of America. Flores earned an A.B. in government from Smith College, an M.Div. from Yale University, and a Ph.D. in theological ethics from Boston College.
Originally from Denver, Colorado, she lives in Crozet, Virginia, with her husband and two sons.