Visit of Professor Eamonn Callan

Visit of Professor Eamonn Callan, author of Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy (Oxford University, 1997).

On Monday 20 February, Professor Eamonn Callan, of the School of Education at Stanford University, presented a seminar on ‘Racism as Civic Heresy’ to faculty, postgraduate students and invited guests in St Patrick's College.  Professor Callan was introduced by Dr Joe Dunne as a scholar of outstanding distinction, as well as a native of Drumcondra and past pupil of St. Patrick’s National School. Focusing on the United States, Professor Callan drew attention to both the necessity and the dangers of treating racism as a form of civic heresy: the necessity, because racism is a form of social evil that violates fundamental constitutional principles; and the dangers because imputations of racism, often subject to reasonable disagreement because of the complexity of their interpretative contexts, can divide not only anti-racists from racists but anti-racists from each other. Not least because of the hugely increased salience of its topic in contemporary Ireland, Professor Callan’s paper stimulated much lively discussion, continued over the subsequent wine-reception in his honour.