2018 LMU Common Book Selected

UNIVERSITY BULLETINS | We are delighted to announce that Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America, by Eboo Patel, has been selected as the 2018 LMU Common Book.

Patel’s work explores the opportunities for cohesion, intimacy, and healing that interfaith dialogues can offer a community. As the founder of the Interfaith Youth Core and the appointee to President Obama’s inaugural Interfaith Council, Patel has worked for more than a decade bringing young people together to share their stories and experiences. In Sacred Ground, Patel explores the roots of Islamophobia that emerged following 9/11 and places it in the context of the anti-immigrant, anti-Catholic, and “anti-other” discourse that runs throughout American history. Simultaneously, he examines the lives of interfaith leaders, from Dorothy Day to Martin Luther King, Jr., to illustrate how pluralism and dialogue can serve as an antidote to bigotry and discrimination. Sacred Ground provides a brave space for engaging with the spiritual aspects of human experience as individuals, as families, and as communities. It is our hope that Patel’s book will offer our campus a touchstone for discussing the diversity of religious experience at LMU, as both Americans and global citizens.

The LMU Common Book program is designed to unite the LMU community in a common intellectual endeavor that goes beyond the classroom. It is our hope that the Common Book serves as a mechanism through which all members of our community – students, faculty, and staff alike – can share a common experience through the uncommon discoveries in reading. Please know that in the coming months, the Common Book committee will host a series of planning sessions about Sacred Ground in preparation for the fall launch.

For more information, or if you have ideas for a program or collaboration related to the Common Book, please contact the co-chairs of the Common Book program at commonbook@lmu.edu.

John Jackson, William H. Hannon Library
Mia Watson, Academic Resource Center
LMU Common Book Committee Co-Chairs

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