The University of Evansville will host the fifth annual Hesburgh Lecture in collaboration with the Notre Dame Club of the Tri-State, on Friday, February 3. The lecture will begin at 7:00 p.m. in Room 170 (Smythe Lecture Hall) of UE’s Schroeder School of Business Building.

This year’s guest speaker will be Brad D. Gregory, director of Notre Dame’s Institute for Advanced Study. His topic will be “The Reformation Era and the Makings of Modernity.”  Gregory will discuss ways in which conflicts of the Reformation era prompted unintended historical developments that created the modern Western world, and without which we cannot understand contemporary problems such as the presumed conflict between science and religion, unending moral disagreements, global climate change, and the secularization of knowledge.

Gregory is a professor of history and holds the Dorothy G. Griffin Chair in the Department of History at Notre Dame. Together with Randall Zachman, he serves as the North American editor of the Archive for Reformation History. Gregory earned his PhD in history from Princeton University and his MA in history from the University of Arizona. He received his licentiate degrees in philosophy from the Higher Institute of Philosophy of the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium. He earned his BA degree in history from the Catholic University of Leuven, and his BS in history from Utah State University. He has been awarded the Hiett Prize in the Humanities from the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture, and the Kaneb Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Letters, Notre Dame.

Gregory’s research centers on Christianity in the Reformation era, including magisterial Protestantism, radical Protestantism, and Roman Catholicism approached comparatively and cross-confessionally. He is also interested in the long-term ideological influences and institutional consequences of the Reformation era on the making of the modern Western world. Another of his areas of research and interest is methodology and theory in the understanding of religion and history

Named for Rev. Theodore M. Hesburgh, president emeritus of the University of Notre Dame, the Hesburgh Lecture Series is a major community outreach program of Notre Dame alumni clubs around the nation. The series features Notre Dame faculty members discussing topics ranging from art and architecture to economics to social concerns.