Second Amendment to Grab Spotlight at Georgia State Lecture

DUNWOODY, Ga.—The Sarah Larson Lecture Series returns to Perimeter College at Georgia State University this fall with a lively talk about a timely topic.

Rosamond Rodman, Ph.D., Perimeter College assistant professor, humanities and religious studies, will present “Scripture, Subjectivity and the Second Amendment” on Thursday, Nov. 3, from 10-11:15 a.m. on Georgia State’s Dunwoody Campus, 2101 Womack Road, NC Building Auditorium (NC-1100).

“In the wake of gun violence trauma in the US, including the recent killing of 19 fourth-graders in Uvalde, Texas and the mass murder of supermarket shoppers in Buffalo, N.Y.—and so many more ad nauseam—it is worth taking time again to think critically about the Second Amendment, the constitutional guarantee regarding ‘the right of the people to keep and bear arms’,” Rodman said.

“Remarkably, for the first 150 years of its existence, the Second Amendment was entirely uncontroversial.

“What’s perhaps even more remarkable is that, over the last 50 years, it has been made to mean exactly the opposite of that prior consensus.”

In the Larson Lecture, Rodman will explore how this happened—and why.

“It is important to recognize that a radically rationalized, un-self-conscious, and privileged claim about individual rights, for some, can be developed and made ‘sacred’ from a certain type of reading of a text, which in turn can obscure or prevent a needed focus on gun violence and its long-lasting effects on society.

“We desperately need a better understanding of how thinking and politics have devolved around this issue.”

The Perimeter College Sarah Larson Lecture Series’ “Scripture, Subjectivity and The Second Amendment” talk is free and open to the public. For additional information, contact Jennifer Meeks at [email protected] or (770) 274-5476.