James Davison Hunter

Executive Director

LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture, and Social Theory

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James Davison Hunter is LaBrosse-Levinson Distinguished Professor of Religion, Culture and Social Theory at the University of Virginia. He completed his doctorate at Rutgers University in 1981 and joined the faculty of the University of Virginia in 1983.

Mr. Hunter has written eight books, edited three, and published a wide range of essays, articles, and reviews, all variously concerned with the problem of meaning and moral order in a time of political and cultural change in American life. Most recently, he published The Death of Character: Moral Education in an Age without Good or Evil (2000) and Is There A Culture War? A Dialogue on Values and American Public Life (with Alan Wolfe, 2006). These works have earned him national recognition and numerous literary awards. In 1988 he received the Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion for Evangelicalism: The Coming Generation. In 1991 he was the recipient of the Gustavus Myers Award for the Study of Human Rights for Articles of Faith; Articles of Peace. The Los Angeles Times named Mr. Hunter as a finalist of their 1992 Book Prize for Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. In 2004, he was appointed by the White House for a six-year term to the National Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2005, he won the Richard M. Weaver Prize for Scholarly Letters.

Over the years, Professor Hunter’s research findings have been presented to audiences on National Public Radio and C-Span, at the National Endowment for the Arts and at dozens of colleges and universities around the country. He also has been a consultant to the White House, the Bicentennial Commission for the U.S. Constitution, the Pew Charitable Trusts, and the National Commission on Civic Renewal.