A journalist, an economist, a professor of religious studies, and a political theorist have been named fellows for 1997-98 at the Divinity School's Center for the Study of Values in Public Life. A grant from the Lilly Endowment will fund their research and teaching.

Gar Alperovitz, a political economist and historian at the University of Maryland at College Park, is president of the National Center for Economic and Security Alternatives. The author of many books and articles, he is best known for his most recent book, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb and the Architecture of an American Myth (1995). He received a bachelor's degree in American history from the University of Wisconsin, a master's degree in economics from the University of California at Berkeley, and a Ph.D. degree in political economy from the University of Cambridge. During his yearlong fellowship at the Center, he will write a book on the reconstruction of the American community and will continue to do research on religion, democracy, and the renewal of civil society.

Lawrie Balfour is a lecturer in politics at Princeton University and a visiting scholar at Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research. She received the A.B. degree in politics and ethics from Princeton University in 1987, the M.T.S. degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1989, and the Ph.D. degree in politics from Princeton University in 1996. She will begin a book-length study of the relationship between slavery and citizenship and will continue her work on social criticism, religion and politics, and the moral challenges race poses for democratic ideals.

James Carroll is a noted journalist and the author of nine novels. His recent memoir, An American Requiem: God, My Father, and the War that Came Between Us, won the 1996 National Book Award in nonfiction. His weekly column for The Boston Globe's op-ed page provides commentary on public affairs that is informed by religious and moral insight. He received the B.A. and M.A. degrees from St. Paul's College, was ordained to the priesthood, and then left the priesthood to become a writer. He will spend his fellowship year doing research and writing a new nonfiction book about religion and public life that uses the Holocaust to view the history and future prospects of Catholic-Jewish relations.

Kathleen Sands is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. She earned the B.A. degree from Boston University's University Professors' Program in 1976, the M.T.S. degree from Harvard Divinity School in 1981, and the Ph.D. degree in systematic theology and ethics from Boston College in 1990. She has published articles on feminist theology and on women and religion, and teaches courses on religion and civic discourse, contemporary religious thought, and feminist ethics. Sands will spend the fall semester examining the broader theological mission of equipping citizens to engage religiously charged debates with both conviction and civility. Her research will focus specifically on how religion and sexuality intersect in the public sphere.

The Center for the Study of Values in Public Life is a teaching and research center founded to consider the values that shape public debates, policies, and institutional practices and to examine the influence of religion and religious institutions in forming public values. Its activities are concentrated in three overlapping areas: civil society and the renewal of public life; the environment; and international relations.