“We live in a time where the loudest, and often most caustic, voices appear to garner the lion’s share of national and international attention. When divisiveness gets rewarded and polarization is often the result, it is critical to demonstrate that there are other paths that we can take toward a more productive national and international discourse. One of the main questions motivating the conversations in this book is whether close examination of a core aspect of divisiveness, of personal or moral conviction, can help repair fissures and tears in our social tissue.”

Both Anke Finger and Manuela Wagner work with approaches to raising intercultural awareness, and learning more about something that seemed quite atmospheric and elusive such as personal conviction became an ever-increasing fascination with how people and cultures develop their positions on a large variety of topics. This book project emerges, as one of a great many projects, from a three-year, multi-pronged research endeavor on “Humility and Conviction in Public Life,” housed at the UConn Humanities Institute (2016-2019). Profs. Finger and Wagner gathered this collection of articles to

“begin interdisciplinary and international investigations into the concept of conviction. We humbly propose that much more information is to be gathered, additional questions to be pursued and different vantage points to be engaged. We do hope that what follows provides a solid foundation for inquiries to come.”

The book is available through Open Access directly from the publisher.