This year’s Common Hour, Living Boldly, is inspired by Wilson's sesquicentennial celebration marking 150 years of bold Wilson students. The fall series, which kicks off on September 2, will feature 11 talks and one dance performance. In the spirit of fostering critical thinking about pressing issues and big questions, all Common Hour events are free and open to the public.

Radical Charisma - Abolitionist Activism in the 19th Century and Today
We often think of charismatic leaders as dangerous, leading the masses astray. But might there be another model of charisma that leads us toward justice? Vincent Lloyd probes this question by exploring the abolitionist tradition, including examples from the lives and work of 19th-century activists advocating for the abolition of slavery and 21st-century activists advocating for the abolition of prisons.
 

Vincent Lloyd
Author of Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the Abolition of Prisons 

Vincent Lloyd is Associate Professor of Theology and Religious Studies, and Global Interdisciplinary Studies, at Villanova University, where he also directs the Africana Studies Program. Lloyd co-edits, with David True, the journal Political Theology, and he directs the Villanova Political Theology Project. His books include Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the Abolition of Prisons, co-authored with Joshua Dubler; In Defense of Charisma; Black Natural Law; and the co-edited Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics. Lloyd lives in Philadelphia with his partner, six-year-old daughter, and pitbull.