This is thinking in public a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

front-line theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Mowle, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,

Kentucky.

Rita Koganzen is Associate Director of the Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy at the University of Virginia,

where she also serves as an assistant professor of politics.

She received her PhD in government from Harvard University and has pursued academic research in the fields of education,

childhood, and the role of the family in contemporary political thought.

The topic of our conversation today is her new book, Liberal States, Authoritarian Families, in which she surveys the ideas of political

liberalism and its relationship with the authority of parents in the home.

Professor Kogan's and welcome to Thinking in Public.

Thanks for having me.

I really found your book fascinating and I find a way to I think find most books fascinating

but yours in a particular way because reading your book took me through not only

a fascinating question of the early modern age with the deep relevance to our own but it made me think about the way I've been reading several of the sources of the of the modern age in particular Locke and Andrew So and others.

There has to be a story behind how you got to this project,

and I'd love for you to tell it.

Well, I got to this project when I was in college.

I mean, I've always been interested in education, and I studied American history in college I mean I've always been interested in education and I studied American history in college so I wrote on the history of American education for my thesis

But then I thought you know this is coming all these people are citing lock and Rousseau this is all coming from somewhere and so I read

Emil and some thoughts concerning education and I thought it was very puzzling especially some thoughts

concerning education how you know at the very beginning he sort of says you have absolute authority over your children.

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