Award-winning author James Carroll to discuss state’s “moral charter”

Award-winning author and Boston Globe columnist James Carroll will discuss “Rhode Island and America’s Moral Charter” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 18 in the Bazarsky Lecture Hall. His lecture is co-sponsored by the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy and the Newport Historical Society.

As the 350th anniversary of Rhode Island’s Royal Charter of 1663 approaches, the Newport Historical Society has opened “The Spectacle of Toleration,” a statewide, multi-year project exploring the role of religious tolerance in society and examining Newport and Rhode Island as well as other times and places, including today.

Carroll’s lecture is the first public program presented as part of the project, which will include tours, additional lectures and a significant web presence and will culminate in 2014 with an exhibition.

Carroll is the author of 10 novels and seven works of nonfiction, including the National Book Award-winning “An American Requiem,” the New York Times bestseller “Constantine’s Sword,” the first PEN-Galbraith Award winner “House of War,” and “Jerusalem, Jerusalem: How the Ancient City Ignited Our Modern World,” which was named a 2011 Best Book by Publishers Weekly. He is distinguished scholar-in-residence at Suffolk University in Boston, where he lives with his wife, the novelist Alexandra Marshall.