SJLW Award Winner
Bio
Mary Eberstadt holds the Panula Chair in Christian Culture at the Catholic Information Center in Washington, DC, and is a Senior Research Fellow at the Faith & Reason Institute. An essayist, novelist, and frequent public speaker, she is author of several influential books of non-fiction, including How the West Really Lost God: A New Theory of Secularization; Adam and Eve after the Pill: Paradoxes of the Sexual Revolution; and Primal Screams: How the Sexual Revolution Created Identity Politics. Her social commentary draws from fields including anthropology, intellectual history, philosophy, popular culture, sociology, and theology. Central to her diverse interests are questions concerning the philosophy and culture of Western civilization, and the fate and aspirations of post-modern man.
Mrs. Eberstadt’s books and essays have been translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Polish, Arabic, Dutch, Portuguese, Lithuanian, Hungarian, and Turkish. Her 2010 novel The Loser Letters: A Comic Tale of Life, Death, and Atheism, about a young woman struggling in rehab with the question of atheism, premiered as a stage-play at the Catholic University of America in 2016. Mrs. Eberstadt is frequently invited to speak to professional and private associations and has delivered addresses at dozens of campuses in the United States and elsewhere. She teaches during the summer at the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society in Krakow, Poland; and during the academic year at the Leonine Forum, a course for young professionals hosted by the Catholic Information Center in Washington, D.C.
Mrs. Eberstadt’s public service includes two years on the U.S. State Department’s Policy Planning Staff during the Reagan administration, where she was speechwriter to Secretary of State George Shultz. She also served as a speechwriter to the Hon. Jeane J. Kirkpatrick at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. During the 1980s and into the 1990s, she was a Trustee of Telluride Association, and spent five years on its Board of Custodians. From 2001-2003, she served on the Academic Board of Advisors to the Templeton Foundation. In 2011, interested in the idea of establishing a literary network for women, she founded The Kirkpatrick Society, an association that has gone on to mentor hundreds of writers.
Mrs. Eberstadt has received awards and honors for her work, including appointments with various associations and think tanks. In 2014, Seton Hall University awarded her an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters, and her Commencement Address was listed by USA Today as one of the year’s most notable. She is married to author Nicholas Eberstadt, and they are blessed with four children.”