Valparaiso University English professor and trained civic reflection facilitator Martin Buinicki was a presenter at Beyond the Academy: Engaging Public Life, a conference held June 10-11 at the Arlington campus of George Mason University. The central question addressed at the conference was how best to negotiate between the expertise of the academy and the national movement among colleges and universities toward greater community engagement. Buinicki presented his paper, "Literary Studies and the Challenges and Opportunities in Text-Based Public Dialogue: The Project on Civic Reflection," as part of a panel on deliberation as a mode of public discourse. The paper, which draws on his experiences as a facilitator for a local AmeriCorps civic reflection program and for Valparaiso's "Conversations at City Hall" series, explores the unique opportunities and challenges that civic reflection offers for literary study beyond the academy. The panel was attended by 20-30 participants from colleges and universities around the country.

Commenting on the reception of his presentation, Buinicki notes that there was particular interest in the ways in which civic reflection can open up a space for discussion that does not immediately lead to dispute, discussion that transcends partisan differences. A running theme of the conference was the need to create venues where people can talk about social and political issues in ways that are not ideologically fraught, and civic reflection was regarded as such a venue.

For Buinicki, another key value of civic reflection is that it offers a means for teachers and scholars of literature "to engage the wider communities that they are part of and to expand the reach of literary studies."