LEWISTON — A political scientist from Boston College will visit Bates College to give a lecture on the conservative movement’s use of constitutional history in today’s electoral politics at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 17, in Room 221-222 of Commons, 136 Central Ave.

Sponsored by the politics department at Bates and titled “The Past Is Present,” the lecture by Ken I. Kersch is open to the public at no cost. The talk takes place on, and is presented in observance of, Constitution Day. For more information, call 207-786-8295.

Kersch is an associate professor of political science at Boston College, where he teaches courses on American political and constitutional development and American political thought. From 2008 to 2012, he was founding director of Boston College’s Clough Center for the Study of Constitutional Democracy.

Kersch is the author of the forthcoming book “Conservatives and the Constitution: From Brown to Reagan.” His previous publications include “Constructing Civil Liberties: Discontinuities in the Development of American Constitutional Law” and “Freedom of Speech.” He co-edited with Ronald Kahn “The Supreme Court and American Political Development.”

Kersch’s work has won the Edward S. Corwin Prize from the American Political Science Association, the J. David Greenstone Award from APSA’s Politics and History Section, and the Hughes-Gossett Prize from the Supreme Court Historical Society.