UBC’s School of Public Policy and Global Affairs is proud to host Danielle Allen\, James B ryant Conant University Professor\, Harvard University\, political theorist \, public intellectual\, and cultural commentator\, for a virtual event as part of our 2021 Phil Lind Initiative series on The Anti-Democratic Tur n.
This event will be moderated by Kathryn Gretsinger\, Associate Professor o f Teaching\, School of Journalism\, Writing\, and Media\, UBC.
Reserv e your ticket today for this free public event. The webinar link and passco de will be shared with registrants prior to the event.
Learn more abo ut the 2021 series\, The Anti-Democratic Turn\, here.
Inspired by her work in justice and citizenship\, and troubled by th e fact that so few Americans actually know what the Declaration of Independ ence says\, Allen set out to explore the arguments of the Declaration\, rea ding it with both adult night students and University of Chicago undergradu ates. Keenly aware that the Declaration is riddled with contradictions―libe rating some while subjugating slaves and Native Americans―Allen and her stu dents nonetheless came to see that the Declaration makes a coherent and riv eting argument about equality. They found not a historical text that requir ed memorization\, but an animating force that could and did transform the c ourse of their everyday lives. In an “uncommonly elegant\, incisive\, and o ften poetic primer on America’s cardinal text\,” Our Declaration now brings these insights to the general reader\, illuminating the “three great theme s of the Declaration: equality\, liberty\, and the abiding power of languag e” (David M. Kennedy). With its cogent analysis and passionate advocacy\, Our Declaration thrillingly affirms the continuing relevance of America’s f ounding text\, ultimately revealing what democracy actually means and what it asks of us. Our Declaration was awarded the Heartland Prize\, the Zócalo Book Prize\, and the Society of American Historians’ Francis Parkman Prize .
In Cuz\, a “compassionate retelling of an abjectly tragic story” (New York Times)\, Allen recounts her heroic efforts to res cue Michael Alexander Allen\, her beloved baby cousin\, who was arrested at fifteen for an attempted carjacking. Tried as an adult and sentenced to th irteen years\, Michael served eleven. Three years later\, he was dead. Why did this gifted young man\, who dreamed of being a firefighter and a writer \, end up murdered? Why did he languish in prison? And why at fifteen was h e in an alley in South Central Los Angeles\, holding a gun while trying to steal someone’s car? Hailed as a “literary miracle” (Washington Post)\, this fierce family memoir makes mass incarceration nothing less than a new American tragedy. Henry Louis Gates called Cuz “an elegiac m emoir and social jeremiad.”
Allen is also the principal investigator for the Democratic Knowledge Project\, a distributed research and action la b at Harvard University. The Democratic Knowledge Project seeks to identify \, strengthen\, and disseminate the bodies of knowledge\, skills\, and capa cities that democratic citizens need in order to succeed at operating their democracy. The lab currently has three projects underway: the Declaration Resources Project\, the Humanities and Liberal Arts Assessment Project (HUL A)\, and the Youth and Participatory Politics Action and Reflection Frame.< /p>
Allen is past Chair of the Mellon Foundation Board and the Pulitzer P rize Board\, as well as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Scienc es and the American Philosophical Society. She is a co-Chair of the Commiss ion on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship\, formed to explore how best to respond to the weaknesses and vulnerabilities in political and civic lif e. Its final and bipartisan report\, Our Common Purpose: Reinventing American Democracy for t he 21st Century\, was released in June 2020 and includes six strategies and 31 ambitious recommendations to help the nation emerge as a more resil ient democracy by 2026\, the nation’s 250th anniversary. As Director of Har vard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics\, Allen lead a collaboration of sc ientists and researchers at leading institutions including Harvard Global H ealth Institute\, Rockefeller Foundation\, CovidActNow\, Covid-Local\, CIDR AP and many other to develop the Key Metrics For COVID Suppression framew ork\, the that provides clear\, accessible guidance to policy makers and th e public on how to target and suppress COVID-19 more effectively across the nation.
For more information on Danielle Allen please visit her on < a href="https://twitter.com/dsallentess">Twitter\, at Harvard Scholar\, and explore her page on T he Washington Post.
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