School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership: Spring 2020 Conference, “Citizenship and Civic Leadership in America”
Each year, the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, a JMC partner program, hosts an annual conference to invite scholars, prominent writers and speakers to come together each spring to discuss the school’s annual speaker series topic. This year’s theme, “Citizenship and Civic Leadership in America,” is dedicated to a discussion of the concept of citizenship: its origins, its meaning, and its contemporary place and relevance in American democracy and the global community.
The 2020 Spring Conference welcomes Rich Lowry of National Review and Yascha Mounk, a Johns Hopkins professor, as its keynote speakers. Lowry and Mounk will speak on the themes of American nationalism and the contemporary challenges to democracy in America and around the world. Several JMC fellows and faculty partners will be serving as panelists and moderators.
The conference panels will begin with the theoretical questions – what is a citizen? What are the characteristics, advantages, duties, and responsibilities of a citizen? These fundamental questions will inform the discussion throughout the two-day conference as we explore the features of citizenship under the American Constitution and in practice in contemporary American democracy and within a global context. And, the conference will conclude with a consideration of the sort of civic education that is conducive to active citizenship and a renewal of American civic institutions.
Friday and Saturday, February 28-29, 2020 • 8:30 AM – 6:30 PM & 8:30 AM – 1:45 PM
Memorial Union, Ventana Ballroom 241 • Arizona State University, Tempe
Registration required
Click here for more information and to register >>
Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He is a syndicated columnist and a commentator for the Fox News Channel. He writes for Politico and often appears on such public affairs programs as Meet the Press and This Week with George Stephanopoulos. He is also a regular panelist on the KCRW program Left, Right, and Center and the author of Lincoln Unbound and Legacy: Paying the Price for the Clinton Years — a New York Times bestseller.
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Yascha Mounk is an Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University, where he holds appointments in both the School of Advanced International Studies and the Agora Institute. He is a writer, academic and public speaker known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. A Contributing Editor at The Atlantic, Professor Mounk regularly writes for newspapers and magazines including The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Foreign Affairs. He is also a Senior Advisor at Protect Democracy, a Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund, a Senior Fellow at Harvard’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance, a Senior Fellow at New York University’s Reiss Center on Law and Security, and a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
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The School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University seeks to introduce a new level of debate over the large questions of life that always arise. These are questions of value: What is the best form of government? The most efficient and just economy? The good life for an individual? And also basic questions of fact and concept: Is science the only kind of knowledge? Does history have a direction and purpose? Is moral choice a fact or delusion? These questions do not have easy answers, and indeed the questions have always been clearer than the answers. As a learning community of faculty and students, the school approaches them in two ways. One way is to look beyond the time and borders of our present society to the great thinkers who have contended for the high status of teachers of humanity, such as Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. The other way of studying the fundamental questions is to look within to American leaders, both intellectual and political, who have inspired us.
Learn more about the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership >>
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