All are welcome to two talks with the excellent Danielle Allen, the new director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics and professor in the Department of Government and Graduate School of Education, Harvard University

Tisch Research Prize Keynote Address: Recovering Equality in America

October 21 | 5:30 pm

Interfaith Center, 58 Winthrop Street

Tufts Medford Campus

This year’s recipient of the Tisch Research Prize, Professor Danielle Allen was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2002 for her ability to combine “the classicist’s careful attention to texts and language with the political theorist’s sophisticated and informed engagement.” Among her many books is Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, which was featured on the front page of the New York Times. A renowned scholar in many fields, Allen has doctorates in both classics and political science and also writes about education and race in contemporary America.

Allen argues that in the U.S. we are very good at discussing and defending liberty and its requirements, but our capacities to analyze and defend issues of equality have atrophied. Healthy democracies, though, depend on the interdependence of liberty and equality. Allen will present the historical reasons lying behind the diminishment in our capacity to think effectively about equality, discuss the relationships among moral, social, political, and economic forms of egalitarianism, and point to pathways by which we can recover our collective commitment to equality.

The Tisch Research Prize, awarded by the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, recognizes outstanding careers devoted to Civic Studies–academic research on issues related to active citizenship. Previous winners of this prestigious award include the Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom (Indiana), MacArthur Fellow John Gaventa (Coady Institute), and distinguished professors Robert Wuthnow (Princeton), Doug McAdam (Stanford), Constance Flanagan (Wisconsin), and Meredith Minkler (Berkeley).

This event is co-sponsored by: The Center for Race and Democracy, The Africana Center, and the departments of Classics, History, Philosophy, and Political Science.

Please register here: http://activecitizen.tufts.edu/events/#DanielleAllen.

Tisch Talks in the Humanities: From Voice to Influence: Preparing for Civic Agency in a Digital Age

October 21 | 12:30 pm

Cabot 702, the Fletcher School

Tufts Medford Campus

Join Tisch College for a brown-bag lunch discussion with this year’s recipient of the 2015 Tisch Research Prize winner, Professor Danielle Allen. Allen is a co-editor of the recent book From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in a Digital Age and a member of the Youth Participatory Politics Research Network. She will present and discuss ten fundamental design principles for those seeking to be, or support, change-makers who work with digital tools. The design principles were developed through her work with the MacArthur Foundation research network on youth and participatory politics.

This event is organized by the Initiatives in the Public Humanities at Tisch College and co-sponsored by Boston Civic Media. Please RSVP by emailing Jessica.Byrnes@tufts.edu.