Series examines U.S. political, economic future

Richard Miller
Miller

Six distinguished scholars will address the topic “After the American Century? Fears and Hopes for America’s Future” this fall in a series of talks organized by the Program in Ethics and Public Life.

EPL Director Richard W. Miller said the series’ goal is to address widespread worry about trends in American politics, economic life and global pre-eminence.

“For example, people worry that the American dream of economic opportunity has come to an end, that deadlock will be the permanent fate of American politics, and that declining global pre-eminence will imperil security and American values,” said Miller, the Wyn and William Y. Hutchinson Professor in Ethics and Public Life in the Department of Philosophy. “Our visitors will illuminate both troubling aspects of these trends and prospects for a better future.”

The visiting scholars will each give a public lecture, lead seminars and meet informally with faculty and students. All talks are on Mondays, 4:30 to 6 p.m. in Hollis E. Cornell Auditorium, Goldwin Smith Hall. The series schedule and topics:

  • Sept. 9: Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution, co-author of “It’s Even Worse Than It Looks: How the American Constitutional System Collides with the New Politics of Extremism,” on polarization in American politics.
  • Sept. 23: New York University historian Marilyn Young on the exercise of American power abroad and the future of the American way of war.
  • Oct. 7: Harvard University economist Richard Freeman on the impact on the United States of the global course of development.
  • Oct. 21: Princeton University historian Daniel Rodgers on the recent history and prospects for change of moral presuppositions of American politics.
  • Nov. 4: Brandeis University economist Lisa Lynch on economic security and the search for good jobs.
  • Nov. 18: King’s College (London) anthropologist Madawi al-Rasheed on American power and democratic aspirations in the Middle East.

The series is supported by the Riger-Potash Family Fund and co-sponsored by the University Lectures Committee and the Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies.

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