12:45 to 2:15 p.m. CDT

Veronica Vegna

Veronica Vegna is the author of Donne, mafia e cinema: una prospettiva interdisciplinare (Longo Angelo, 2017), a critical study of gender roles and the representation of the mafia in contemporary Italian cinema. She is Senior Instructional Professor and the Director of the Italian Language Program at the University of Chicago.

Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century

What can we do to address the prevailing sense of crisis in 21st century American civic and political life? From declining trust in government to increasing economic inequality to the rise of social media, the threats to our democracy seem to multiply, requiring nothing less than a fundamental reassessment of U.S. political institutions, civil society ecosystems, and civic norms.