Humanities Day 2020 - Session 2

Tracey Meares

sspatterson — Fri, 04 Sep 2020 14:18:52 +0000

Presentation:

Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century

Session:

Law

Tracey L. Meares focuses her research on understanding how members of the public think about their relationships with legal authorities such as police, prosecutors, and judges. She has worked extensively with the federal government, including for the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs Science Advisory Board. Professor Meares is the Walton Hale Hamilton Professor and a Founding Director of the Justice Collaboratory at Yale University Law School.

David W. Oxtoby

sspatterson — Tue, 11 Aug 2020 14:12:09 +0000

Presentation:

Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century

Session:

Session 2

Political Science

David W. Oxtoby is President of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is President Emeritus of Pomona College, and he was a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Graduate School of Education prior to becoming President of the American Academy. As the ninth president of Pomona College, Oxtoby has been recognized as a leader in American higher education. Previously he served as Dean of the Division of Physical Sciences and the William Rainey Harper Distinguished Service Professor of Chemistry at the University of Chicago.

Reading the Popol Vuh in a Time of Crisis

sspatterson — Thu, 06 Aug 2020 14:47:13 +0000

Presenter:

Edgar Garcia

Session 2

In these times of social and epidemiological crisis, it is crucial to consider how our historical antecedents faced emergency. In this lecture, Edgar Garcia examines how the indigenous K’iche’ Maya story of creation the Popol Vuh—written in a time of colonial devastation—helps its readers to rethink the current crisis and the repercussions of the colonialism crisis. The Popol Vuh not only gives critical resonance to our present emergency, it also wishes to show its readers how to reframe emergency as a source of possible (social, political, and intellectual) emergence; how to meet crisis with creativity; and, indeed, how to remember the work of creation that has long confronted the devastation of colonial order. This presentation will be split into a lecture and reading from Garcia’s new collection of essays on the Popol Vuh, to be followed by 15 minutes of Q&A.

Diane P. Wood

sspatterson — Tue, 28 Jul 2020 14:13:49 +0000

Presentation:

Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century

Session:

Session 2

Law School

Diane P. Wood has served as a judge of the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 1995. Her research interests include antitrust—both international and general—federal civil procedure, and international trade and business. Additionally, Wood is Senior Lecturer in the Law School at the University of Chicago.

Eric Slauter

sspatterson — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 20:19:04 +0000

Presentation:

Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century

Session:

Session 2

English Language and Literature

Eric Slauter has published The State as a Work of Art: The Cultural Origins of the Constitution (University of Chicago Press, 2009), examining the relation of culture to politics in revolutionary America. A historian of American thought and culture, his scholarship focuses chiefly on the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Currently, Slauter is working on a project about the material history book entitled “Walden’s Carbon Footprint: People, Plants, Animals, and Machines in the Making of an Environmental Classic.” He is Deputy Dean of the Division of the Humanities, Director of the Karla Scherer Center for the Study of American Culture, and Associate Professor in the Department of English Language and Literature.

William Howell

sspatterson — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 20:17:40 +0000

Presentation:

Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century

Session:

Session 2

Harris School of Public Policy

William Howell has written widely on separation of powers issues, with a particular focus on the American Presidency. The author, most recently, of Presidents, Populism, and the Crisis of Democracy (University of Chicago Press, 2020), William is the Sydney Stein Professor of American Politics at the Harris School of Public Policy, the Chair of the Department of Political Science, the Director of the Center for Effective Government, and co-host of Not Another Politics Podcast.

Tom Ginsburg

sspatterson — Wed, 22 Jul 2020 20:13:38 +0000

Presentation:

Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century

Session:

Session 2

The Law School

Tom Ginsburg advises governments and international organizations on constitutions, legal reform, and democracy. His latest book is How to Save a Constitutional Democracy (2018, with co-author Aziz Huq). Ginsburg is the Leo Spitz Professor of International Law at the University of Chicago, where he also holds an appointment in the Political Science Department. He co-founded the Comparative Constitutions Project, which catalogues the world’s constitutions since 1789, and runs the award-winning Constitute website.

Susan Stokes

sspatterson — Tue, 21 Jul 2020 18:50:59 +0000

Presentation:

Reinventing Democracy for the 21st Century

Session:

Session 2

Political Science

Susan Stokes's research focuses on the emergence, quality, and erosion of democracy, especially in the developing world. Currently, she is writing a book about the referendum as mechanisms of direct democracy—its promises and its limitations. Stokes is the Blake Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of Political Science and Faculty Director of the Chicago Center on Democracy at the University of Chicago.