Wellesley welcomes Danielle Allen for a virtual conversation with President Paula A. Johnson. Allen and Johnson will discuss what comes next for democracy after the 2020 election and the insurrection in the Capitol. Their conversation will focus on what the current crisis has revealed about America’s democracy, and how we need to address our deep-seated political and social divisions.

This event is the culmination of the January Project, an all-campus wintersession throughout the month of January that is designed to provide students with immersive, experiential learning opportunities, and engage the entire community through a series of seminars around the themes of the COVID-19 pandemic, the changing environment, the movement for racial justice, and the 2020 election.

Please register in advance.

Danielle Allen, James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University and Director of Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, is a political theorist who has published broadly in democratic theory, political sociology, and the history of political thought. She is the recipient of the 2020 John W. Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity, an award administered by the Library of Congress that recognizes work in disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prizes.

Widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America, Allen is the author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (2000), Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown vs. the Board of Education (2004), Why Plato Wrote (2010), Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality (2014), Education and Equality (2016), and Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A. (2017). She is the co-editor of the award-winning Education, Justice, and Democracy (2013, with Rob Reich) and From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age (2015, with Jennifer Light).