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Class, Status, and Luxury Beliefs
Mar 19, 2025, 4:30 pm

Drawing from both personal experience and academic research, Dr. Henderson will discuss his upbringing in foster care, the challenges of childhood instability, and the role of social class in shaping identity, outlook, and opportunity. In addition, he introduces the concept of "luxury beliefs," which critiques how affluent individuals often…

Lecture 2 - In Covid’s Wake: Science, Liberal Democracy, and Elite Failure
Noble Lies and Democracy Under Covid
Feb 27, 2025, 4:30 pm

Liberal democracies rely on truth-seeking institutions insulated from, or capable of rising above, partisan politics: science, universities, and serious journalism. Each were politicized and degraded under Covid. Based on their forthcoming book, In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us (Princeton University Press…

Lecture 1 - In Covid’s Wake: Science, Liberal Democracy, and Elite Failure
‘Following the Science’ Before and During the Covid Pandemic
Feb 26, 2025, 4:30 pm

Liberal democracies rely on truth-seeking institutions insulated from, or capable of rising above, partisan politics: science, universities, and serious journalism. Each were politicized and degraded under Covid. Based on their forthcoming book, In Covid’s Wake: How Our Politics Failed Us (Princeton University Press…

Far Beyond Mental Health: What the New Phone-Based Life is Doing to Human Development, Social Capital, and Democracy
Feb 5, 2025, 4:30 pm

Is the current wave of concern about smartphones and social media just another moral panic, like the ones that arose in response to radio, television, and comic books? Or is the new "phone-based childhood" interfering with human development in an unprecedented way? In The Anxious Generation, Professor Jonathan Haidt focused…

Mountain Memories: Stories of Our Appalachian Boyhoods
Dec 5, 2024, 4:30 pm

The James Madison Program is honored to be welcoming to Princeton University the eminent literary scholar, historian, film-maker, and public intellectual Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. of Harvard University. Professor Gates, who hails from Keyser, West Virginia, will be discussing his upbringing in the heart of Appalachia with his friend and…

Bipartisan Movement for Criminal Justice Reform: Past, Present, Future
Nov 19, 2024, 5:00 pm

From 2010-2020, the nation’s imprisonment rate dropped by more than 25 percent, much of it supported by a bipartisan movement of policymakers and advocates from across the political spectrum working together to support commonsense reforms. Join leading organizations from the left and right who have been at the forefront of efforts to…

Bob Dylan: Prophet without God - Book Talk with Jeffrey Green
Nov 19, 2024, 4:30 pm

Throughout his career, Bob Dylan has always been more than a musician. Whether as an icon of the social movements of the 1960s, a convert to evangelical Christianity publicly wrestling with his faith, or simply a poet of genius, Dylan has occupied a position of moral leadership for more than half a century. Examining these roles collectively,…

In Praise of Racial Liberalism - Tanner Lectures on Human Values: Randall L. Kennedy
Nov 15, 2024, 4:30 pm

Randall Kennedy's lectures will posit the ends and means suitable currently for advancing the cause of racial justice in America. Lecture one will focus on aims: what should racial "justice" mean today? Lecture two will focus on strategy: what are optimal ways of proceeding in a polarized polity in which racial prejudices and resentments…

In Praise of Racial Liberalism - Tanner Lectures on Human Values: Randall L. Kennedy
Nov 14, 2024, 4:30 pm

Randall Kennedy's lectures will posit the ends and means suitable currently for advancing the cause of racial justice in America. Lecture one will focus on aims: what should racial "justice" mean today? Lecture two will focus on strategy: what are optimal ways of proceeding in a polarized polity in which racial prejudices and resentments…

Defending Civilization: A Philosopher on the Frontlines of World Conflict
Nov 12, 2024, 4:30 pm

Drawing on his decades of reporting from Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Nigeria, Libya, Syria, and Israel, globally renowned philosopher, journalist, and filmmaker Bernard-Henri Lévy will discuss his work in the world’s most troubled places and dangerous combat zones. He will impart why, in these fragile times, we must…