Join the John W. Kluge Center for a conversation with the new Kluge Prize recipient Danielle Allen, covering some of the difficult questions in public life today.
The Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity is given biennially to a person whose career reflects the notion that ideas matter, that thought must inform public policymaking for the nation to thrive and humankind to advance. No one better exemplifies these principles than Dr. Allen.
Allen will discuss how the United States is dealing with the pandemic, what could be done better, what causes protest movements to achieve their goals, and how the Declaration of Independence plays into current calls for equality.
Free registration is available here, and the event will be available beginning at 10am on July 2 on the Library of Congress Youtube.
Danielle Allen is Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics as well as the James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is an internationally-regarded political theorist with an extensive record of scholarship on justice, citizenship, and democracy.
Allen is the author of Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality, an analysis that reinvigorates public understanding of the founding document of the United States.
Her 2017 memoir, Cuz: The Life and Times of Michael A., examines the way that racism in the justice system and mass incarceration impacted her own family. In it, she made a call for equality before the law and civic participation that animates all of her work.
Allen was a 2001 MacArthur “Genius Grant” recipient for her ability to combine “the classicist’s careful attention to texts and language with the political theorist’s sophisticated and informed engagement.”
As a frequent lecturer, contributing columnist for The Washington Post, and regular guest on public radio, Allen discusses issues of citizenship and policy. In her role as director of the Safra Center, Allen has spearheaded an initiative helping to guide the U.S. response to the COVID-19 pandemic.