Writing for Change: Democracy in Crisis

Event Description

American democracy is in crisis. According to Gallup, only 34% of Americans are satisfied with how it’s functioning—a historic low. Trust in government and institutions is eroding. There is a question facing all of us: Where do we go from here?

Join Jill Lepore, author of We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution, and Danielle Allen, author of Justice by Means of Democracy and founder of Partners in Democracy, for a vital conversation about the state of our democracy, America's foundational documents, and the role that storytelling plays in shaping our nation’s narrative and molding the arguments for political reform. Come with questions and leave with practical ways to get involved in efforts to fight for, write about, and strengthen our democratic systems.

Rishi Reddi, author and steering committee member of the Massachusetts chapter of Writers for Democratic Action, will moderate the conversation.

This event is co-sponsored by the MA chapter of Writers for Democratic Action.

About the Speakers

Jill Lepore is the David Woods Kemper ’41 Professor of American History at Harvard University and professor of law at Harvard Law School. She is also a staff writer at The New Yorker. Her many books include the international bestseller These Truths: A History of the United States. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her latest book is entitled We the People: A history of the U.S. Constitution.

Danielle Allen is James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Democratic Knowledge Project-Learn, a research lab focused on civic education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. The author of many acclaimed books, her latest is entitled Justice by means of Democracy.

Rishi Reddi is the author of the novel Passage West, a Los Angeles Times “Best California Book of 2020” and Karma and Other Stories, which received the 2008 L.L. Winship /PEN New England Award for Fiction. Her short stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories, been broadcast on NPR, and earned honorable mention in the Pushcart Prize. Her reviews, essays and translations have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, Kirkus Reviews, LitHub, Partisan Review, Alta Journal, and Air/Light, among others. Rishi has received fellowships and grants from the National Book Critics Circle, MacDowell Colony, Bread Loaf, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and the U.S. Department of State. She lives in Cambridge, MA.