Arendt and Tocqueville: Public Freedom, Plurality, and the Preconditions of Liberty

EDST is co-sponsoring this presentation by Dana Villa:

In nineteenth century political theory, Alexis de Tocqueville was known for his focus on civil society and his emphasis on a robust associational pluralism in the public sphere. In the twentieth century, Hannah Arendt was equally well-known for her critique of the over-valuation of unity in western political thought, and her emphasis on the phenomenon of human plurality as constitutive of the public realm. Professor Villa’s talk gives both thinkers credit where credit is due, but questions aspects of their thought that undercut their respective commitments to pluralism and plurality in politics.

DANA VILLA is Packey Dee Professor of Political Theory at the University of Notre Dame. He is the author of Arendt and Heidegger: the Fate of the Political (Princeton, 1995), Politics, Philosophy, Terror (Princeton, 1999), Socratic Citizenship (Princeton, 2001), and Public Freedom (Princeton, 2008). Before taking up his position at the University of Notre Dame, he held senior positions at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Santa Barbara. He has also been a Visiting Professor of Government at Harvard, and has held fellowships at the American Academy in Berlin, the Institute for Advanced Study, and Princeton’s University Center for Human Values.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012
SFU Vancouver Campus, Harbour Centre
515 West Hastings
Reception 6–7:30 p.m. Teck Gallery
Presentation 7:30 p.m. room 2270
Further Information: Autumn Knowlton

Community Service Learning: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

At the University of Alaska, Anchorage, on July 14, 2011, EDST Associate Professor Shauna Butterwick presented her paper “Community Service Learning: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” based on her 2010 Faculty of Education HSS grant research into Community Service Learning.

ALGC Students on Campus

In July 2008, several members of the 2006 Cohort of the Adult Learning for Global Change (ALGC) program had the opportunity to meet face to face. The occasion was a course on Lifelong Learning, taught by Dr. Kjell Rubenson on the UBC Vancouver campus. The seminar gave us an opportunity to connect on a more personal level with the program, the participants, and the university. We also had a chance to hear presentations by researchers in addition to Dr. Rubenson such as Dr. Tara Fenwick (now at the University of Stirling, UK) and Dr. Garnet Grosjean (UBC) on current learning projects at both local (provincial) and international scales. Pictured in the photograph, L. to R: Jackie Regan (Windsor, ON), Rowena delRosario (Edmonton, Alberta), Vivian Hermansen (Campbell River, BC) and Fereshteh Dastani (Shanghai, China). The ALGC program was an important rung in our lifelong learning “ladder”—and these interpersonal connections will never disappear.