American Democracy with discussants David Gergen, Bernard-Henri Levy, David M. Kennedy, Michael Sandel and Sean Wilentz. The panel is moderated by Anna Deavere Smith.
A look at politics at home and abroad. How has the notion of "democracy" evolved? What,in fact, is democracy? How did the Founding Fathers view this when they drafted our Constitution? What are the competing notions of democracy historically and presently? What threatens our notions of Democracy today? How well is American democracy working? Can it be transported to other nations?
Some of the most inspired and provocative thinkers, writers, artists, business people, teachers and other leaders drawn from myriad fields and from across the country and around the world all gathered in a single place - to teach, speak, lead, question, and answer at the 2006 Aspen Ideas Festival. Throughout the week, they all interacted with an audience of thoughtful people who stepped back from their day-to-day routines to delve deeply into a world of ideas, thought, and discussion.
Bio
David Gergen
David Gergen is currently a professor of public service at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government and director of its Center for Public Leadership.
He is also editor-at-large for U.S. News and World Report. In earlier years, he served as a White House advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan and Clinton.
David M. Kennedy
David M. Kennedy is the Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History at Stanford University, where he teaches 20th-century U.S. history, American political and social thought, American foreign policy, American literature, and the comparative development of democracy in Europe and America.
A scholar whose work integrates economic and cultural analysis with social and political history, he received the Pulitzer Prize for his book Freedom from Fear: The American People in Depression and War, 1929-1945. His other books include Over Here: The First World War and American Society, The American People in the Depression, and Birth Control in America: The Career of Margaret Sanger.
He is a co-author of the textbook The American Pageant: A History of the Republic, now in its 13th edition.
Bernard-Henri Levy
Bernard-Henri Levy is a French intellectual and businessman.
Michael Sandel
Michael J. Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where he has taught political philosophy since 1980.
He is the author of Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (Cambridge University Press, 1982, 2nd edition, 1997; translated into eight foreign languages), Democracy's Discontent: America in Search of a Public Philosophy (Harvard University Press, 1996), Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics (Harvard University Press, 2005), and The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering (Harvard University Press, 2007).
His writings also appear in general publications such as The Atlantic Monthly, The New Republic, and The New York Times.
Anna Deavere Smith
Anna Deavere Smith is an actor, playwright, teacher, and author. Known for her distinct brand of documentary-theater, she wrote and performed Fires in the Mirror: Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities which was the runner-up for the 1993 Pulitzer Prize and earned her an Obie and Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 which received two Tony Award nominations, an Obie, and numerous other awards.
Currently a professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Smith was the Ford Foundation's first artist-in-residence as well as a MacArthur Fellow. As of July 2009 she is the artist in residence with the Center for American Progress. Smith is also the founder of the Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue and has received honorary degrees from several universities. In 2006, Smith was the first Aspen Institute Harman-Eisner Artist-in-Residence. She also received the 2008 Matrix Award from the New York Women in Communications, Inc. and a Fellow Award in Theater Arts from United States Artists in 2009.
Sean Wilentz
Sean Wilentz is the Dayton-Stockton Professor of History at Princeton University, where he has taught since 1979.
Wilentz took his B.A. at Columbia University in 1972, before earning another B.A. at Oxford University on a Kellett Fellowship and his Ph.D. at Yale University. His historical scholarship has focused mainly on the early years of the American republic.
His major study to date, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln, received the Bancroft Prize in 2006 and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. His first book, Chants Democratic, won several awards, including the Beveridge Award from the American Historical Association.
A contributing editor at The New Republic, Wilentz writes widely on music and the arts as well as history and politics, and has received a Grammy nomination and, from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, a Deems Taylor Award for musical commentary. He is the historian-in-residence of bobdylan.com, the official Bob Dylan web site.
Outstanding forum! Thank you so much. Michael Sandel is the hottest philosopher of the moment (if there is such a thing). Watch the rising star in action.
I believe that the only rules we need is the rule of unconditional love! Living by example to magnify love for the one that needs it most is the universal rule of law. Sort of like in a family to where the parents show love unconditionally, and the children learn not by rule of law, but through rule of love. Love always wins, and is the only rule mankind will ever need to live in harmony in our limited and linear existence.
member. 
