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"Do We Really Believe in Democracy?" Summer Video Series Pt. 1 from Visiting Scholar Alan Ryan

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Don't let summer keep you from intellectual pursuits! As John Dewey (ΦBK, Univ. of Vermont, 1879) once said, "Education is a social process. Education is growth. Education is not a preparation for life; education is life itself." In that spirit we present the Phi Beta Kappa Summer Video Series. Over the course of the summer, we will post one installment per month of Professor Ryan's videos, each on an original and timely topic.

Here, he compares Athenian, Roman, and modern American democracies and raises questions of what Athenian democracy would look like in present-day America. What if we were all required, as citizens, to spend a few years as members of Congress?

Professor Ryan is former warden of New College and a preeminent scholar whose fields of study include: liberal education, theories of property and philosophy of the social sciences. He has written extensively on these topics, including the books Liberal Anxieties and Liberal Education, John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism, and Bertrand Russell, A Political Life. To receive the next Summer Video Series installment straight to your inbox, please email our Coordinator of Communications.