Washington and Lee’s Mudd Center for Ethics begins series on the ethics of citizenship with Speaker Danielle S. Allen

Danielle S. Allen, professor of government and director of the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University, is the first speaker in the 2015–16 Ethics of Citizen series, sponsored by the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics at Washington and Lee University. Her event will be on Sept. 24 at 5 p.m. in the Stackhouse Theater, Elrod Commons.

Allen will speak on “Participatory Readiness: On the Liberal Arts and the Ethics of Citizenship.” It is free and open to the public.

Allen is a political theorist who has published broadly in democratic theory, political sociology and the history of political thought. She is widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in both ancient Athens and modern America.

Allen is the author of four books, including “Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality” (2014), “Why Plato Wrote” (2010) and “Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship since Brown vs. the Board of Education” (2004).

She is co-editor of the award-winning “Education, Justice, and Democracy” (2013) and “From Voice to Influence: Understanding Citizenship in the Digital Age” (2105). “Education, Justice, and Democracy” was co-edited (with Rob Reich) and won the 2013 Prose Award for Best Book in Education. She is also editor and co-editor of over 30 scholarly articles.

Allen is a chair of the Mellon Foundation board, past chair of the Pulitzer Prize board and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and American Philosophical Society.

She is a frequent public lecturer and regular guest on public radio to discuss issues of citizenship and education policy, as well as a contributor on similar subjects to the Washington Post, Boston Globe, Democracy, Cabinet and The Nation.

She holds an A.B. in classics from Princeton University, an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in classics from Cambridge University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in government from Harvard University.

The Mudd Center was established in 2010 through a gift to the university from award-winning journalist Roger Mudd, a 1950 graduate of W&L. When he made his gift, Mudd said that “given the state of ethics in our current culture, this seems a fitting time to endow a center for the study of ethics, and my university is the fitting home.”

For full details of this series, visit: www.wlu.edu/mudd-center/programs-and-events/2015-2016-the-ethics-of-citizenship.