CANCELLED: A Conversation with Jedediah Purdy

MARCH 25: This event has been cancelled. We apologize for the inconvenience, and encourage you to attend Jedediah Purdy's reading and discussion tomorrow, March 26, at Politics and Prose:

Jedediah Purdy on A Tolerable Anarchy
March 26, 7PM
Politics and Prose
5015 Connecticut Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20008
1-800-722-0790 * 202-364-1919

Freedom has always been an essential part of the American identity. Yet, paradoxically, one of its defining characteristics is its fluidity; the very idea of America is tied to our ability to evolve and to shape our politics and policies to suit new ideals. Jedediah Purdy's A TOLERABLE ANARCHY traces the evolution of freedom's meaning in this country. He grounds his discussion in the stories of individuals from Edmund Burke, Frederick Douglass and Ralph Waldo Emerson to pastor Rick Warren and President Barack Obama. During his campaign, Obama shaped the way millions of people thought about the American idea and the possibility for progress. What will happen now that his presidency has begun?

"Purdy has emerged as one of America's most promising young public intellectuals. This beautifully written book confirms his place. Rich in the history he tells, and brilliant in its insight, the book will change how you think about America, and the challenge we face for its future."-- Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons and author of Free Culture

Jedediah Purdy is the author of For Common Things and Being America. He teaches law at Duke and has also taught at Yale and Harvard. He is a fellow at the New America Foundation, an affiliated scholar at the Center for American Progress, and a contributing editor at The American Prospect. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

Participants

Featured Speaker
Jedediah Purdy
Author, A Tolerable Anarchy: Rebels, Reactionaries, and the Making of American Freedom
Fellow, New America Foundation
Assistant Professor of Law, Duke University Law School

Respondents
Steven Teles
Fellow, New America Foundation
Associate Professor of Political Science, Johns Hopkins University

Mark Schmitt
Executive Editor
The American Prospect

Moderator
Andrés Martinez
Director, Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program
New America Foundation