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Jean Bethke Elshtain is a political philosopher whose task
has been to show the connections between our political and ethical
convictions. She is Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social
and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago.
A graduate of Colorado State University, Elshtain earned a master's
degree in history from Princeton as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and
received her Ph.D. in politics from Brandeis University. She is
a member of the Penn National Commission on Society, Culture, and
Community.
Dr. Elshtain has written many books, including Democracy on
Trial and Real Politics: At the Center of Everyday
Life.
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American Democracy at Century's
End
September 30-October
4, 1997 at the University of Oklahoma
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In this seminar participants explored the perils and possibilities
of American democracy near the end of a turbulent century. Some,
including Dr. Elshtain, have argued that democracy is on trial
and that the outcome is by no means certain. Others are far
more optimistic, believing, as they do, that the strength of
the American economy and our status as the world's last super-power
not only guarantees the health of the American democracy for
the twenty-first century but means, as well, that our democracy
will set the pace for all the fledging democracies in the world.
In this seminar, participants took up the various challenges
to American democracy by exploring certain exigent themes, including
democracy and diversity (or how much we must have 'in common');
the drive toward equality as articulated so brilliantly by Tocqueville
in his great classic; the moral imperative of democracy; religion
and politics, among others.
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The Class Reading List: (These books and articles supplied
by OSLEP)
Alex de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.
Jean Bethke Elshtain, Democracy on Trial.
Abraham Lincoln, Speeches.
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