Get Involved

Call for Participation

The liberal arts play a crucial role in nurturing and safeguarding democracy by advancing diverse viewpoints and cultural experiences, working to promote tolerance and empathy, and counteracting the polarization and animosity threatening democratic institutions.

Such an undertaking involves cultivating the capacity for public reason and the ability to engage in rational deliberation about political matters using arguments and principles that can be understood and potentially accepted by all citizens. These concepts are central to democratic theory, and as such, discussion of the liberal arts’ role is especially relevant in the current intellectual and cultural climate.

Toward that initiative, Rollins College and The Institute for Citizens and Scholars will host a forum for higher education participants and intellectual leaders in this vital and timely conversation.

Attendance Registration

Click here to register your attendence at the conference

Dewey Conference Proposal Submission

We welcome papers that have relevance toward any of the following thematic sections:

I. Civic Education for Democracy, Liberalism, and the Liberal Arts:

In liberal, diverse societies, two fundamental social aims may come into tension: an interest in preserving and cultivating support of democratic institutions, and an interest in respecting intellectual and social autonomy so that citizens are well equipped to make personal choices. Papers might focus on such topics as:

· Investigation of the relationship between basic elements of political liberalism and the cultivation of civic virtue in citizens.

· Exploration of the conditions and limits for the permissibility of civic education in liberal, pluralistic democracies.

· Examination of the goals of civic education and how they should be incorporated into curricula.

*Any work on Dewey, pragmatism in philosophy, and similar topics is welcome as broadly consistent with this theme.

II. The Requirements of Civic Virtue in Liberal Democracy:

A democratic society cannot survive if its citizens are wholly self-interested. Further, public reason necessitates tolerance towards those with whom we disagree on questions of morality and religion, duties of civility, and respect in deliberative fora where democracy actually happens.

Papers might provide:

· Critical analysis of the elements of civic virtue in pluralistic liberal societies—what roll citizens play, or might play, in shaping their societies, and why.

· Discussion of the proper relation between religion, secular considerations, and politics in our conception of good citizenship.

· Consideration of specific skills or dispositions civic virtue should encompass.

· Assessment of the role care, concern, and other moral emotions play, if any, in the conceptualization of civic virtue.

*Any work on Dewey, citizenship, and similar topics, is welcome in this area.

III. Threats to Democracy and How to Build Resiliency:

Democracies in the United States and Western Europe display fragmentation and polarization threatening trust in political institutions. Such destabilization also has the potential to reduce essential cooperation among citizens in a society hoping to sustain democracy.

To this purpose, we are interested in proposals that examine some of the following questions:

· What threatens deliberative democracy, and what can strengthen it?

· Is it possible to reduce the effects of polarization and fragmentation, and if so, how?

· How are democratic values secured in the face of threats to democracy of this sort?

· What can the liberal arts teach us about this dilemma, and can the liberal arts

strengthen democratic governance?

Click here to submit a proposal