Danielle Allen Discusses Politics, Propaganda and the Use and Abuse of Sound-Bites

In an election year, the public is inundated with political advertising in print and on the radio and television.  Commentators opine about who should be elected and why.  Everyone is an expert, and sound-bites are ubiquitous.  Danielle Allen, UPS Foundation Professor in the School of Social Science at the Institute for Advanced Study, will provide insights into this phenomenon in her talk, What to Do with Sound-Bites: On Politics and Propaganda in the 21st Century.  The lecture will take place on Wednesday, February 27 at 4:30 p.m. in Wolfensohn Hall on the Institute's campus.

With the onslaught of sound-bites comes popular discussion about the degradation of political conversation. But is a sound-bite really such a bad thing?  In the Western context, Homer was the first purveyor of them and Aristotle offered the first theory of them, but he called them maxims. Professor Allen's lecture will explore why sound-bites are a necessary and valuable part of political conversation, consider the ways in which they are also dangerous, and analyze the particular challenges to political discourse presented by the new media of the 21st century.  She will explain that, at the end of the day, it is listeners, not speakers, who have the most work to do to deal responsibly with sound-bites.

Professor Allen, who joined the Faculty of the Institute in July 2007, received her undergraduate education in Classics at Princeton University.  She was awarded an M.Phil. and Ph.D. in Classics from Cambridge University and went on to Harvard University, where she received her M.A. and Ph.D. in political science.  She came to the Institute from the University of Chicago, where she served most recently as Dean of the Division of Humanities and Professor of Classical Languages and Literatures, Political Science and the Committee on Social Thought. 

Widely known for her work on justice and citizenship in ancient Athens and its application to modern America, Professor Allen is the author of The World of Prometheus: The Politics of Punishing in Democratic Athens (Princeton University Press, 2000) and Talking to Strangers: Anxieties of Citizenship Since Brown vs. the Board of Education (University of Chicago Press, 2004).  In 2002, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship for her ability to combine "the classicist's careful attention to texts and language with the political theorist's sophisticated and informed engagement."

Her current projects include a book on the Declaration of Independence, equality and the rule of law and a book on the relation between particular sociologies of change and political ethics.

For further information about this event, which is free and open to the public, please call (609) 734-8175, or visit the Public Events page on the Institute website, www.ias.edu.