Ghost of Midnight

… about neighbors, community and Front Porch Forum

Robert Putnam to Speak at UVM

Posted on Wednesday, February 27, 2008 by 5 comments

Robert Putnam will speak at the University of Vermont on April 28, 2008, sharing a lecture titled “Civic Engagement in a Diverse and Changing America.”

Putnam’s Bowling Alone was a ground-breaker documenting the decline of many facets of American community life. Steve Yelvington writes about Putnam briefly this week… here.

Rich Gordon writes in more detail about Putnam’s more recent work, part of which Putnam summarizes as “In colloquial language, people living in ethnically diverse settings appear to ‘hunker down’ – that is, to pull in like a turtle.”

UPDATE:  Just got the following details…

2008 Mark L. Rosen Memorial Lecture
Robert D. Putnam
‘E Pluribus Unum: Rebuilding Community in a Diverse and Changing America’
Monday, April 28, 7 PM – Free and Open to the Public
Silver Maple Ballroom, Dudley H. Davis Center
Reception immediately following
Co-Sponsored by UVM Political Science Department and the Vermont Humanities Council

Professor Putnam is Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard, where he teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses. He has written a dozen books, translated into seventeen languages, including the best-selling Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, and more recently Better Together: Restoring the American Community, a study of promising new forms of social connectedness. His previous book, Making Democracy Work, was praised by the Economist as “a great work of social science, worthy to rank alongside de Tocqueville, Pareto and Weber.” Both Making Democracy work and Bowling Alone rank high among the most cited publications in the social sciences worldwide in the last several decades.

Posted in: Community Building, Front Porch Forum, Social Media, Social Networking


5 comments

  1. david leo-nyquist says:

    any partticular PLACE on campus or any particular TIME on April 28th that this event will take place? (always useful information…)

  2. Michael says:

    Hi David… Good questions. I don’t see the time and location on the online announcement. Since you’re part of UVM, maybe you can find out and report back here?!?! -Michael

  3. Wendy Roth says:

    Will there be an opportunity to meet Dr. Putnam after his talk? I worked for him many years ago when he was teaching at the University of Michigan.

  4. Michael says:

    Good question Wendy. I don’t know the answer… I’m not involved with organizing this event. You could search for the UVM or Fletcher Free Library point of contact and ask them. If you find out anything, please let us know. Cheers!

  5. […] Feldstein, Co-Author of Better Together, which he wrote with Bowling Alone author, Robert Putnam.  Putnam will be speaking at UVM on May 28, […]

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