PPE Distinguished Public Lecture: Bruce Ackerman

American Legal Scholar Bruce Ackerman will deliver the 2025 PPE Distinguished Public Lecture at Virginia Tech.

Bruce Ackerman has served as the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University. He is the author of nineteen books in political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy.

Professor Ackerman is a Commander of the French Order of Merit, a member of the American Law Institute, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The American Philosophical Society has awarded him the Henry Phillips Prize for lifetime achievement in Jurisprudence, especially noting his exploration of the great turning points in American constitutional history in his three-volume series, We the People. The book considers today’s U.S. constitution as the product of three great exercises in popular sovereignty, led by the Founding Federalists in the 1780s, the Reconstruction Republicans in the 1860s, and the New Deal Democrats in the 1930s.

Professor Ackerman’s scholarship has had a global impact. He has been named a Leading Global Thinker by Foreign Policy magazine. His book, Before the Next Attack (2006), served as a basis for the reform of the French constitution dealing with emergency powers. The Stakeholder Society (with Anne Alstott) has served as the basis for reform initiatives in Brazil, Britain, and elsewhere.

His most recent book, Revolutionary Constitutions (2019), puts the world-wide constitutional crisis in historical perspective and discusses the current assault on checks-and-balances. The book offers a robust defense of democratic populism, considering it not necessarily as a threat to the democratic world.

At Virginia Tech, Professor Ackerman will speak about “Rebuilding Our Shattered Democracy: The Race Against Time.”

The lecture will take place on March 26, 2025, from 5-6:30pm in the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre of the Moss Arts Center. No tickets are required. The lecture will be followed by a public reception.

All faculty, students, and members of the public are cordially invited to attend this event.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact ppe@nullvt.edu at least ten business days before the event.