Eboo Patel - "We Need to Build" - Yascha Mounk - "The Great Experiment"

Eboo Patel and Yascha Mounk will discuss We Need to Build: Field Notes for Diverse Democracy and The Great Experiment: Why Diverse Democracies Fall Apart and How They Can Endure. They will be joined in conversation by Zeenat Rahman.

Presented in partnership with the Chicago Humanities Festival

This is a ticketed in-person event. It will be held at the UIC Dorin Forum. Masks and proof of vaccination are required. Find more details on health and safety measures here.

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About We Need to Build: From the former faith adviser to President Obama comes an inspirational guide for those who seek to promote positive social change and build a more diverse and just democracy. The goal of social change work is not a more ferocious revolution; it is a more beautiful social order. It is harder to organize a fair trial than it is to fire up a crowd, more challenging to build a good school than it is to tell others they are doing education all wrong. But every decent society requires fair trials and good schools, and that’s just the beginning of the list of institutions and structures that need to be efficiently created and effectively run in large-scale diverse democracy. We Need to Build is a call to create those institutions and a guide for how to run them well.

About Eboo Patel: Dr. Eboo Patel is the founder and president of Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC). He is a respected leader on national issues of religious diversity, civic engagement, and the intersection of racial equity and interfaith cooperation. He is the author of four books and dozens of articles. He served on President Obama’s Inaugural Faith Council. While earning a doctorate in the sociology of religion from Oxford University on a Rhodes scholarship, Eboo began organizing interfaith projects around the world, laying the groundwork for what would become IFYC. Patel is an Ashoka Fellow, a member of the Young Global Leaders Network of the World Economic Forum and has served on the Religious Advisory Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations and the National Committee of the Aga Khan Foundation. He has been awarded the Louisville Grawemeyer Prize in Religion, the Guru Nanak Interfaith Prize, the El Hibri Peace Education Prize, the Council of Independent Colleges Academic Leadership Award, along with honorary degrees from 15 colleges. Eboo’s contributions include the books Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, in the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation; Sacred Ground: Pluralism, Prejudice, and the Promise of America; Interfaith Leadership: A Primer; and Out of Many Faiths: Religious Diversity and the American Promise. His op-eds and interviews have appeared in The New York Times, Washington Post, The Chronicle of Higher Education, on National Public Radio, and The PBS NewsHour. He also publishes a regular blog for Inside Higher Ed, called "Conversations on Diversity."

About The Great Experiment: Some democracies are highly homogeneous. Others have long maintained a brutal racial or religious hierarchy, with some groups dominating and exploiting others. Never in history has a democracy succeeded in being both diverse and equal, treating members of many different ethnic or religious groups fairly. And yet achieving that goal is now central to the democratic project in countries around the world. It is, Yascha Mounk argues, the greatest experiment of our time. The Great Experiment is that rare book that offers both a profound understanding of an urgent problem and genuine hope for our human capacity to solve it. As Mounk contends, giving up on the prospects of building fair and thriving diverse democracies is simply not an option—and that is why we must strive to realize a more ambitious vision for the future of our societies.

About Yascha Mounk: Yascha Mounk is a writer and academic known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. Born in Germany to Polish parents, Mounk received his BA in history from Trinity College, University of Cambridge, and his PhD in government from Harvard University. He is now an Associate Professor of the Practice of International Affairs at Johns Hopkins University and the founder of Persuasion. Mounk is also a contributing editor at The Atlantic and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

About Zeenat Rahman: Zeenat Rahman is the Executive Director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago. Prior to this role, she led the Inclusive America Project at the Aspen Institute. Zeenat previously served as a Presidential Political Appointee, as a Special Adviser to Secretaries Clinton and Kerry on Global Youth Issues at the U.S. Department of State on Global Youth Issues. She served as Director of the Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the United States Agency for International Development. Zeenat is a frequent speaker and commentator who has spoken at venues such as the United Nations, the Nobel Peace Prize Forum, and the White House; and appeared on CNN, MSNBC, and many international news outlets. She is a board member of IREX. She is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Truman National Security Fellow. She received a master’s degree in Middle East studies from the University of Chicago, and a BA in psychology from the University of Illinois.