“A Republic, If You Can Keep It”: the Constitution, & Civic Participation

Join us for a conversation about Benjamin Franklin, the Founders, the drafting of the Constitution, and Philadelphia's central role.
About this Event

Join historian Stacy Schiff and constitutional scholar Akhil Amar for an afternoon of storytelling and conversation about Benjamin Franklin, the Founders, the drafting of the Constitution, and Philadelphia’s central role in it all.

Part of Penn’s America 250 speaker series, this special event falls on National Voter Registration Day, coincides with Constitution Week, and will remind us all of the enduring power of civic participation. President Jameson will offer opening remarks and Vice Provost for Global Initiatives Ezekiel Emanuel will moderate. Copies of Schiff’s and Amar’s latest books will be available to event attendees.

After the discussion, join Perry World House outside off Locust Walk for a Penn America 250 and National Voter Registration Day celebration featuring special performances and ice cream. Click here to learn more about National Voter Registration Day at Penn!

Opening Remarks:

J. Larry Jameson, President of the University of Pennsylvania and Trustees University Professor

Speakers:

Stacy Schiff is a historian and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. She is known for her critically acclaimed biographies of major historical figures, including Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the Pulitzer Prize; Saint-Exupéry, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; Cleopatra: A Life, winner of the National Book Award and a #1 bestseller, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, winner of the George Washington Book Prize; The Witches: Salem, 1692, and The Revolutionary: Samuel Adams.

Akhil Reed Amar is Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, where he teaches constitutional law in both Yale College and Yale Law School. After graduating from Yale, he clerked for Judge (later Justice) Stephen Breyer, and by some accounts has become America’s second most-cited legal scholar still under age 70. The first volume of his ambitious trilogy on American constitutional history from the Founding to the present, The Words That Made Us: America’s Constitutional Conversation, 1760-1840, came out in May 2021. The second volume, Born Equal: Remaking America’s Constitution, 1840-1920, was published in September 2025.

Moderator:

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD, is Vice Provost for Global Initiatives and the Diane v.S. Levy and Robert M. Levy University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds appointments in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine and the Department of Health Care Management in the Wharton School. He also created and teaches the online course “Benjamin Franklin and His World.”