Brandon M. Terry at the Cambridge Public Library

Harvard Book Store and the Cambridge Public Library welcome Brandon M. Terry—John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Codirector of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research—for a discussion of his new book Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope: A Tragic Vision of the Civil Rights Movement. He will be joined in conversation by Danielle Allen—James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University, Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Democratic Knowledge Project-Learn at the Harvard Graduate School of Education—and Michael Sandel—Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University and the bestselling author of The Tyranny of Merit and Democracy’s Discontent.

RSVP for free to this event or choose the "Book-Included" ticket to reserve a copy of Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope and pick it up at the event. Brandon M. Terry will sign copies of his book after the presentation.

Note: Books bundled with tickets may only be picked up at the venue the night of the event, and cannot be picked up in-store beforehand. Ticket holders who purchased a book-included ticket and are unable to attend the event will be able to pick up their book at Harvard Book Store up to 30 days following the event. This offer expires after 30 days. Please note we cannot guarantee signed copies will be available to ticket holders who do not attend the event.

A landmark reinterpretation of the civil rights movement that challenges reductive heroic narratives of the 1950s and 1960s and invigorates new debates and possibilities for the future of the struggle for liberation.We are all familiar with the romantic vision of the civil rights movement: a moment when heroic African Americans and their allies triumphed over racial oppression through courageous protest, forging a new consensus in American life and law. But what are the effects of this celebratory storytelling? What happens when a living revolt against injustice becomes an embalmed museum piece?In this innovative work, Brandon Terry develops a novel theory of interpretation to show how competing accounts of the civil rights movement circulate through politics and political philosophy. The dominant narrative is romantic. This “arc of justice” narrative is found in popular histories, the speeches of Barack Obama, and even the writings of the liberal philosopher John Rawls. Despite being public orthodoxy, these romantic visions are exhausted and unpersuasive on their own terms. The breakdown of the authority of this history of justice has created space for a rival ironic mode, embodied in the political ideas of Afropessimism. While offering a sympathetic critique, Terry ultimately finds Afropessimist thought self-undermining and unworkable.Instead, he argues, the civil rights movement is best understood in tragic terms. By challenging the attachment to triumphant pasts, Terry demonstrates that tragedy exemplifies what the civil rights movement has been and can still be. Provocative and original, Shattered Dreams, Infinite Hope offers an optimistic political vision without naïveté, to train our judgment and resilience in the face of reasonable despair.

Brandon M. Terry is John L. Loeb Associate Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard University and Codirector of the Institute on Policing, Incarceration, and Public Safety at the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research. He is the coeditor, with Tommie Shelby, of To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and editor of Fifty Years Since MLK.

Danielle Allen is James Bryant Conant University Professor at Harvard University. She is also Director of the Allen Lab for Democracy Renovation at the Harvard Kennedy School and Director of the Democratic Knowledge Project-Learn, a research lab focused on civic education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is a professor of political philosophy, ethics, and public policy as well as a seasoned nonprofit leader, democracy advocate, tech ethicist, distinguished author, and mom. She is a contributing columnist at The Atlantic Magazine and was the 2020 winner of the Library of Congress' Kluge Prize, which recognizes scholarly achievement in the disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prize. She received the Prize "for her internationally recognized scholarship in political theory and her commitment to improving democratic practice and civics education."

Michael Sandel is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University and author of The Tyranny of Merit. His writings—on justice, ethics, democracy, and markets--have been translated into more than 30 languages. His course “Justice” is the first Harvard course to be made freely available online and on television and has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world. Sandel’s books relate enduring themes of political philosophy to the most vexing moral and civic questions of our time. They include The Tyranny of Merit: Can We Find the Common Good?; Democracy's Discontent: A New Edition for Our Perilous Times; What Money Can’t Buy:The Moral Limits of Markets; Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?; The Case against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering; Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics; and Liberalism and the Limits of Justice.

Masks are encouraged but not required for this event.

The Cambridge Public Library serves as a doorway to opportunity, self-development, and recreation for all its residents, and as a forum where they may share ideas, cultures, and resources among themselves and with people around the globe. Learn more at cambridgema.gov/cpl.

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