An Incomplete Liberalism? Reading Brandeis after Charlottesville
26th Annual Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Lecture in Judaic Studies
In person with reception to follow; virtual option available
Class of 1978 Orrery Pavilion, 6th floor, Van Pelt-Dietrich Library, 3420 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA
Today Justice Louis Brandeis is regarded as an icon of American liberalism. Yet even as he transformed American law and democracy in his time, the lawyer known as the “Jewish Thomas Jefferson” resisted fully applying his own principles to questions of race and nationalism. Can his ideas therefore still speak to our contemporary democratic crisis? In this lecture, historian James Loeffler reexamines Brandeis’s legacy to explore how law can empower democracy at home and abroad.
This event will be in-person with a virtual option. If you are attending in-person, please join us after the talk for a reception and a special library exhibit displaying primary sources related to Louis Brandeis.
Featuring
James Loeffler
University of Virginia
James Loeffler is Jay Berkowitz Professor of Jewish History at the University of Virginia, where he also serves as Ida and Nathan Kolodiz Director of the Jewish Studies Program. His books include the multiple award-winning 2018 work Rooted Cosmopolitans: Jews and Human Rights in the Twentieth Century. He co-edits the Association for Jewish Studies Review, and writes frequently for national publications on law and Jewish affairs.
Cosponsors
The Department of History, the Jewish Studies Program, and the Gruss Program in Talmudic Civil Law at the Carey Law School at the University of Pennsylvania