Meet the Facilitators

July 1: Welcome and Opening Session

July 2 Session 1A (9 am EDT): Jason's Journey to Leadership and the Golden Fleece

This workshop will examine emotional intelligence by looking at specific sections of Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica (usually called Jason and the Argonauts). You will see how Jason practices his skills and can think about how to use your own emotional intelligence skills to develop your own leadership.

July 2 Session 1B (9 am EDT): Words that Hurt, Words that Smile

This experiential workshop aims at combating hate speech through human rights education. Participants discuss the issue of verbal violence, identify the psycho-emotional and social factors that trigger such behaviors, practice verbal violence management strategies and become familiar with alternative “Smiling words” to define diversity with respect for the particularity of the Other.

July 2 Session 2A (1 pm EDT): Don't Become Caesarified!

Why should we put up with others with whom we disagree? And how do we cultivate the virtues that enable us to endure the pain of disagreement? Through selected readings of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, this workshop will explore the lessons that ancient Stoicism can offer us for conceptualizing, and problematizing, the idea of tolerance.

July 2 Session 2B (1 pm EDT): Control or Create

While the ‘negative’ or ‘freedom from’ demands of popular sovereignty are considerable, the ‘positive’ or ‘freedom to’ demands are no less important; and while ‘power over’ others is exercised as control, ‘empowerment of others’ is exercised as creative action. We will examine how good democratic leadership demands exercise of creative activity not simply control over humans (e.g. voting or official public service).

July 2 Session 3 (6 pm EDT): Campfire Mixer!

Spend some time getting to know your fellow campers and facilitators around a virtual campfire. Using design-thinking games and techniques, we will strengthen our network and learn more about each other’s talents and aspirations as we embark on our own journeys to democratic leadership.

July 3 Session 1A (9 am EDT): Democratic Agency, Freedom, and Utopian World-Building

We will consider the rejection of individual democratic subjectivity and its pluralist reimagination by examining Aristophanes’ ancient utopian comedy, The Assemblywomen (391 BCE). Aristophanes’ work playfully critiques traditional Athenian democracy’s elevation of the individual at the expense of the collective and its neglect of positive liberty. This utopianism has serious implications for our own conceptions of agency and freedom.

July 3 Session 1B (9 am EDT): Creativity and Imagination in Democratic Education

Lateral thinking, problem solving, and creative thinking techniques for teams can empower common efforts and give a positive feeling of co-creating change for the better. We will work in teams and explore how we could solve in different ways serious social problems of our time.

July 3 Session 2A (1 pm EDT): Storytelling and Public Life

How do public figures “control the narrative” to shape their images, advance their careers, and establish their legacies? We will study the role of storytelling (in various forms) in the career of US Senator John McCain, with the aim of becoming critical readers of the stories that surround us.

July 3 Session 2B (1 pm EDT): Let's Kill Caesar (and Then Bury Him)

This workshop will examine a portion of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar through some active learning activities. You will participate in an activity that will let you practice problem-solving, active-listening and other leadership skills. Then you will learn about crowd and mob mentalities as you listen to the speeches that Antony and Brutus give at Caesar’s funeral. Come join the mob!

July 3 Session 3A (6 pm EDT): The "Leaders" of the Dance

This workshop is designed to work through inconspicuous kinds of leadership. Communities more often than not require leaders who are aware of their own limits and limitations. All humans are imperfect and vulnerable; we are all mortal and ignorant of many things. Leaders who forget this run the risk of overstepping and harming their communities and themselves. Instead, they should be bound to their companions through regular expressions and routines of mutual respect. Sometimes, these expressions involve compassion, silence, and composure. Aristotle notes that the skills of the leader of a singing and dancing chorus are not the same as those who follow, and yet no one who would perform louder or more beautifully would be allowed to join (Politics III). Leaders of a chorus, as Aristotle has it, must lead while performing the same steps in the same way as the other dancers. Good choral leaders are skilled in ways that do not outshine their companions, and the success of all of the dancers requires an awareness of and training around this principle. The experience of all chorus members, whether leaders or followers, as they trained to move together in time must have been of great reverence and fellow-feeling. In this workshop, we will use the songs of dramatic choruses to think about and experience inconspicuous kinds of leadership.

July 3 Session 3B (6 pm EDT): Democracy on Trial (Ancient Drama)

Through a selected reading of Aeschylus’ Eumenides and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar this we will explore how theatre can promote and problematize aspects of democratic leadership.

July 4 Session 1A (9 am EDT): Democratic Leadership is Language

What kind of language do democratic leaders use? Through an analysis of speeches by American and Greek politicians we will delve into the discourses of collaboration and commitment, and we will look into the linguistic mechanics and rhetorical strategies, whereby democratic leadership is constructed linguistically.

July 4 Session 1B (9 am EDT): Promoting Democracy through Public Speaking and Thinking

A public speaker is a person committed to sharing feelings and ideas, trying to unite others under one purpose. Participants of this workshop will look into famous speeches and decode the secrets of Rhetoric, specifically those connected with the triptych of Ethos, Pathos, Logos.

July 5 Session 1A (9 am EDT): From Political Polarization to Reconciliation

Extreme partisan division appears distinctive to our current moment, as political parties seem to be engaged in a zero-sum game of moral and political domination. This fracturing of political identity, as well as the politics of reconciliation, is familiar to the history of the first democratic polity, Athens. We will consider two key inflection points of political disorder and social collapse in Athenian history, in 411 and 403 BCE. In both of these moments, the Athenian populace was presented with the set of problems associated with reintegrating a citizen body into a political unity, even as it was bitterly divided.

July 5 Session 1B (9 am EDT): The Authority to Lead

Leadership is necessary for a well-functioning democratic society, yet its practice is prone to the vices of manipulation and pandering, among others. Political leaders who manipulate the people risk weakening the practices of popular sovereignty, while those who pander abdicate the duties of responsible leadership in order to secure political power. This workshop will explore these problems through a selected reading of Jeffrey Stout’s Blessed Are the Organized, which develops a concept of democratic leadership through an examination of the organizing practices of the Industrial Areas Foundation.

July 5 Session 2A (1 pm EDT): The Teachings of Vanity

How can studying the vanity of public figures help aspiring leaders understand the value of critical reflection? In this workshop we will analyze the story behind two political cartoons of President Lyndon B. Johnson and discuss the intersections between vanity and gender as they pertain to leadership.

July 5 Session 2B (1 pm EDT): Conflict Resolution - Contradictions in the Good

Free people in groups eventually conflict: the goods of one and another are apparently incompatible. In some conflicts, goods may genuinely and irreducibly conflict; and in other cases the possibility of fitting the conflicting goods together is exceedingly difficult to know. We will consider the five ‘levels’ of conflict and propose ways to approach understanding contradictions in the good.

July 5 Session 3A (6 pm EDT): Playing the Tyrant

George R. R. Martin has said, “Very few people wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh, I’m evil. What evil can I do today?’… The greatest monsters of history, as we look back at them, thought they were the heroes of the story.… All of us have it within ourselves to be heroes; all of us have it within ourselves to be villains.” This workshop is designed both to think through and to experience the proximity of villainy to virtue. How do leaders become villains and tyrants? What might have kept them on the paths of virtue? What might we learn from enacting the slide from virtue to villainy? Ancient Greek theater often staged the signs and consequences of leadership going profoundly wrong. Some communities thought it critical that citizens watch and perform reactions to tyranny, whether as spectators in the theater, young members of the chorus joining in the staged action, or in venues where set pieces of villainy might be reperformed. In this workshop, we will explore how ancient critics theorized the effects of enacting tyrannical behavior, and we will theorize the effects ourselves through dramatic performance of leaders behaving badly.

July 5 Session 3B (6 pm EDT): Democracy on Trial (Modern Drama)

Through a selected reading of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible and Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee’s Inherit the Wind this workshop will examine how dramatic works can reflect the successes and shortcomings of a collaborative and participatory government.

July 6 Session 1A (9 am EDT): Democratic Leadership is Empathy

With a focus on speeches by female politicians, including Kamala Harris and Jacinda Ardern, in this workshop we will focus on the discourses of connection and improvement, which in unison form empathy, one of the cornerstones of democratic leadership. We will flesh out the sociocultural linguistic mechanisms, whereby these two women connect with their people both on and offstage.

July 6 Session 1B (9 am EDT): Designing Educational Programs for Active Citizenship

July 6 Session 2A (1 pm EDT): Don't Become Caesarified!

Why should we put up with others with whom we disagree? And how do we cultivate the virtues that enable us to endure the pain of disagreement? Through selected readings of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, this workshop will explore the lessons that ancient Stoicism can offer us for conceptualizing, and problematizing, the idea of tolerance.

July 6 Session 2B (1 pm EDT): Let's Kill Caesar (and Then Bury Him)

This workshop will examine a portion of Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar through some active learning activities. You will participate in an activity that will let you practice problem-solving, active-listening and other leadership skills. Then you will learn about crowd and mob mentalities as you listen to the speeches that Antony and Brutus give at Caesar’s funeral. Come join the mob!

July 6 Session 3A (6 pm EDT): Gender, Identity, and Power

Explore the concept of intersectionality through a discussion of art and the rhetoric of extraordinary women leaders in history. Using the elements of portrayal—visual clues—we will practice reading art objects and analyze how visual culture can help us approach current unique challenges in our communities.

July 6 Session 3B (6 pm EDT): How to Be a Leader

Does a manual for good democratic leadership exist? In this workshop we explore three essays written by the Greek philosopher and biographer Plutarch of Chaeronea (first-second century AD), all of which aim to instruct readers about the nature of moral and effective democratic leadership. We’ll read critically, to see what we can apply to modern society, but also to understand what Plutarch gets wrong and why.

July 7 Session 1A (9 am EDT): From Political Polarization to Reconciliation

Extreme partisan division appears distinctive to our current moment, as political parties seem to be engaged in a zero-sum game of moral and political domination. This fracturing of political identity, as well as the politics of reconciliation, is familiar to the history of the first democratic polity, Athens. We will consider two key inflection points of political disorder and social collapse in Athenian history, in 411 and 403 BCE. In both of these moments, the Athenian populace was presented with the set of problems associated with reintegrating a citizen body into a political unity, even as it was bitterly divided.

July 7 Session 1B (9 am EDT): Human Rights Court

A Mock Trial workshop where participants, inspired by Speak Truth To Power movement, bring much-needed attention to continuing abuses: we will experience the capacity of each individual to create change, by playing out a real case that came before the European Court of Human Rights.

July 7 Session 2A (1 pm EDT): How to Be a Leader

Does a manual for good democratic leadership exist? In this workshop we explore three essays written by the Greek philosopher and biographer Plutarch of Chaeronea (first-second century AD), all of which aim to instruct readers about the nature of moral and effective democratic leadership. We’ll read critically, to see what we can apply to modern society, but also to understand what Plutarch gets wrong and why.

July 7 Session 2B (1 pm EDT): Character and Mimesis - Leading By Virtuous Example

We will contemplate the distinction between embodying and constituting the good, and offer exercises to help the democratic leader empower and educate others by virtuous example rather than either self-glorification (including under cynical martyr’s erasure) or command.

July 7 Session 3A (6 pm EDT): Playing the Tyrant

George R. R. Martin has said, “Very few people wake up in the morning and say, ‘Oh, I’m evil. What evil can I do today?’… The greatest monsters of history, as we look back at them, thought they were the heroes of the story.… All of us have it within ourselves to be heroes; all of us have it within ourselves to be villains.” This workshop is designed both to think through and to experience the proximity of villainy to virtue. How do leaders become villains and tyrants? What might have kept them on the paths of virtue? What might we learn from enacting the slide from virtue to villainy? Ancient Greek theater often staged the signs and consequences of leadership going profoundly wrong. Some communities thought it critical that citizens watch and perform reactions to tyranny, whether as spectators in the theater, young members of the chorus joining in the staged action, or in venues where set pieces of villainy might be reperformed. In this workshop, we will explore how ancient critics theorized the effects of enacting tyrannical behavior, and we will theorize the effects ourselves through dramatic performance of leaders behaving badly.

July 7 Session 3B (6 pm EDT): Motivations to Lead (What are They? Do They Matter?)

Why might someone go above and beyond to promote democratic ideas of equality? And do these motivations even matter, or only the end result? This workshop will interrogate the varied motivations behind Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and Kennedy’s 1963 televised address on the topic of Civil Rights in America.

July 8: Closing Session (1 pm EDT)