Coolidge Corner Theatre Brookline, MA
Robert Putnam
Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University
Join or Die— Community connections
Program Description
Join or Die is a film about why you should join a club—and why the fate of America depends on it. After the screening, Harvard professor and legendary social scientist Robert Putnam (Bowling Alone) will discuss his research into America's decades-long decline in community connections, and what we can do to reverse this trend.
Presented At
Coolidge Corner Theatre Brookline, MA
Film Synopsis
Centers on America's civic unraveling through the journey of scientist Robert Putnam, whose research on the decline in American community lights a path out of our democracy's present crisis.
In this feature documentary, follow the half-century story of America's civic unraveling through the journey of legendary social scientist Robert Putnam, whose groundbreaking "Bowling Alone" research into America's decades-long decline in community connections could hold the answers to our democracy's present crisis.
Flanked by influential fans and scholars — from Hillary Clinton, Pete Buttigieg, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy to Eddie Glaude Jr., Raj Chetty, and Priya Parker — as well as inspiring groups building community in neighborhoods across the country, join Bob as he explores three urgent civic questions: What makes democracy work? Why is American democracy in crisis? And, most importantly… What can we do about it?
Photo courtesy of Abramorama
About the Speaker
Robert Putnam is the Malkin Research Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, having retired from active teaching in May 2018. Raised in a small town in the Midwest and educated at Swarthmore, Oxford, and Yale, he has served as Dean of the Kennedy School of Government. Professor Putnam has written fifteen books, translated into twenty languages, including the best-selling Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, and more recently, Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis, a groundbreaking examination of the growing opportunity gap.
He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the British Academy, and past president of the American Political Science Association. In 2006 Putnam received the Skytte Prize, the world’s highest accolade for a political scientist, in 2013 President Barack Obama awarded him the National Humanities Medal, the nation’s highest honor for contributions to the humanities, for “deepening our understanding of community in America,” and in 2018 the International Political Science Association awarded him the Karl Deutsch Award for cross-disciplinary research. He has received sixteen honorary degrees from eight countries, including in 2018, the University of Oxford.