Bryn Mawr College Professor and Acting Chair of Political Science Joel Alden Schlosser rethinks the future of democracy and ecology in his book, Earthborn Democracy.
What is political order? What is worth dying for? How should we organize ourselves? These are the questions that Schlosser poses in his classroom–and at his dinner table.
A lifelong lover of all things political theory, Schlosser’s passion for intellectual inquiry took him to Carleton College and then to Duke University for his master’s and doctorate degrees. But simply participating in academia wasn’t enough for Schlosser. He wanted to live, breathe, and eat it.
“I started graduate school 20 years ago at Duke University, and my classes weren’t as intellectually vital as I wanted them to be,” says Schlosser. “There was this professional bent to the discussions that were happening, so I started seeking spaces outside of the classroom where I could engage in freer discussion. One of those spaces was a reading group I created with two other grad students, which we’ve continued even after we finished our Ph.D. s, moved to different institutions across the country, got married and had families–you name it. We call it Dinner and Democracy, because the group is dedicated to thinking about democracy and its origins and history, and when we’re together, we cook dinner for each other.”
It was at one of Schlosser’s Dinner and Democracy nights that the inspiration for the book, Earthborn Democracy, came to be. As the conversations evolved from pleasantries to debates, the trio realized that they had the power to write the ultimate Dinner and Democracy book, one that encapsulates the theories Schlosser and his friends have developed over 20 years of dinner conversation.
“We got together in Amherst, Mass., where one of us was living, and we just started spitballing ideas. I have pictures of our yellow legal pads covered with notes, which became the beginnings of the book. We tried writing our book in typical academic fashion–we assigned each other sections and then pieced them together–and it just did not work very well.” So Schlosser and his co-authors and dinner club members, Mount Holyoke College Associate Professor Ali Aslam and Colorado State University Associate Professor David W. McIvor, spent weeks at Airbnbs, on Zoom calls, and logged countless hours in their shared Google Doc to achieve a true collaborative energy.
“Every word that’s in the book was written when we were all there together, either physically or on Zoom. We would all work in the same document with one of us typing, one of us dictating, and one of us critiquing or interjecting. Sometimes we would have to stop and talk about things, like ‘Hey, I don’t like the direction this argument is taking; let’s try this.’ The result is a book that I truly couldn’t have written alone. It is a synthesis of our three different forms of thinking, experiences and backgrounds.”
Earthborn Democracy is an attempt to envision what a sustainable democracy might look like. A democracy that both motivates people to participate in it and one that solves the problem of declining commitment to democratic values and practices, all while responding to the ecological climate crisis currently unfolding. The book’s argument denies that the United States needs to transition away from democracy just because the populus may not support the changes necessary to adapt and respond to the climate crisis. Earthborn Democracy agrees that a democratic response is warranted, and it needs to support not only humankind, but nature as a whole.
“A lot of people in my field are focusing on policy. ‘What’s the policy response?’ And ultimately, if policies are still working under the assumption that humans have mastery over the earth, over nature, then we are going to continue to face the same problems over time,” Schlosser says.
Schlosser credits Bryn Mawr’s culture of intellectual inquiry, experimentation, creativity, and imagination for making Earthborn Democracy possible.
“I am truly grateful for Bryn Mawr’s support and trust in this book’s unconventional process. It was special to feel so confident in the book and see so many faculty members support our work. I’m not sure if I could have done this anywhere else.”
Schlosser is teaching Ancient and Early Modern Political Philosophy and, with Molly Farneth, associate professor of religion at Haverford College, Virtue, Friendship, and Democracy this semester.