Berlin Centenary Conference at Harvard

Isaiah Berlin: Centennial Reflections

Harvard University, September 25th-26th 2009

Tsai Auditorium, Center for Government and International Studies,

1730 Cambridge St, Cambridge MA








Friday September 25
10:00am Welcoming Remarks

10:15-12:30pm Politics Between Utopia and Reality
Michael Walzer – Should We Reclaim Political Utopianism

Malachi Hacohen – Cosmopolitanism, the European Nation State and Jewish Life: Berlin and Popper

2:15-4:30pm Literature and the History of Ideas
Svetlana Boym – Dialogues on Liberty Beyond the Cold War: Isaiah Berlin and Anna Akhmatova

Alan Ryan – The History of Ideas as Psychodrama

9:00pm “Multi-Media Session” Featuring clips of filmed conversations with Isaiah Berlin

Saturday September 26

10:15-12:30pm Liberty and Liberalism
Janos Kis – Berlin's Two Concepts of Positive Liberty

Martha Nussbaum – Political Liberalism and Comprehensive Liberalism

2:15-4:30pm Pluralism: Historical Origins and Philosophical Foundations
Pratap Mehta – What is Pluralism and How Does it Matter?

Bernard Yack – The Significance of Berlin's Counter-Enlightenment

5:00-6:00pm Special Session
Amartya Sen – What Difference Does Pluralism Make?

Discussants and Chairs: Ioannis Evrigenis, Peter Eli Gordon, Stanley Hoffmann, Erin Kelly, Louis Menand, Michael Rosen, Nancy Rosenblum, Emma Rothschild, T. M. Scanlon.
Sponsored by the Department of Government, the Department of Philosophy, the Center for Jewish Studies, and the Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics.