Questions about the notion of civility have been a hot topic given the recent outbursts of rapper Kanye West, tennis player Serena Williams and Congressman Joe Wilson. On Thursday, Sept. 24, Vanderbilt University will explore the topic further with the lecture “Civility in Decline? The View from the American College Campus.”
Pier Forni, director of The Civility Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, will deliver the 6 p.m. lecture in Vanderbilt’s Sarratt Cinema. The event is free and open to the public.
Forni’s lecture is the first event of this year’s Project Dialogue, a yearlong, university-wide program that seeks to involve the Vanderbilt community in public debate and discussion. The program also attempts to connect classroom learning with larger societal issues. The theme for this year’s Project Dialogue is “Civility and Justice for Whom?”
An award-winning professor, Forni has taught at Johns Hopkins University for 20 years. In 1997 he co-founded the Johns Hopkins Civility Project, an aggregation of academic and community outreach activities aimed at assessing the significance of civility, manners and politeness in contemporary society.
He was also co-director of “Reassessing Civility: Forms and Values at the End of the Century,” an international symposium which took place at Hopkins in March 1998.
Forni is the author of the 2002 book, Choosing Civility: The Twenty-Five Rules of Considerate Conduct, and a 2008 book, The Civility Solution: What to Do when People Are Rude.
He has appeared on a number of radio and television shows, including ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS’ Sunday Morning, Oprah and BBC’s Outlook. His work has also been mentioned in numerous publications such as The New York Times, The Times of London, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times and Forbes magazine.
Media Contact: Princine Lewis, 615-322-NEWS
princine.lewis@vanderbilt.edu