2025 Goodman Lecture Series
Celebrating 50 Years of Research Excellence
"The State of Democracy"
Speakers:
Professor Martha S. Jones, Johns Hopkins University
Professor Dennis M. Pilon, York University
Professor Jan-Werner Müller, Princeton University
Dates: September 23-25, 2025
Location: Great Hall, Somerville House, Room 3326, Western University
Time: 2:30-4:30pm ET
The symposium brings three internationally renowned Goodman lecturers to Western to discuss the state of democracy in the United States, Canada, and Europe. The lectures are particularly concerned with providing
historical and comparative depth to our current conversations about the many challenges faced by democracies; the talks will also explore the strengths of democratic systems and identify sources of resilience.
Sep 23 Martha S. Jones, "A Beacon of Democracy: The Life and Death of a National Myth"
Today, positing the United States as a beacon of democracy invites us to add a question mark. Few observers can say how the current chapter in the nation's democratic history will end, and still, no one would deny that a sea-change is underway. For much of the nation's past, dubbing the US a beacon of democracy has been a powerful, pride-filled claim. And still, in 2025, the same statement can only be heard as a question: Will the US remain a democracy at home and a beacon that guides nations across the globe toward their own democratic futures? This talk regards the claim that the US is a beacon of democracy as less a triumphalist truth and more a national myth. An idea with roots in the 1830s, the myth has grown up and flourished while the nation's soil has been tilled by anti-democratic forces. The inclusion of Black history in the story of American democracy makes evident that the question mark has always been there.
Sep 24 Dennis M. Pilon, "Canada, the Indeterminate Democracy"
This talk will use the question of 'when' to explore the contours of Canadian democracy, both in the past and the present. Despite a general consensus amongst academics, media and the public that Canada is a democracy and has been for some time there has been surprisingly little study of just what qualifies Canada for the label, other than an adherence to holding elections in a reasonably free and fair manner. Exploring the question of just when Canada became a democracy will give us some insight into what democracy has meant to different people at different times, what was seen to be at stake in the debate and struggle over it, and how we might use those insights to assess what Canadian democracy amounts to today.
Sep 25 Jan-Werner-Müller, "The Dilemmas of Democratic Self-defense"
The lecture evokes a tradition of legal and political thought virtually unknown in North America until recently: the idea of "militant democracy," first formulated by the exiled German jurist Karl Loewenstein in the mid-1930s. The core idea - now much discussed in the US is that democracies should take pre-emptive measures against its enemies - even of such enemies have not broken any laws and are participating in regular political competition. The lecture revisits the arguments for and against militant democracy.
About our 2025 Speakers: Professor Martha S. Jones, Johns Hopkins University
Martha Jones is the Society of Black Alumni Presidential Professor, Professor of History, and Professor at the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. She also directs the Hard Histories at Hopkins Project which investigates the history of slavery and racism connected with Johns Hopkins University and Medicine. Her research is dedicated to understanding the politics, culture, and poetics of Black America. Her latest book The Trouble of Color: An American Family Memoir (2025) recounts her personal journey with race and color through the story of her ancestors' generations. In addition, Dr. Jones has authored prize-winning histories of slavery and the founding. Civil War and Reconstruction, and women's suffrage and Jim Crow, on through modern Civil Rights and present-day race and identity, such as Vanguard (2020), Birthright Citizens (2018), and All Bound Up Together: The Woman Question in African American Public Culture: 1830 to 1900 (2007).
About our 2025 Speakers: Professor Dennis M. Pillon, York University
Dennis Pilon is a Professor and Chair of the Politics Department at York University. His research focuses on democracy, democratization, elections, voting systems, and class as a political identity, in both Canadian and comparative contexts. His most recent publications include "Is Class Political? The Challenges in Studying Working Class Politics in Canada," in The Working Class and Politics in Canada (UBC Press 2025). "Democracy in the West," in The New Politics of Western Canada: Contested Histories, Uncertain Futures (UBC Press 2025), and "The Democratic State," in The Canadian State (Fernwood 2025).
About our 2025 Speakers: Professor Jan-Werner Müller, Princeton University
Jan-Werner Müller is Roger Williams Straus Professor of Social Sciences and Director of the Program in Political Philosophy at Princeton University. His research focuses on democratic theory and the history of modern political thought. He has published widely on the transatlantic histories of political thought including Democracy Rules (2021), What is Populism (2016), Contesting Democracy (2011), Constitutional Patriotism (2007). A Dangerous Mind: Carl Schmitt in Post-War European Thought (2003).
About the Joanne Goodman Lecture Series
Presented by the Department of History
Every autumn a distinguished historian is invited to Western University to deliver three public lectures on consecutive afternoons to students, faculty and members of the London community. The lecture series was established in 1975 by the Honourable Edwin A. Goodman and his family of Toronto to perpetuate the memory of their beloved elder daughter, a second year History student who died in a highway accident in April of that year.
The theme of the series is the history of the Atlantic Triangle (Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom). The first lectures were given in 1976 by the leading Canadian military historian, Colonel Charles Stacey, on 'Mackenzie King and the Atlantic Triangle'. Occasionally there have been lectures outside the general framework. In 1995, for example, the topic was 'The Birth of the "New" South Africa', tracing the collapse of apartheid and the construction of a new political and social system since 1990, by Rodney Davenport, a South African historian and opponent of apartheid.
The endowment also supports publication so that these important lectures may be shared by a readership well beyond the immediate audience at Western University. Most of the lectures have been published as books, either in a form similar to lectures or as part of a larger work. The lectures are widely recognized as being the most important history lecture series in Canada. The invitation to deliver them and the publications that result are highly regarded in this country and around the world.
Past Speakers
To see a list of our past Goodman Lecturers, click here. Many of the lectures are also available as books, please click here for a list.
For recorded past Goodman Lectures, click here.
In The News
(Oct 1, 2019) CBC Radio London - London Morning with Rebecca Zandbergen
(Oct 3, 2018) CBC Radio London – London Morning with Julianne Hazlewood
(Sep 24, 2017) The Gazette - "Popular history comes to 2017 Joanne Goodman Lectures"[Read Article]
(Sep 21, 2016) Western News - "Making a Middle Ages connection in politics" [Read Article]
(Sep 20, 2012) Western News - "Goodman Lectures create a legacy from tragedy" [Read Article]
Accessibility
Contact the History Department at history-inquiries@uwo.ca if you require information in an alternate format, or if any other arrangements can make this event accessible to you. For a campus accessibility map please visit: http://www.accessibility.uwo.ca/resources/maps/index.html.
The Great Hall is wheelchair accessible (follow the posted signs).
Parking
Parking information can be found at https://uwo.ca/parking/find/visitor/index.html.
