Leading US academic to deliver 2010 Gregynog Lecture

The 2010 Gregynog Lecture at Aberystwyth University will be given by leading US academic Professor Robert D. Putnam from Harvard University.

Entitled ‘The Age of Obama and the Challenges of a Multiethnic Society’, the lecture will be held at 7.00pm on Thursday 18 March in the Main Hall of the International Politics Department.

Professor Putnam is recognised as one of today’s leading political scientists. A member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the British Academy, he won the Johan Skytte Prize for political science in 2006 and in 2005, he was included in the Guardian newspaper’s list of the world’s top 100 intellectuals.

Robert D. Putnam is the current Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University and has served as chairman of Harvard's Department of Government, Director of the Center for International Affairs, and Dean of the John F. Kennedy School of Government. He is also Visiting Professor at the University of Manchester.

Prof. Putnam has written a dozen books which have been translated into 17 different languages, including the best-selling Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (2000)). He is currently undertaking research on the challenges of building community in an increasingly diverse society.

During his lecture in Aberystwyth, Prof. Putnam will argue that in electing Barack Obama, the United States has not only chosen a leader who embodies the union of black and white America. It has also selected a President who reflects the ties between established Americans and new arrivals.

He will ask whether Obama’s arrival reflects a wider change in the treatment of America’s immigrants and minorities - and if so, are similar changes underway in the UK? Or is it true, as Obama himself has suggested that his story is a uniquely American one?

Admission to the Gregynog Lecture is free and the event is open to members of the University as well as the general public.