When the creators of Central Park laid out their plans, they aimed to design a space that allowed the tired, hard-working people of New York City to experience natural beauty at no cost. This was in direct service of not only creating but also sustaining a more successful democracy. Through presentation and small-group discussion, Josh Cohen (Faculty, Apple University) will lead audience members to explore this ambitious purpose, and its obsessive execution in the park's design and renovation.
Joshua Cohen is on the faculty at Apple University and is a Distinguished Senior Fellow in Law, Philosophy, and Political Science at University of California, Berkeley. A political philosopher, Cohen taught at MIT from 1977-2006 and at Stanford from 2006-2014. Cohen is author of Philosophy, Politics, Democracy; The Arc of the Moral Universe and Other Essays; and Rousseau: A Free Community of Equals. He is co-author (with Joel Rogers) of On Democracy and Associations and Democracy. Since 1991, Cohen has been editor (and then co-editor) of Boston Review.