“Civic Studies” as a New Academic Field

I was at the University of Maryland when the movement toward “Civic Studies” was launched there by three of my professors / mentors–Karol Soltan, Peter Levine, and Stephen Elkin–as well as Elinor Ostrom, Harry Boyte, Jane Mansbridge, and Rogers Smith. The idea was fairly raw at the time, but it has since become much more refined. Indeed, it is now a major at Tufts University where Levine is a Professor of Citizenship & Public Affairs in the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. Information about the new academic discipline of Civic Studies can be found here. Levine’s and Erin Kelly’s syllabus for the first offering of Introduction to Civic Studies (Spring 2019) is available here.  And here’s a video in which Levine provides an overview of the field’s philosophical assumptions and intellectual influences: