Danielle Allen and the Continuous Project of American Making

Abstract

I have known Danielle Allen since I was a graduate student at the University of Chicago. During the time that I was her student, she taught me both ideas that can be found in books and ideas about how to live in the world. From her, I learned about the Declaration, Alexis de Tocqueville, W.E.B. Du Bois, Ralph Ellison, and a host of others—and, just as importantly, I learned lessons about how to be a scholar, how to be a citizen, and how to be a compassionate human being. About scholarship, I learned that texts are alive, and their livingness is evidenced by their ability to vex and fascinate us, as well as their capacity to impart lessons, give warnings, and be of use. I also learned that as those who seek to produce knowledge our rigor must not be rigid and bound by tradition but must instead be adept, agile, and capacious. I came to understand that genre is a tool, and its transformation is our right as scholars and storytellers, because what we do is not bloodless. Our work is not about adding to the tome of knowledge that sits in history for folks to flip through, but we are instead meant to help apprehend the world as it is and to draft blueprints for other possible worlds where domination is not the most common habit of society. I learned that we must facilitate citizenship at as many levels as possible. That we must both be able to perceive and also actively value the enactment of citizenship through engagement with not only politics and the social sciences but also through the humanities, arts, and civil society. Most importantly, I learned that the knowledge embedded in the practical experiences of those who are seeking change in the world outside of higher educational institutions and political halls is as essential as any syllogism or data that we glean from those who consider themselves expert.