Historical example reveals the perils of granting dangerous ideas the veneer of legitimacy by couching them in the ideals of progress and scientific or technological advancement. How can we safeguard the professions against these pitfalls? What are the standards that we should hold doctors, lawyers, journalists, clergy, businesspeople, and scientists to in order to ensure that expertise remains ethical?

Contemporarily, how can religious leaders work for what they might think of as traditional family values, without compromising these values through an alliance with ruthless, authoritarian and xenophobic religious nationalism?

In what case is the excuse of having prevented worse from happening credible, and how is it weighed against acts of complicity?  How do we calibrate the tension between moral responsibility and pragmatics in individual decision making, and as a civil society, how do we create incentives that enable professionals to make ethical choices? Join us in conversation with FASPE Law Faculty David Luban and Erica Newland, Counsel at Protect Democracy and former Attorney Adviser at the Office of Legal Counsel in the Department of Justice.

What kinds of trade-offs and compromises serve to weaken democratic institutions, and how do we restore democratic norms and promote critical thinking?  How do we structure the challenges of acknowledging the complexities of the past in a way that helps educators and professionals navigate decision making in complex environments?  What is an ethically and academically responsible way to employ history in our understanding of the present?

Join us as we look to the historic example of the Weimar Republic to understand how a democracy can crumble, examine the ways in which our own democracy has been strained, and explore the most effective ways of educating about the pitfalls, risks, and responsibilities of professionals involved in the preservation of democracy.

How should journalists respond in the face of these challenges, when they are maligned as the enemy, and truth is viewed as subjective? How did journalists under the Nazi regime react to censorship and propaganda, and what can be learned from their experiences? Join us as we explore how the news media can respond to the urgent need to inform a fractured, polarized public and establish trust in the press and democratic institutions.

Is this the moment to recalibrate and reimagine what the significance of the site can and should be?

Where does Auschwitz stand in relation to other sites of memory, as a part of the European landscape of memory, referencing a century of death and destruction? What kind of new ways need to be explored, in terms of remembering, but perhaps even more, in terms of learning, contextualizing, and reflecting about the current relevance of these historical sites?