Freedom and Tradition: Alexis de Tocqueville on How to Live in America
America prides itself on being the “land of opportunity.” Taking advantage of opportunities often seems to require freeing oneself from the fixtures of one’s early life—family, religious tradition, hometown. How can young Americans navigate this passage to adult life well?
Alexis de Tocqueville, a Frenchman whose delightful book about American life has remained relevant for nearly 200 years, is a uniquely good guide for thinking about the way American democracy structures the opportunities we have for study, career, family, religion, and political life. In this course, we will read together selections from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America to think about how young people today might thoughtfully approach the particular challenges of American adulthood.
Dr. Jenna Storey
Jenna Silber Storey is an assistant professor in Politics and International Affairs at Furman University, executive director of Furman’s Tocqueville Program, and a board member of Veritas Preparatory School in Greenville, SC, where her three children are currently studying. In 2018- 2019 she won the Silas N. Pearman award for teaching in Furman’s first-year Engaged Living Program. Dr. Storey received her PhD from the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago, and her BA from the University Professors Program at Boston University. Her work has appeared in edited volumes as well as in Perspectives on Political Science, The Washington Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, First Things, realclearbooks.com, The New Atlantis, VoeglinView, and The Boston Globe. She co-authored a book with her husband, Benjamin Storey, Why We are Restless: On the Modern Quest for Contentment, which was published by Princeton University Press in 2021.
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