The SMU Tower Center, in collaboration with the new SMU-George W. Bush Presidential Center program in Principled Leadership, present Citizens or Subjects? Ancient Greek lessons for the future generation of democratic leaders and citizens.

Date: Thursday, October 8, 2026. , 4:30–6:30 p.m.

Location: Laura Lee Blanton Building,  6185 Airline Rd, Dallas, TX 75205 Room: 108/110/112

Registration is required and the seats are first come, first served. Please click the link below to register.

In his talk, Dr. Josiah Ober will ask a timeless question through two ancient stories: why do some communities in crisis end up governing themselves freely, while others hand all power to a single ruler? One tale follows a respected judge who is offered a kingdom — and slowly turns into an unaccountable tyrant. The other follows a reformer who talks two feuding factions into an imperfect but shared compromise, planting the seeds of democracy. Using simple insights from modern decision-making research, Ober shows these were rational choices, not accidents — and asks what it takes for us to keep choosing freedom today. Dr. Ober will explore this question in relation to the meaning of “Principled Leadership” and the university’s role in educating the new generation of leaders, drawing on his scholarship on ancient Athenian democracy, his experience creating and designing Stanford University’s new mandatory first-year civics curriculum, and his recent work on the Alliance for Civics in the Academy: a network of scholars, educators, and administrators who are committed to the advancement of civic education on college campuses.

Program

4:30–5:00 p.m. — Registration

5:00–5:10 p.m. — Welcome Remarks

5:10–5:50 p.m. — Presentation

5:50–6:10 p.m. — Discussion

6:10–6:30 p.m. — Audience Q&A

Featuring:

Dr. Josiah Ober,  Constantine Mitsotakis Chair, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University

Josiah Ober is the Constantine Mitsotakis Chair in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University, specializing in ancient and modern political theory and historical institutionalism. He is also a professor of political science and classics, a professor of philosophy (by courtesy), and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institute. He is the founder and currently faculty director of the Stanford Civics Initiative, a joint project of Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences and the Hoover Institute’s Center for Revitalizing American Institutions. He is also the founder of the Alliance for Civics in the Academy, which unites participants in the belief that U.S. universities have a responsibility to offer students an education that will promote their flourishing as human beings, their judgment as moral agents, and their participation in society as democratic citizens. Ober’s scholarship focuses on historical institutionalism and political theory, especially democratic theory and the contemporary relevance of the political thought and practice of the ancient Greek world. He is the author of several books, including The Civic Bargain: How Democracy Survives (with Brook Manville, 2023), The Greeks and the Rational: The Discovery of Practical Reason (2022), Demopolis: Democracy Before Liberalism (2017), and The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece (2015). He has also published about 100 articles and chapters, including recent contributions to the American Political Science Review, Philosophical Studies, Polis, Public Choice, Critical Review, and Transactions of the American Philological Association. His work in progress focuses on the relevance of Aristotelian ethics for the development and regulation of artificial intelligence. In 2025, Ober was awarded the Balzan Prize for Classics, one of the world's most prestigious honors for outstanding lifetime achievements in the study of ancient history and archaeology. He has held residential fellowships at the National Humanities Center, Center for Hellenic Studies, University of New England (Australia), Clare Hall (Cambridge), Center for the Advanced Study of the Behavioral Sciences, and University of Sydney; has held research fellowships from the American Council of Learned Societies, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Guggenheim; and has been a visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Paris I-Sorbonne, University of California, Irvine and Berkeley. Before coming to Stanford, he taught at Montana State University (1980–1990) and Princeton University (1990–2006).

Discussant: Dr. Seemee Ali, Director of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture at SMU

Seemee Ali, Ph.D., proudly serves as director of the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture at SMU, whose mission is to enrich the practical life of the city with the wisdom and imagination of the humanities.

Any person who requires a reasonable accommodation on the basis of a disability in order to participate in this program should contact the SMU Tower Center at tower@smu.edu in advance at least 4 days prior to the event to arrange for the accommodation.

SMU Tower Center | http://www.smu.edu/TowerCenter

Southern Methodist University (SMU)

3300 University Boulevard, Dallas, TX 75275-0117

214-768-3954  tower@smu.edu