Podcasts about trygve throntveit

The Alliance for Civics in the Academy hosts "What Counts as Success? Assessing the Impact of Civics in Higher Ed" with Trygve Throntveit, Rachel Wahl, Joseph Kahne, and Peter Levine on February 18, 2026, from 9:00-10:00 a.m. PT. As higher education renews its commitment to civic education, questions about how to define and measure success have become increasingly urgent. This webinar examines the strengths and limitations of common metrics and considers how different measures reflect competing visions of civic purpose in higher education. Participants explore emerging frameworks for assessing civic learning and engagement, and discuss how institutions can align assessment practices with their educational missions and democratic goals. ABOUT THE SPEAKERS Rachel Wahl is an associate professor in the Social Foundations Program, Department of Educational Leadership, Foundations, and Policy at the School of Education and Human Development at the University of Virginia. She also serves as Director of the Good Life Political Project at the UVa Karsh Institute of Democracy. Her research focuses on learning through public dialogue between people on opposing sides of political divides. Her most recent book is Keeping Our Enemies Closer: Political Dialogue in Polarized Democracies (University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming October 2026). Her prior research focused on efforts by community activists to change police officers' beliefs and behavior through activism and education, which is the subject of her first book, Just Violence: Torture and Human Rights in the Eyes of the Police (Stanford University Press, 2017). Her research has been funded by donors such as the Educating Character Initiative, the Spencer Foundation and National Academy of Education, the Carnegie Corporation, and the federal Institute of International Education.  Joseph Kahne is the Ted and Jo Dutton Presidential Professor for Education Policy and Politics and Director of the Civic Engagement Research Group (CERG) at the University of California, Riverside. Professor Kahne's research focuses on the influence of school practices and digital media on youth civic and political development. For example, with funding from the Institute of Educational Sciences (IES), and in partnership with scholars from Ohio State, Brown, and UCR, CERG has launched and is studying the impact of Connecting Classrooms to Congress (CC2C). CC2C is a social studies curricular unit that enables students to learn and deliberate about a controversial societal issue and then participate in an online townhall with their Member of Congress. In addition, Kahne and CERG are currently studying the Educating for American Democracy Roadmap. This work takes place through a partnership with reformers and school districts in NM, OK, and LA. In addition to studying the impact of these curricular experiences on young people's civic development, with John Rogers, we are currently devoting particular attention to the politics of democratic education. We are examining ways the political contexts of school districts shape possibilities for democratic education and the varied ways educators respond.  Professor Kahne was Chair of the MacArthur Foundation's Youth and Participatory Politics Research Network. Kahne was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship. He currently chairs the Educating for American Democracy Research Task Force. Professor Kahne is a member of the National Academy of Education and a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association. He can be reached at jkahne@ucr.edu and his work is available at https://www.civicsurvey.org/ Trygve Throntveit, PhD, was appointed Research Professor in Higher Education and Associate Director of the Center for Economic and Civic Learning (CECL) at Ball State University in August of 2025. During the previous five years, he served as Director of Strategic Partnership and Civic Renewal Programming at the Minnesota Humanities Center (MHC), and as Global Fellow for History and Public Policy at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. At MHC, Dr. Throntveit expanded the Third Way Civics (3WC) initiative for undergraduate civic learning--which he first developed with partners at Ball State and Southeastern Universities in 2019--into a multi-state program, training dozens of faculty in Minnesota, Indiana, Florida, Missouri, and Montana to infuse student-centered, active civic learning into their regular courses and helping several colleges and universities build the original, US history and politics version of 3WC into their general curricula. As a result of his work on Third Way Civics, was selected by Campus Compact and the Civic Learning and Democracy Engagement coalition to co-author an upcoming guide to designing and implementing rigorous civic learning opportunities across the undergraduate curriculum, and has delivered presentations and workshops on 3WC and civic learning more generally across the United States as well as Austria, Germany, Japan, and Korea. Trained as a historian, Dr. Throntveit is an active scholar in the fields of history and political theory as well as civic learning, having published articles and books examining past and present developments in US politics, foreign policy, and social thought and served for eight years as editor of The Good Society, the journal of the transdisciplinary Civic Studies field. He has taught at Harvard University, Dartmouth College, and Minnesota State University-Mankato, and has overseen public humanities programs bringing communities into productive conversation across their differences on issues as diverse as election integrity, US-Tribal relations, and water use. Dr. Throntveit lives and works in Minneapolis, where oversees the increasingly national 3WC initiative and also directs the Twin Cities-based Institute for Public Life and Work, which he co-founded with Harry C. Boyte and Marie-Louise Strom in 2021.  Moderator Peter Levine is a philosopher and political scientist who specializes on civic life and has helped to develop Civic Studies as an international intellectual movement. In the domain of civic education, Levine was a co-organizer and co-author of The Civic Mission of Schools (2003), The College, Career & Citizenship Framework for State Social Studies Standards (2013) and The Educating for American Democracy Roadmap (2021). He is also the author of eight books, including most recently We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For: The Promise of Civic Renewal in America (Oxford University Press, 2013) and What Should We Do? A Theory of Civic Life (Oxford University Press, 2022).

The Minnesota Humanities Center is partnering with a local improv production company to host a civic-improv comedy tour. In each city or town, Danger Boat Productions will produce a unique event that brings residents together for meaningful conversation about their hometown and reflects their thoughts and feelings back at them through improv comedy. The goal is to promote dialogue, bridge divides and work across differences.Applications are open through Friday for Minnesota communities to apply. Trygve Throntveit with the Minnesota Humanities Center and Tane Danger with, Danger Boat Productions joined MPR News Host Cathy Wurzer to talk about the “Sketches of Minnesota” tour.

This week's conversation takes us off the familiar path into a fascinating conversation with Dr. Trygve Throntveit, an academic historian who is doing some fascinating work on the revival of civic life. This conversation is immensely important for church leaders, who lead one of America's most important spaces in which social capital is created: local congregations. He is Director of Strategic Partnership, Minnesota Humanities Center (mnhum.org) and a Global Fellow for History and Public Policy, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars | wilsoncenter.orgIn addition to authoring several important volumes, Trygve also appears on other print and online platforms, including The New York Times, Time, and The Daily Beast. Power without Victory: Woodrow Wilson and the American Internationalist Experiment (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017; paperback, 2017). ReviewedWilliam James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014; paperback, 2016).Welcome to our new sponsor, Baker Academic.And many thanks to our existing sponsors:Studio 2 Ceramics. 10% discount code: GOSPELWorship ForwardSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/gospelbeautiful)

In the late 19th century, a tiny group of intellectuals who called themselves Pragmatists were to have an outsized influence on the nation and the world. They were inspired by Darwin and included well-known figures such as William James and John Dewey. Trygve Throntveit, a distinguished historian of the period, helps me tell the story of how the Pragmatists discovered the Third Way. This episode has an accompanying article and is part of This View of Life's new series, "Evolution, Complexity, and the Third Way of Entrepreneurship".   --- Become a member of the TVOL1000 and join the Darwinian revolution   Follow This View of Life on Twitter and Facebook   Order the This View of Life book

William James (1842-1910) is one of the United States’ most far-reaching thinkers. His impact on philosophy, psychology, and religious studies is well documented, yet few scholars have considered James’ impact on the area of ethics and political thought. Trygve Throntveit‘s new book William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic (Palgrave, 2014) is a persuasive and innovative look at the Jamesian social and political legacy, especially as played out in the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Dr. Throntveit leverages the archives of the James family, including novelist Henry James, Jr. and William and Henry’s father, Swedenborgian theologian Henry James, Sr., to show how Henry Sr.’s ambitious but unfocused educational program affected William James’ vocation and intellectual commitments. In committing to a pragmatic ethic that could accommodate varieties of religious experience, James envisioned how a democratic society should regard the individual. Throntveit reads James in light of James’ personal development in relationship to other public intellectuals with whom he corresponded and was personally acquainted. The author keeps a steady eye on how William James developed as a person and as a scholar through his relationships. Throntveit’s innovation lies in tracing the ways in which others applied, and sometimes modified, Jamesian ideas during the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Social critic WEB DuBois, philosopher of public life John Dewey, urban theorist and reformer Jane Addams, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies, Theodore Roosevelt, and others directly responded to William James’ pragmatism via their policymaking clout. In turn, these public intellectuals had the attention of Woodrow Wilson. The ideals of democracy–the ethical republic–were set in motion for the trials ahead in the Great War and beyond. William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic contributes to William James studies, American history, history of ideas, and philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

William James (1842-1910) is one of the United States’ most far-reaching thinkers. His impact on philosophy, psychology, and religious studies is well documented, yet few scholars have considered James’ impact on the area of ethics and political thought. Trygve Throntveit‘s new book William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic (Palgrave, 2014) is a persuasive and innovative look at the Jamesian social and political legacy, especially as played out in the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Dr. Throntveit leverages the archives of the James family, including novelist Henry James, Jr. and William and Henry’s father, Swedenborgian theologian Henry James, Sr., to show how Henry Sr.’s ambitious but unfocused educational program affected William James’ vocation and intellectual commitments. In committing to a pragmatic ethic that could accommodate varieties of religious experience, James envisioned how a democratic society should regard the individual. Throntveit reads James in light of James’ personal development in relationship to other public intellectuals with whom he corresponded and was personally acquainted. The author keeps a steady eye on how William James developed as a person and as a scholar through his relationships. Throntveit’s innovation lies in tracing the ways in which others applied, and sometimes modified, Jamesian ideas during the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Social critic WEB DuBois, philosopher of public life John Dewey, urban theorist and reformer Jane Addams, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies, Theodore Roosevelt, and others directly responded to William James’ pragmatism via their policymaking clout. In turn, these public intellectuals had the attention of Woodrow Wilson. The ideals of democracy–the ethical republic–were set in motion for the trials ahead in the Great War and beyond. William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic contributes to William James studies, American history, history of ideas, and philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

William James (1842-1910) is one of the United States’ most far-reaching thinkers. His impact on philosophy, psychology, and religious studies is well documented, yet few scholars have considered James’ impact on the area of ethics and political thought. Trygve Throntveit‘s new book William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic (Palgrave, 2014) is a persuasive and innovative look at the Jamesian social and political legacy, especially as played out in the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Dr. Throntveit leverages the archives of the James family, including novelist Henry James, Jr. and William and Henry’s father, Swedenborgian theologian Henry James, Sr., to show how Henry Sr.’s ambitious but unfocused educational program affected William James’ vocation and intellectual commitments. In committing to a pragmatic ethic that could accommodate varieties of religious experience, James envisioned how a democratic society should regard the individual. Throntveit reads James in light of James’ personal development in relationship to other public intellectuals with whom he corresponded and was personally acquainted. The author keeps a steady eye on how William James developed as a person and as a scholar through his relationships. Throntveit’s innovation lies in tracing the ways in which others applied, and sometimes modified, Jamesian ideas during the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Social critic WEB DuBois, philosopher of public life John Dewey, urban theorist and reformer Jane Addams, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies, Theodore Roosevelt, and others directly responded to William James’ pragmatism via their policymaking clout. In turn, these public intellectuals had the attention of Woodrow Wilson. The ideals of democracy–the ethical republic–were set in motion for the trials ahead in the Great War and beyond. William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic contributes to William James studies, American history, history of ideas, and philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

William James (1842-1910) is one of the United States’ most far-reaching thinkers. His impact on philosophy, psychology, and religious studies is well documented, yet few scholars have considered James’ impact on the area of ethics and political thought. Trygve Throntveit‘s new book William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic (Palgrave, 2014) is a persuasive and innovative look at the Jamesian social and political legacy, especially as played out in the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Dr. Throntveit leverages the archives of the James family, including novelist Henry James, Jr. and William and Henry’s father, Swedenborgian theologian Henry James, Sr., to show how Henry Sr.’s ambitious but unfocused educational program affected William James’ vocation and intellectual commitments. In committing to a pragmatic ethic that could accommodate varieties of religious experience, James envisioned how a democratic society should regard the individual. Throntveit reads James in light of James’ personal development in relationship to other public intellectuals with whom he corresponded and was personally acquainted. The author keeps a steady eye on how William James developed as a person and as a scholar through his relationships. Throntveit’s innovation lies in tracing the ways in which others applied, and sometimes modified, Jamesian ideas during the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Social critic WEB DuBois, philosopher of public life John Dewey, urban theorist and reformer Jane Addams, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies, Theodore Roosevelt, and others directly responded to William James’ pragmatism via their policymaking clout. In turn, these public intellectuals had the attention of Woodrow Wilson. The ideals of democracy–the ethical republic–were set in motion for the trials ahead in the Great War and beyond. William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic contributes to William James studies, American history, history of ideas, and philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

William James (1842-1910) is one of the United States’ most far-reaching thinkers. His impact on philosophy, psychology, and religious studies is well documented, yet few scholars have considered James’ impact on the area of ethics and political thought. Trygve Throntveit‘s new book William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic (Palgrave, 2014) is a persuasive and innovative look at the Jamesian social and political legacy, especially as played out in the presidency of Woodrow Wilson. Dr. Throntveit leverages the archives of the James family, including novelist Henry James, Jr. and William and Henry’s father, Swedenborgian theologian Henry James, Sr., to show how Henry Sr.’s ambitious but unfocused educational program affected William James’ vocation and intellectual commitments. In committing to a pragmatic ethic that could accommodate varieties of religious experience, James envisioned how a democratic society should regard the individual. Throntveit reads James in light of James’ personal development in relationship to other public intellectuals with whom he corresponded and was personally acquainted. The author keeps a steady eye on how William James developed as a person and as a scholar through his relationships. Throntveit’s innovation lies in tracing the ways in which others applied, and sometimes modified, Jamesian ideas during the Progressive Era of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Social critic WEB DuBois, philosopher of public life John Dewey, urban theorist and reformer Jane Addams, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandies, Theodore Roosevelt, and others directly responded to William James’ pragmatism via their policymaking clout. In turn, these public intellectuals had the attention of Woodrow Wilson. The ideals of democracy–the ethical republic–were set in motion for the trials ahead in the Great War and beyond. William James and the Quest for an Ethical Republic contributes to William James studies, American history, history of ideas, and philosophy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices