Crisis Democracy: Conversations on Politics in America will encourage the university community to reflect on, interpret, and imagine the future of political participation, inclusion and expression. Conversations between academics and local organizers will explore topics including: legal developments that affect citizen democratic participation, debates over free speech and safe spaces, and the shifting configurations of social movements.

The Futures of Free Speech, Safe Space, and Political Expression panel features:
Matthew Countryman, Associate Professor, American Culture and History, University of Michigan
Christina Hanhardt, Associate Professor, American Studies, University of Maryland
LaKisha Simmons, Assistant Professor, History and Women's Studies, University of Michigan

Matthew Countryman is an associate professor of American culture and history at the University of Michigan. He also serves as faculty advisor for the Rackham Graduate School's Program in Public Scholarship. His publications include Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).

Christina B. Hanhardt is an associate professor of American studies at the University of Maryland. Her research focuses on the historical and contemporary study of US social movements and cities since the mid-20th century, with an emphasis on the politics of stigma, punishment, and uneven development. Her first book, Safe Space: Gay Neighborhood History and the Politics of Violence (Duke University Press, 2013), won the 2014 Lambda Literary Award for Best Book in LGBT Studies, and honorable mention for both the American Studies Association’s John Hope Franklin Prize for Best Book in American Studies, and the Lora Romero Prize for Best First Book in American Studies that highlights the intersections of race with gender, class, sexuality and/or nation.

LaKisha Simmons is an assistant professor of history and women's studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Crescent City Girls: The Lives of Young Black Women in Segregated New Orleans (UNC Press, 2015), which won the SAWH Julia Cherry Spruill Prize for best book in southern women's history and received Honorable Mention for the ABWH Letitia Woods Brown Memorial Book Award for the best book in African American women's history.

This LSA Bicentennial Theme Semester event is presented with support from the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts and the University of Michigan Bicentennial Office. Additional support provided by the Department of History and the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies.