Mercatus Center Announces New Visiting Fellows with the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange

Arlington, VA—The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is pleased to announce the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange visiting fellows for the 2024-2025 academic year. The cohort includes three new and two returning fellows. The Program, which launched in 2021, focuses on building pathways toward a free and peaceful society.

The Program’s fellows represent a wide-ranging set of beliefs but are united by the goal to establish a community of confident pluralists who demonstrate tolerance, freedom of expression, and mutual forbearance within their communities and institutions. 

Asma Uddin explores the intersections of legal theory, social science, and pluralism, with a focus on fostering inclusive dialogue in our increasingly polarized society. Her work will culminate in scholarly articles and op-eds that aim to bridge divides and offer innovative approaches to constitutional interpretation and cultural understanding.

Angel Parham seeks to help scholars and the general public adopt a moral framework when thinking about our nation’s past through her project “Reckoning and Reconciliation.” This project involves looking at the history of our neighborhoods and specific buildings through the lens of their layered histories. Her project will result in a new book and the creation of an interactive website “History in One Square Block.”

Lauren Hall explores how to redefine current conceptions of “moderation” to a more radical and challenging paradigm so that we resist calls to simplify the political world into a one-dimensional binary. Through topical research and a forthcoming book, Hall aims to grow a community of scholars, educators, students and members of the public who are engaging with the concept of moderation in a new and meaningful way. 

Tevi Troy, a returning visiting fellow to the Program, focuses on the lack of shared institutions for liberals and conservatives and how that lack of shared spaces negatively affects our ability to practice civil discourse. 

Tara Isabella Burton, a returning visiting fellow to the Program, builds a body of research that explores the internet as a phenomenon that has shaped, and will continue to shape, our shared culture and moral assumptions. In addition, Burton’s work will analyze the valorization of the private self in our changing culture and moral frameworks.

These five fellows will be part of ongoing conversations about the core values necessary to build a free and open society, as well as the challenges to maintaining such a society.  

To learn more about the Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange, please visit our website or contact Sarah Keenan at [email protected]. For media inquiries, please contact Ryan Carver at [email protected].