The Way Out: Rekindling Democracy in the 21st Century
The Norman Cousins Lecture brings a member of our National Advisory Council to the public each year. This year, historian Manu Bhagavan asks what recent setbacks for authoritarian populism tell us about the road back.
- Wednesday, October 7, 2026
- 12:00 to 1:00 PM ET (16:00 UTC / 18:00 Berlin)
- Online via Zoom
- Free to attend
- Speaker: Manu Bhagavan, Professor of History, Human Rights and Public Policy, Hunter College and the Graduate Center, CUNY
Nationalist, authoritarian populism has been on the rise for over a decade, while faith in democracy has correspondingly been in decline. In this talk, historian Manu Bhagavan, one of the first to identify such trends, examines current affairs to decipher patterns in recent right-wing setbacks and to chart a possible course for democratic renewal.
Your speaker
Manu Bhagavan is Professor of History, Human Rights, and Public Policy at Hunter College and the Graduate Center, The City University of New York, where he is also Senior Fellow at the Ralph Bunche Institute for International Studies. He is author or editor of eight books, including the landmark biography The Remarkable Madame Pandit (Columbia University Press 2025, Penguin/Allen Lane India 2023), the critically acclaimed The Peacemakers (HarperCollins India 2012, Palgrave Macmillan 2013) and India and the Cold War (Penguin India and UNC Press, 2019).
Manu is the recipient of a 2006 fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies and Hunter’s 2023 Presidential Award for Excellence in Scholarship. He has been interviewed for several documentaries and was featured in a skit on the Not the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, part of the satirical television program Full Frontal with Samantha Bee. In 2023, he also served as a judge for the PEN Literary Awards in the category of biography. Manu appears regularly in the media to discuss current affairs.
About the series
The Norman Cousins Lecture brings the expertise of our National Advisory Council directly to the public. Each year one NAC member delivers a keynote on their area of expertise and is presented with the Norman Cousins Award for Leadership. The series honors the legacy of Norman Cousins, a lifelong advocate for peace and world federation, by advancing open dialogue on the systemic reforms needed for a more just and democratic global order.
