Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture
About the Talk
Developmental psychologist Niobe Way's book offers an in-depth study of what boys and young men teach us about the culture we have created: one in which we value money over people, toys over human connection, and achievement over kindness. In conversation with Carol Gilligan and Shahrzad Sabet, Way explored how this “boy” culture fails all of us, what it reveals about our common humanity, and how we can create a different culture that aligns with our nature and needs as human beings.
This event builds on the Seminar on Human Oneness, held February 6–7, 2025.
Speakers
Niobe Way
Dr. Way is Professor of Developmental Psychology at NYU, the founder of the Project for the Advancement of Our Common Humanity (PACH), creative advisor of agapi, and the Principal Investigator on the Listening Project. She is the author of Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture. She was the President of the Society for Research on Adolescence (SRA), received her B.A. from U.C. Berkeley, her doctorate from the Graduate School of Education at Harvard University, and was a National Institute of Mental Health postdoctoral fellow at Yale University in the psychology department.
Carol Gilligan
Dr. Gilligan is a psychologist and writer. Her groundbreaking book In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development (1982) is described as “the little book that started a revolution.” It has been translated into 18 languages and sold nearly a million copies. Forty years later, Gilligan re-examines the conclusions of that book in In a Human Voice (2023). With her students, she has co-authored and co-edited four books on women’s psychology and girls’ development: Meeting at the Crossroads, Between Voice and Silence, Making Connections, and Women, Girls, and Psychotherapy: Reframing Resistance. At Harvard University, where she was the first Graham Professor of Gender Studies, her award-winning research led to the founding of the university’s Center on Gender and Education. She is now University Professor at New York University and lives with her husband in New York City and the Berkshires.
Shahrzad Sabet
Dr. Sabet is Co-Director of the Center on Modernity in Transition (COMIT) and a Fellow at New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge. Her research and training span a variety of disciplines, including political science, philosophy, economics, and psychology. She has held positions at Princeton University, the University of Maryland, and Harvard University, where she received her PhD, and her work has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times and the Washington Post. She is currently working on a book entitled The Crisis of Identity: The Case for Human Oneness, which argues that only a universal human identity can fundamentally resolve the tensions around group identities, and reconcile the oneness and diversity of humankind.