About

SAS Commons Overview

SAS Commons engages students, scholars, and the public with the goal of exploringa single theme across the arts and sciences over a two-year period. Through a variety of courses, programs, and events, the Commons fosters exchange across disciplines, the development of new ideas, and meaningful public dialogue.
 

Current Theme: Democracy and Knowledge

Can the arts and humanities, social sciences, and natural and physical sciences help us understand and even strengthen democratic practices and citizenship?  Democracy and Knowledge explores the role that universities, and especially the forms of knowledge taught and produced across the liberal arts disciplines have to play in the present and future of democracy.
 

Leadership

Sophia Rosenfeld is Director of the SAS Commons for the 2026-28 theme Democracy and Knowledge.

She is also Walter H. Annenberg Professor of History and former chair of the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches European and American intellectual and cultural history with a special emphasis on the Enlightenment, the trans-Atlantic Age of Revolutions, and the legacy of the eighteenth century for modern democracy.

Her latest book, The Age of Choice: A History of Freedom in the Modern World (Princeton, 2025), was named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Cundill History Prize Finalist, and winner of the István Hont Prize in intellectual history, all in 2025. It explores how, between the 17th century and the present, the idea and practice of making choices from menus of options came to shape so many aspects of our existences, from consumer culture to human rights, and with what consequences. 

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