The Aspen Ideas Festival

2010 Festival Overview

Exploring Ideas, Deepening Dialogue, Inspiring Action


“Ideas are, in truth, force.” 
 Henry James



Entering its seventh year, the Aspen Ideas Festival is a conversation-packed exploration of some of the most important ideas and pressing issues we face. Presented by the Aspen Institute and The Atlantic magazine, the Festival strives to highlight the ideas of experts at the forefront of their fields and of leaders whose actions are changing the world.

Why an Ideas Festival?

For 60 years the Aspen Institute has been the nation’s premier place for leaders from around the globe to explore timeless ideas and address the toughest challenges of the day. Since 1857, The Atlantic magazine has shaped national debate on the defining issues of our times. Together, we’re working to touch as many people as we can to create a “public commons” for the 21st century, where a diverse group of intellectually curious people can gather to talk, listen, debate, question, and learn what they can do to make our world — and our children’s world — a better place.

 

Divided into two overlapping four-day sessions, the Aspen Ideas Festival offers a substantial array of lectures, presentations, debates, and panel discussions by leading thinkers who span a vast range of critical topics, from the economy to the environment, from science to the arts, and from across ideological spectrums.
 


 

Who Will Be There?

From early in the morning until late at night, inspiring and provocative writers, public officials, artists, scientists, business executives, scholars, economists, foreign policy specialists, entrepreneurs, and leaders of all kinds — drawn from myriad fields, from across the country and from around the world — will gather to address audiences on the campus of the Aspen Institute and in the town of Aspen. Attendees will meet other concerned and curious participants on the footpath, over lunch, and at the coffee bar — civically engaged and intellectually charged individuals who share a common enthusiasm for engaging on the serious topics of the day as well as the inspiration that a new idea has sparked. This is a place to challenge one’s thinking and learn about the world and the ideas that are shaping it.

 

The Months Ahead


As we plan the Festival and specific details emerge, we will share exciting updates on our website and through electronic communications. We’ll introduce you to presenters, link the topics at the Festival to timely issues in the news, and offer insights to the Festival agenda. Please check your email in the weeks and months to come for news and program updates. See you at the 2011 Aspen Ideas Festival! 

 

Daily forums throughout the week will include:

• Plenary sessions offered three times a day: panels, one-on-one interviews, and presentations;
• Multiple, concurrent tutorial sessions twice daily, where attendees pick and choose from a menu of discussions across the programming spectrum;
• Casual conversations, book signings, and action-oriented discussions on campus between attendees and speakers, offering further opportunities for exchange;
• Evening Exchanges and in-town events in venues around Aspen that will bring Aspen Institute moderators, Atlantic editors, and other prominent national journalists together with presenters for substantive conversation. Films, performances, and presentations will also take place.

 

The Festival is designed around a series of program strands, or “tracks," each of which offers a variety of discussions relevant to a certain topic area. The tracks offer participants the opportunity to focus on a particular area of interest during their time with us, or cover a lot of ground with a menu of diverse ideas across a number of topics.

2011 Program Tracks

Due to the breadth of certain topics, five program tracks will offer conversations across the whole week spanning both sessions of the Festival, June 27 - 30; and June 30 - July 3:

 

• Our Post 9/11 World
• State of the Union
• Ways of Seeing, Ways of Thinking: Arts & Design in America
• The Environment: Green Tech to Clean Tech

 

Alongside the weeklong tracks, focused attention will be given to different subjects during each session of the Festival. June 30 - July 3:

 

SESSION 1: June 27 - 30

• The Learning Lanscape
• Global Economics
• What is "Happiness"?
• Food Fights

SESSION 2: June 30 - July 3

• Growing the US Economy
• Our Digital Universe: Social Media, Mobile Media
• Frontiers of Medicine
• Music on the Edge

More information on the festival can be found at www.aifestival.org.

Lodging & Event Information

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