James Tully, FRSC, is an Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Political Science & Law at the University of Victoria. After a BA at the University of British Columbia and a PhD at Cambridge University, he taught in the Departments of Political Science & Philosophy at McGill University 1977-1996. From 1996-2014 he was Distinguished Professor of Political Science, Law, Indigenous Governance, & Philosophy at the University of Victoria, and Distinguished Emeritus & Adjunct Professor of Political Science and Law from 2014 to the present. Also, from 2001 to 2003 he was the inaugural Henry N.R. Jackman Distinguished Professor in Philosophical Studies in the Departments of Political Science, Philosophy, and Law at the University of Toronto. He was awarded the Killam Prize in the Humanities (2010) and the APSA Benjamin Lippincott Award (2024).
My teaching and research are in the area of legal and political theory & practice; constitutionalism, legal pluralism, Common & Indigenous law & Governance, forms of democracy, federalism, globalization, imperialism, ecosocial or ‘Gaia democracy’, and especially individual and free, cooperative and peacemaking agency within these systems (what I call ‘civic’ & ‘civil’ citizenship & ‘integral nonviolence’). It is a public philosophy oriented to dialogues of reciprocal elucidation among academics and citizens (the TullyWheel). See Livingston, ed., James Tully To Think and Act Differently (2022).
As we discussed in 2005, this dialogical approach is akin to the founding spirit of the Trudeau Foundation. “The Trudeau Foundation is unique. At its heart is a critical dialogue among scholars, mentors, fellows, and guests that – to paraphrase Pierre Trudeau – pushes each participant to their limit and beyond. Each brings their academic research and practical experience to bear on the great problems of inequality and oppression, war and peace, environmental destruction, and civic responsibility facing Canada and the world in the 21st century. These ongoing dialogues are linked to larger public discussions of these issues through the Foundation’s various public events. In turn, the energy, insights, and advances of these communities-in-dialogue reverberate throughout the work of mentors, learning of scholars, teaching and research of fellows, and the broader networks of all who participate in this unique, pedagogical experience, thereby creating an uniquely Canadian ethos of democratic responsibility as it progresses.”
