Past Forum Events

Distinguished Lectures

Diane Wood, Chief Judge, United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, The Magna Carta and the Idea of Due Process, September 24, 2015 

Andrea Radasanu, Northern Illinois University, Conquest and Empire in Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, April 9, 2015

Michael Valdez Moses, Duke University, Saved from the Blessings of Civilization: John Ford's Stagecoach, the West, and American Vernacular Modernism, February 19, 2015

Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker, The Humanities as the Foundation of the Sciences, November 13, 2014, launching the Galileo-Shakespeare Project in concert with the Illinois Institute of Technology's Benjamin Franklin Project

Victoria Kahn, University of California at Berkeley, Thomas Hobbes: Revolution in the Making, November 14, 2014 (held at the Illinois Institute of Technology as part of the Galileo-Shakespeare Project)

David Wootton, University of York, Galileo and the Scientific Revolution, November 14, 2014 (held at the Illinois Institute of Technology as part of the Galileo-Shakespeare Project)

Mary Nichols, Baylor University, Antony and Cleopatra's "New Heaven, New Earth", November 14, 2014 (held at the Illinois Institute of Technology as part of the Galileo-Shakespeare Project)

Peter Myers, University of Wisconsin -- Eau Claire, The Arc of the Moral Universe: Brown v. Board, Sixty Years Later, October 6, 2014

Amity Shlaes, New York University, Every Man's Constitution? The Truth About the New Deal as Told through Its Most Important Case, September 18, 2014

Arlene Saxonhouse, University of Michigan, Plato’s Gorgias: Wanna Be a Tyrant?, April 17, 2014

Ronna Burger, Tulane University, In the Court of an Oriental Despot: Reflections on the Book of Esther, February 27, 2014

Nicholas Capaldi, Loyola University, New Orleans, The Liberty Narrative: From the Founders to John Stuart Mill, September 19, 2013

Peter Myers, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, A Dream Deeply Rooted in the American Dream: Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Great Speech Revisited, August 28, 2013

Andrew Norris, University of California – Santa Barbara, What Does It Mean to Ground Morality on Autonomy? Kant on Positive Freedom, April 24, 2013

David Lieberman, University of California, Berkeley, The Promise of Representative Government, September 20, 2012

Ronna Burger, Tulane University, Maimonides on the Knowledge of Good and Evil, November 10, 2011

Joshua Parens, University of Dallas, Why Read al-Farabi in the 21st Century? October 17, 2011

Michael Zuckert, University of Notre Dame, Why Read John Locke in the Twenty-First Century? April 21, 2011

Ronna Burger, Tulane University, Laughter, Anger, and the Philosopher King in Plato’s Republic, April 14, 2011

Catherine Zuckert, University of Notre Dame, Plato’s Republic: A Tale of Two Cities…or Even More, March 31, 2011

David Schaefer, College of the Holy Cross, Montaigne and Happiness, November 8, 2010

Andrew Norris, University of California, Santa Barbara, Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner and the Myth of Lost Origins, March 29, 2010

Richard Velkley, Tulane University, The Defect in the Natural Origin and the Problem of Law: Reflections on Rousseau’s Second Discourse and Social Contract, November 16, 2009

Paul Rahe, Hillsdale College, Montesquieu and the Founding Fathers: Federalism, the Separation of Powers, and the Crisis of American Democracy, October 19, 2009

Clifford Orwin, University of Toronto, Athenian and Persian Empire as Herodotus Presents It in His Histories, April 2009

Jerry Weinberger, Michigan State University, Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Happiness, March 23, 2009

Robert T. Gannett Jr.,Why Tocqueville’s Democracy in America?, March 5, 2009

Charlotte Thomas, Mercer University, Making It Home: Vigilant Memory and the Founding of Ithaca, November 4, 2008

Ronna Burger, Tulane University, In the Wilderness of Sinai: Moses as Lawgiver and Founder, October 27, 2008 (Inaugural Lecture)

Conferences 

The Galileo-Shakespeare Project, A Conference on the Humanities and the Sciences in the Early Modern World, with Adam Gopnik, David Wootton, Victoria Kahn, and Mary Nichols, November 13-14, 2014

Honors Student Conference on Primary Texts, featuring commentary by Ronna  Burger, Tulane University, and Charlotte Thomas, Mercer University, October 10, 2014

Tocqueville and the Frontiers of Democracy, with Paul Berman, Richard Boyd, Nestor Capdevila, Ran Halevi, Robert Pippin, and others, March 5-6, 2009

Academies 

The Summer Teachers' Academy, July 9-12, 2012, with Christopher Lynch, Ralph Lerner, Jessica Roney, Stuart Warner, Michael Zuckert, Mark D. Rosen, Mark Blitz, and Maura Jane Farrelly

The Summer Teachers' Academy, July 11-15, 2011, with Nathan Tarcov, Ralph Lerner, Stuart Warner, Michael Zuckert, Mark D. Rosen, Jessica Roney, Maura Jane Farrelly, and Ted Graf

The Summer Teachers' Academy, July 12-16, 2010, with Ralph Lerner, Peter Onuf, Michael Zuckert, Mark D. Rosen, Jessica Roney, Maura Jane Farrelly, and Ted Graf 

Reading Groups

Student Reading Group on Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws, Spring 2015, Moderated by Jeannine Love

Student Reading Group on Locke's Two Treatises of Government, Spring 2011, Moderated by Paul Diduch

Visiting Scholars

Spring 2009: Ralph Lerner, Benjamin Franklin Professor Emeritus, Committee on Social Thought, University of Chicago