Virtual Reading Groups
Would you like to join interesting people and have interesting conversations based on readings from the history of liberty?
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Our Virtual Reading Groups will each focus on a particular topic, and a common set of readings will form the basis for our discussions. Each group is facilitated by a professional moderator and is conducted via the Zoom online platform.
Participation is offered at no-cost, and there is no need to be an expert on the topic for discussion! The only requirement is that participants be eager to read and engage in conversation.
Participants who successfully complete all sessions will receive an e-gift certificate from Amazon.com!
Upcoming
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Richard II
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Pre-registration is required.
Richard II begins Shakespeare’s second tetralogy, which comprises his most famous English history plays. We will consider the play not just as a way of teeing up the Henriad, but on it’s own merits and for its own mission. What…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Cymbeline
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Pre-registration is required.
Cymbeline has been classified as a tragedy, a romance, and even a comedy, so our first order of business will be to try to understand what kind of a play this is. Lytton Strachey thought the play was evidence that playwriting had…
An Economy of Words: Adam Smith and the Political Philosophy of Language
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Pre-registration is required.
Linguistic diversity, from the Tower of Babel to the present, has drawn many thinkers to speculate over language and its potential impact on political theory and approach to economic principles. Smith is no exception. Adam Smith’…
Buchanan's Moral Science and Moral Order
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James Buchanan was a foundational scholar in our modern understanding of public choice, bringing the logic of economics to the study of political institutions. Interspersed throughout his voluminous writings on political economy,…
Sympathy and Justice in Jane Austen and Adam Smith
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Read Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, Catherine, or The Bower, and Sandition with bright eyes alongside Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments to explore themes of sympathy, duty, propriety, and the rules of justice. How…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays
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Our new series of Shakespeare Virtual Reading Groups will explore all of Shakespeare’s plays over the course of about 3 years. We’ll look at one play a month, with Liberty Fund’s Sarah Skwire leading one 90 minute discussion for…
Past Sessions
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Hamlet
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It is, of course, ridiculous to tackle this masterpiece in a 90 minute session. The best we can hope to do is to pull at a few threads in the play by asking questions like: What does Hamlet have to teach us about times when our…
Two Moralities? Jane Jacobs’ Systems of Survival
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Pre-registration is required, and we ask you to register only if you can be present for ALL sessions. Readings must be acquired in advance. Participants who successfully complete ALL sessions will be eligible to receive an Amazon…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Julius Caesar
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“Beware the Ides of March!” Or simply prepare yourself for them with this exploration of one of Shakespeare’s most frequently read and quoted plays. Questions of politics are front and center in this play, with one of the primary…
Frank H. Knight’s Freedom and Reform: Essays in Economics and Social Philosophy
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Pre-registration is required, and we ask you to register only if you can be present for ALL sessions. Readings must be acquired in advance. You may use promo code VRG2023 to receive 35% off your purchase at Liberty Fund Books.…
T.S. Eliot on Education and Culture
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“Surely the great poet is, among other things, one who not merely restores a tradition which has been in abeyance, but one who in his poetry re-twines as many straying strands of tradition as possible.” T. S. Eliot’s work, both…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - The Merchant of Venice
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One of the most problematic of Shakespeare’s so-called “problem plays,” The Merchant of Venice provides us with the opportunity to talk about early modern attitudes towards markets, merchants, and towards the Jews who were so…
Timeless: Reading Together - Utopia or Dystopia?
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Please join us in February/March 2024 for a Timeless Virtual Reading Group with Janet Bufton.
Timeless is our new series of asynchronous reading groups.
Each group will be “open” for a defined time period, with scheduled assigned…
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War: the Emancipation Proclamation
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Many of Lincoln’s speeches and letters articulate the concept of American freedom, and Lincoln’s vision continues to penetrate our culture today. Although it lacks the soaring rhetoric, the legalistic writing of the Emancipation…
