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 online powered by Zoom.
Our Timeless Reading Groups are asynchronous and open to all in the Portal platform. Liberty Fund solicits a scholar to lead a discussion of a short story and/or essays that each participant will read and discuss. This format doesn’t require participants to use Zoom or “schedule” a specific time to participate.
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.
Upcoming
Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels at 300
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Pre-registration is required.
Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is generally considered a satire: a work that exposes foibles and vices with the goal of reform. In The Battle of the Books, Swift observes, “Satire is a sort of glass wherein beholders do…
Wealth of Nations: A Six-Part Series - Book One
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Pre-registration is required.
Join us for a six-part monthly virtual reading group series that celebrates the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations!
Each month, Sarah Skwire and Janet Bufton (creators…
Liberty and Women's Suffrage
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Pre-registration is required.
This VRG will examine the arguments for and the long struggle for women’s right to vote in the United States. In the aftermath of the successful conclusion, in the form of the 19th Amendment, another constitutional change was…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare Plays: Troilus and Cressida
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Pre-registration is required.
Troilus and Cressida sits uneasily somewhere between comedy and tragedy. The tale of young lovers, set against the backdrop of the Trojan War is often driven by satire and humor, but the play’s end is unsettlingly dark. Can we…
Liberty and the American Statesman: Thomas Paine
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Pre-registration is required.
Certainly among the most important persons of the revolutionary era of the late eighteenth-century, Thomas Paine’s role in the shaping of world events from the American to the French revolutions demands close consideration. What…
The Federalist Papers and the Debate on the Constitution
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Pre-registration is required.
The Federalist played a role in the ratification debate of 1787-1788 and its 85 essays have long been seen as providing essential commentary on, and explanation of, the Constitution. Though written by Federalist partisans with…
Spontaneous Orders in Antiquity
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Pre-registration is required.
Spontaneous order is a central feature of classical liberal thought, especially Friedrich Hayek, and is often taken to be a key dimension of both liberal societies and market-based economies. Yet classical political thought…
Wealth of Nations: A Six-Part Series - Book Two
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Pre-registration is required.
Join us for a six-part monthly virtual reading group series that celebrates the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations!
Each month, Sarah Skwire and Janet Bufton (creators…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare Plays: Antony and Cleopatra
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Pre-registration is required.
Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra is a famously difficult play to stage. Its complicated plot and constant shifting of scenes make the action hard to follow. But the beauties of Shakespeare’s language are still there, and we…
Wealth of Nations: A Six-Part Series - Book Three
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Pre-registration is required.
Join us for a six-part monthly virtual reading group series that celebrates the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations!
Each month, Sarah Skwire and Janet Bufton (creators…
Wealth of Nations: A Six-Part Series - Book Four
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Pre-registration is required.
Join us for a six-part monthly virtual reading group series that celebrates the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations!
Each month, Sarah Skwire and Janet Bufton (creators…
Wealth of Nations: A Six-Part Series - Book Five Part One
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Pre-registration is required.
Join us for a six-part monthly virtual reading group series that celebrates the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations!
Each month, Sarah Skwire and Janet Bufton (creators…
Wealth of Nations: A Six-Part Series - Book Five Part Two
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Pre-registration is required.
Join us for a six-part monthly virtual reading group series that celebrates the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations!
Each month, Sarah Skwire and Janet Bufton (creators…
Past Sessions
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Macbeth
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Ghosts, witches, murder, and madness! Halloween is the perfect time to read Macbeth, again or for the first time. But Macbeth is much more than Shakespeare’s witch play. It is a play about ambition, about fate, and about free…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Henry VI, Part III
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The comedy troupe “The Reduced Shakespeare Company” famously portrays Shakespeare’s English history plays as a football game, with the crown being tossed back and forth. Nowhere is this more apt than in Henry VI, Part Three,…
H. L. Mencken on Commerce, Culture, and Democracy
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“We live in a land of abounding quackeries, and if we do not learn how to laugh we succumb to the melancholy disease which afflicts the race of viewers-with-alarm.” H.L. Mencken, arguably the greatest prose stylist of the 20th…
Islam and Liberty
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We appreciate your interest in this virtual reading group. Unfortunately, this VRG is full and we are no longer accepting registrations. We invite you to check out our upcoming events here. We hope to see you at a future VRG!
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One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Henry VI, Part II
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With the weak Henry VI still on the throne, England struggles to hold together. Jack Cade’s rebellion threatens stability from below and machinations among the nobles threaten from above, and the play closes with the opening of…
The Price of Power: Bring Up the Bodies and The Prince
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In the sequel to Wolf Hall, Henry VIII’s infamous counselor Thomas Cromwell finds himself more powerful than ever before—and more in danger. By the end of the book, he will have executed a queen and become Baron Cromwell, an…
Civil Society and Political Economy
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Debates surrounding public policy often bifurcate the world into private markets and government. When social and/or economic problems arise, pundits are quick to propose government solutions to so-called failures of private…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Henry VI, Part I
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The early death of the celebrated king Henry V has left the throne of England in the hands of his son, an infant of only 9 months. Shakespeare calls him:
Henry the Sixth in infant bands crowned King
Whose state so many had the…
