Virtual Reading Groups
Would you like to join interesting people and have interesting conversations based on readings from the history of liberty?
Free Participation! | Powered by Zoom
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
George Eliot's Middlemarch
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Pre-registration is required.
George Eliot’s Middlemarch (1872) is widely regarded as one of the greatest English novels, shaped by her remarkable life and intellectual background. The novel explores the tension between individual freedom, social…
Liberty and the American Statesman: Thomas Jefferson vs. John Adams
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Pre-registration is required.
This session explores the evolving relationship and ideological divide between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who went from collaborators on the Declaration of Independence to political rivals with sharply different views on…
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…
Liberty and the American Statesman: Daniel Webster vs. John Calhoun...the Slavery Debate
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Pre-registration is required.
In this Liberty and the American Statesman VRG, we will examine the contrasting responses to the sectional crisis presented in John C. Calhoun’s “Speech on the Slavery Question” (March 4, 1850) and Daniel Webster’s “The…
Gibbons' Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: A Twelve-Part Series - Part One
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Pre-registration is required.
Join us for a twelve-part monthly virtual reading group series that celebrates the 250th anniversary of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire!
Each month, Peter Mentzel will lead a 90-minute…
Brave New World and We: Dystopian Visions and the Nature of Tyranny
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Pre-registration is required.
Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We, first published in English in 1924, is often considered the grandfather of dystopian science fiction and influenced classics such as Orwell’s 1984, Vonnegut’s Player Piano, and Rand’s Anthem. In this…
The Rise and Fall of a Self-Made Man: Freedom and Falsehood in The Great Gatsby
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Pre-registration is required.
The Great Gatsby is one of America’s most-read novels, in large part because of its use in countless high school and college English classes. It offers the story of Jay Gatsby as told by Nick Carraway, his new neighbor. It…
Niall Ferguson's The Square and the Tower
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Pre-registration is required.
Join Aeon Skoble for a three-session VRG exploring Niall Ferguson’s The Square and the Tower, an ambitious examination of the dynamic relationship between hierarchies and networks throughout history. As participants work through…
Liberty and the American Statesman: Before The Federalist: Alexander Hamilton as Revolutionary
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Pre-registration is required.
How did Hamilton become Hamilton? His earliest writing in favor of the American colonial cause evinced all the marks of a limited government Whig seeking redress for imperial overreach and violation of rights. By the end of the…
Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: A Twelve-Part Series: Part Two
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Pre-registration is required.
Join us for a twelve-part monthly virtual reading group series that celebrates the 250th anniversary of Edward Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire!
Each month, Peter Mentzel will lead a 90-minute…
Past Sessions
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Twelfth-Night: or, What You Will
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Twelfth Night is a comedy that was written to help celebrate the end of the Christmas season. Like many of Shakespeare’s comedies it is preoccupied with questions of love and of identity, and with the tricks and machinations…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Venus and Adonis
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With the winter holidays upon us it seemed like the perfect opportunity to explore one of Shakespeare’s narrative poems for a briefer reading experience this month. A crucial piece of writing for establishing his importance as a…
H.G. Wells, Technocracy and Liberty
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Novelist H.G. Wells (1866-1946) is still beloved for some of the most brilliant stories of the early 20th century: from The Time Machine to the Invisible Man, quite a lot of his prose survived the test of time, has been…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - The Comedy of Errors
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As we move into the festive holiday season this early slapstick comedy by Shakespeare brings us merriment and family drama–which seems like good preparation for family feasts and fights! Join us as we consider questions about…
Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War: the Gettysburg Address
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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. Among his most celebrated speeches is his Gettysburg Address, November 19,…
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 - 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,…
