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 - Coriolanus
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Coriolanus is a famously thorny play. How do you manage a drama about a main character who insists on his right to refuse to engage in the kind of dramatic performance necessary to succeed in Roman politics…and on the Elizabethan…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare's Plays - Romeo and Juliet
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We’ll begin the series with Romeo and Juliet, one of the most frequently read of Shakespeare’s plays. A perennial assignment for high school students, the play has also been filmed in endless iterations, from the 1970s Zefferelli…
Understanding Reconstruction - the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments
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The era of Reconstruction is among the most consequential—but also misunderstood—periods of all American history. Using exclusively primary source documents, this seminar introduces participants to the purpose, implications, and…
Foundations of Modern Environmentalism
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Environmental activism, despite its omnipresent placement in our news feeds, is really nothing new. Thinkers back to (at least) John Locke and John Stuart Mill have expressed concern for the natural environment.
Join us for three…
Bruno Leoni: Freedom and the Law
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After WWII, classical liberal thinkers attempted to develop a new version of classical liberalism, more attuned with the needs and issues emerged through the century. Virtually all of them played a special attention to the law.…
Oakeshott's Moral Vision
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Michael Oakeshott offers his readers a striking description of what it means to be conservative—in politics and in moral life more generally. His vision is connected to a particular view of liberal education. This VRG will…
The Messiness of Progress: Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and David Hume's Essays and Histories
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Hilary Mantel’s modern masterpiece Wolf Hall tells the story of the rise of Thomas Cromwell, King Henry VIII’s notorious minister and fixer. Usually cast as the villain in Tudor historical fiction, Cromwell instead emerges from…
J.S. Mill “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion"
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Mill's On Liberty provides readers with a ringing defense of free speech as a crucial component of a free society. This VRG will consider the effectiveness of Mill’s argument on its own, and in the light of today’s…
