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
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
Edmund Burke and the Moral Imagination
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Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was one of the all-time greats of what we might call the Celtic Enlightenment (along with Adam Smith and David Hume), and he is almost always regarded as the founder of modern conservatism, though he was…
Liberty and the American Statesman: John Marshall
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This VRG introduces John Marshall, the longest-serving Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1801–1835), whose career began as a Virginia minuteman under George Washington and later as a delegate to the Virginia Ratifying…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare Plays: King Lear
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Shakespeare’s King Lear may be his greatest tragedy. It presents a dark picture of aging, of an uncaring universe, and the dangers of an unstable king struggling to understand his own power. Consider this session an “appetizer”…
Tom Wolfe: The Roots of Our Discontents
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Tom Wolfe was arguably the most perceptive commentator on American Society in the late 20th century. In 1982, he collected a number of his observations, all written in his inimitable prose style, about the previous 20 years in…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare Plays: Timon of Athens
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Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens is a study in misanthropy. The generous Timon believes that his gifts to his nation and his friends will secure him their faithfulness and support, but he is deserted at every turn. At last, he…
Flannery O’Connor: Grace, Responsibility and Liberty
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This Virtual Reading Group addresses the work of Flannery O’Connor and her view of the opportunities and responsibility that individuals have to respond to the natural and divine grace that leads to self-knowledge and in turn…
Liberty and Tech: Can you really Converse with a Machine?
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This VRG has four short readings about how chatbots are changing our lives. Questions include what it means to have a relationship with a machine. Additionally, we will discuss how interactions with chatbots are spilling over…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare Plays: King John
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The contest for the crown at the center of King John is a bloody and violent one, with a surprising hero in the figure of the illegitimate Richard Plantagenet. George Orwell loved the play, but what will we make of its tangled…
