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
If you don’t Martineau, you ought to Martineau: Harriet Martineau’s Illustrations of Political Economy on Human Liberty, Wealth, and 18th century Markets and Trade
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Pre-registration is required.
Harriet Martineau’s Illustrations of Political Economy is a 9-volume series that uses short, easily understandable stories to explain economic concepts concerning equality, wealth, labor, trade, and more. Martineau’s works,…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare Plays: The Winter's Tale
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Pre-registration is required.
4:00-5:30 pm EST
with Sarah Skwire
Like Much Ado About Nothing and Othello, the plot of The Winter’s Tale turns on false accusations against a faithful woman. Why return so often to the question of fidelity and broken trust? Why…
The Presidents: Jefferson and Understanding the Declaration of Independence
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Pre-registration is required.
Thomas Jefferson wrote that in drafting the Declaration of Independence he meant to give expression to “the American mind.” What does this mean? What does the Declaration tell us about the American mind as it relates to the…
Liberty and Responsibility in the African American Religious Tradition
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Pre-registration is required.
This Virtual Reading Group traces the pursuit of liberty in African American religious thought from slavery, through emancipation and Reconstruction, to the mid century civil rights movement. This VRG aims to give an overview of…
Buchanan's Essays: Positive Economics, Welfare Economics and Political Economy
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Pre-registration is required.
This 1959 essay sees James Buchanan criticise both older, utilitarian approaches to welfare economics and also what were then the newer Paretian and Samuelsonian approaches. In particular, Buchanan challenges what he sees as the…
One Fell Swoop: Reading All of Shakespeare Plays: The Taming of the Shrew
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Pre-registration is required.
12:00-1:30 pm EST
with Sarah Skwire
The Taming of the Shrew and its story of an overbearing husband taming a shrewish wife may not have aged particularly well, but critics have long debated how seriously it is meant to be taken,…
A Timeless Reading Group: Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol - Society, Responsibility, and Happiness
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Pre-registration is required.
with Renee Wilmeth
December 2-8, 2024
What defines charity and human kindness in today’s busy world? How does a love of money complicate the issue? For this Timeless reading group discussion, we explore Charles Dickens’ famous…
A Timeless Reading Group: The Constitution and the First Amendment: The Debate on Free Speech
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with Brandon Paradise
November 21-26, 2024
The First Amendment right to freedom of expression is one of our nation’s most cherished and celebrated ideals, yet it is also one of the most contested. Since the nation’s founding, the…
Living in a World of “True Believers”. Why Eric Hoffer Still Matters
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12:00-1:00 pm EST
with Alberto Mingardi
Eric Hoffer is perhaps the most unlikely protagonist of the 20th century political philosophy. Completely self-taught, Hoffer worked as a longshoreman in San Francisco, after being rebuffed…
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
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…
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…
