Past Events

Fall 2024

2024-2025

Gloria Cheng

  1. Lecture: Music and Math: A Perfectly Imperfect Harmony – From Pythagoras to Adès
  2. Seminar: The Heart and Soul in Musical Modernism

Andrew Lang

  1. Lecture: Whither “Gratitude To Our Fathers?” Abraham Lincoln And The American Union
  2. Seminar: American Exceptionalism And The Civil War Era

2023-2024

Barry Kraft

  1. Lecture: Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”
  2. Seminar: Samuel L. Johnson’s preface to Shakespeare

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Oscar Wilde: The Importance of Being Earnest

Cynthia Clegg

  1. Lecture: Censoring Shakespeare: Custom and the Rule of Law
  2. Seminar: Shakespeare’s Othello

Daniel Hannan

  1. Lecture: How Like a God: Shakespeare and the Making of Our Reality.
  2. Seminar: Shakespeare‘s Henry V.

Robert Greenberg

  1. Lecture: Beethoven in the Movies
  2. Seminar: Amadeus

Matt Malkan

  1. Lecture: Why What A Lot of People Think About Science Is Wrong
  2. Seminar: Is Our Universe “Fine-Tuned” For Life?

James Muller

  1. Lecture: Churchill’s Thoughts as Adventures
  2. Seminar: Churchill’s Finest Hour: the Wartime Speeches

2022-2023

Mark Bauerlein

  1. Seminar: The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Chapters 10 and 11
  2. Lecture: The Fall of the Millennials

Susan McWilliams Barndt

  1. Seminar: Rip Van Winkle and American Civic Life
  2. Lecture: How the Counterculture Won the War: The Merry Pranksters, The Hells Angels, and the Party That Foretold American Politics 

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Anton Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya

Gary Saul Morson

  1. Seminar: Three Stories by Anton Chekhov: “The Duel.” “Lights.” “Happiness.”
  2. Lecture: What Does Not Happen in Uncle Vanya?

Jean Yarbrough

  1. Seminar: Alexis De Tocqueville’s Democracy in America (Excerpts)
  2. Lecture: Lincoln and Tocqueville on Slavery

Michael Kulikowski

  1. Seminar: The Fall of the Western Roman Empire
  2. Lecture: The Eurasian Turn in Late Antiquity

2021-2022

Jonathan Bank

  1. Seminar: Conflict, a play by Miles Malleson
  2. Lecture: Exploding the Dramatic Canon

Paul Rahe

  1. Seminar: The Influence of Commercial Sea Power on History
  2. Lecture: Ancient, Modern, and Post-Modern

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Michael Frayn’s Copenhagen

Michael Ward

  1. Seminar: C.S. Lewis, Studies in Words (Excerpts)
  2. Lecture: C.S. Lewis and Liberality

2020-2021

Rafe Esquith

  1. Seminar: Almost Impossible: Creating a Lifelong Reader in a Mixed-Up, Muddled-Up, Shook-Up World
  2. Lecture: Beyond the Test: Three Ways to Change a Student’s Life Forever and for Better

Carol McNamara

  1. Seminar: Shakespeare’s The Tempest
  2. Lecture: Tom Wolfe’s America

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Noel Coward’s Private Lives

2019-2020

James Ceaser

  1. Seminar: What is Populism and Where is it Going?
  2. Lecture: James Madison: The Founder of Modern Founding

James Muller

  1. Seminar: Churchill’s My Early Life
  2. Lecture: The Education of Winston Churchill

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard

Gary Gallagher

  1. Seminar: Abraham Lincoln, Union War Aims, and the Limits of Reconstruction
  2. Lecture: Was Reconstruction a Lost Moment? Understanding the Connection between Union War Aims and Postwar Realities.

2018-2019

Daniel Lowenstein

  1. Seminar: Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure
  2. Lecture: Law and Mercy in The Merchant of Venice

Joshua Mitchell

  1. Seminar: Tocqueville’s Democracy in America
  2. Lecture: Globalism and the Crisis of Inheritance

Bill Harlan

  1. Seminar: Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part One
  2. Lecture: ‘Aye, Too Gentle!’: Re-Examining the Motives for Evil in Othello.

Robert Greenberg

  1. Seminar: Mozart’s Don Giovanni
  2. Lecture: Will the Real Wolfgang Mozart Please Stand Up?

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia

Constance Walker

  1. Seminar: Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia
  2. Lecture: Jane Austen, Aristotle, and the Perfect Plot

Lorraine Pangle

  1. Seminar: Plato’s Criticism of Homer in The Rebublic
  2. Lecture: Homer, Educator of the Greeks (and Us)

Joan Waugh

  1. Seminar: Primary Documents Related to the 1868 Election
  2. Lecture: ‘Let Us Have Peace’: U.S. Grant, Union, and Civil Rights in the Election of 1868.

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Bernard Shaw’s The Devil’s Discipline

Barry Kraft

  1. Seminar: Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Lucan’s Pharsalia
  2. Lecture: Hamlet and the Spirit of Revenge

2017-2018

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People

Alan Blumenfeld

  1. Seminar: Chain Potok’s The Chosen
  2. Lecture: Finding Shylock: Love and Mercy in The Merchant of Venice

Craig Yirush

  1. Seminar: The Declaration of Independence
  2. Lecture: Dissenting Voices fro 1776: Why Islanders, Loyalists, Africans, and Indians Rejected the American Revolution

Bruce Redford

  1. Seminar: Goethe’s account of his visit to Italy
  2. Lecture: The Grand Tour of Europe

Diana Schaub

  1. Seminar: Douglass’ Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln
  2. Lecture: Abraham Lincoln and the Daughters of Dread Scott

AnthonyKronman

  1. Seminar: Max Weber’s Politics as a Vocation
  2. Lecture: Is Ours a Godless Age?

John Maurer

  1. Seminar: Churchill’s essays on before, during, and after the war
  2. Lecture: Churchill, America, and the Great War

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Euripides’ Hippolytus and Racine’s Phaedra

2016-2017

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Tom Stoppard’s Rough Crossing .

Woody Holton

  1. Seminar: Letters of Abigail Adams
  2. Lecture: Washington Schlepped Here: How George Washington Admitted an Error and Won the Revolutionary War.

Gary Saul Morson

  1. Seminar: Three Stories by Anton Chekhov.
  2. Lecture: Russian Lessons from 1917: Novelists and the Intelligentsia.

Susan McWilliams

  1. Seminar: Walt Whitman’s Song of the Open Road
  2. LectureL Reading the American Road Trip.

Allen Guelzo

  1. Seminar: (Re)Visioning Reconstruction.
  2. Lecture: ReconstructionL The Last Bourgeois Revolution.

Andy Robinson

  1. Seminar: Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night.
  2. Lecture:Stepping into the Light: An Actor’s Journey.

Barry Shain

  1. Seminar: Monarchy, Republicanism, and the American Revolution.
  2. Lecture: The Tragic American Revolution and the Accidental Republic.

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Moliere’s The Misanthrope

Wanda Corn

  1. Seminar: Writing’s on Georgia O’Keeffe
  2. Lecture: The Three Lives of Grant Wood’s American Gothic.

2015-2016

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Jerry Sterner’s Other People’s Money

Robert Putnam

  1. Seminar: Our Kids
  2. Lecture: Our Kids: The American Dream in Crisis

Matthew Crawford

  1. Seminar: Francois Furet’s Passing of an Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century.
  2. Lecture: Attention as a Cultural Problem

Michael Allen

  1. Seminar: William Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Table.
  2. Lecture: William Shakespeare’s Henry IV.

Mark Wahlgren Summers

  1. Seminar: The Impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
  2. Lecture: Dead Man Walking: The Not-So-Strange Stillbirth of Radical Reconstruction, 1868.

Fred Sanders

  1. Seminar: Sophocles’ Antigone.
  2. Lecture: Law, Rigor, and Personal Responsibility in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Take and Sophocles’ Antigone.

Vernon Smith

  1. Seminar: Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
  2. Lecture: On Changing False Beliefs: Three Cases from Experimental Economics.

Interact Theater

  1. Play Reading: Jean Anoulih’s and Sophocles’ Antigone

Paul Cantor

  1. Seminar: The Merchant of Venice: Shakespeare’s View of the Commercial Republic.
  2. Lecture: Robinson Crusoe and the Enlightenment Spirit of Capitalism.
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