In the Basic Program classroom, students pay close attention to the text, and not so much to the historical context. The First Friday Lectures were designed originally to provide this context. In the December lecture, Kendall Sharp outlines the historical context that explains the significance of the two ancient Greek genres that kick off the…...
This First Friday Lecture is supported by the Anastaplo Lecture Series Fund in memory of Basic Program Instructor George Anastaplo. The history of thought and action in many cultures involves a transition from mythos (stories of gods, goddesses, and heroes) to logos (philosophy and related fields of study). This lecture explored that transition, with special consideration given to ancient Greece.…...
Your Next Chapter Matters is a virtual conversation series with distinguished individuals who have activated encore chapters of leadership for society. In this conversation, Leadership & Society Initiative director Diana Petty speaks with Anne Mulcahy, former Chairman and CEO of Xerox, about her next chapter as Board Chair of the Save The Children Federation.
Watch our conversation with Murat Bozluolcay, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, to explore the history of economies. We start with the rise of economics, from liberal political economy to the scientification of economics in the 20th century. With the help of classic texts, we also explore economies of other times…...
Mathematics and astronomy are often taught as packaged universal truths, independent of time and context. Their history is assumed to be one of revelations and discoveries, beginning with the Greeks and reaching final maturity in modern Europe. This narrative has been roundly critiqued for decades, but the work of rewriting these histories has only just…...
The Romans called their polity SPQR – Senatus populusque romanus, the Roman Senate and people – but the acronym does not encompass the forms of leadership or domination under which they lived for much of their imaginary and recorded history. Because Latin writers lacked a natural term for what the king, Consul, or Caesar was…...
Watch our conversation with Michael S. Roth, intellectual historian and President of Wesleyan University, to explore the value of liberal education across all ages and stages of life. Roth’s most recent book, The Student: A Short History (2023), explores how individuals have learned from antiquity to today. Roth is also author of the award-winning book,…...
Why did the U.S. House of Representatives remove its Speaker for the first time in American history? How will the House choose its next Speaker? And how can history help us to understand this dynamic and challenging political moment? Watch our conversation with Fred Beuttler, Graham School Instructor and former Deputy Historian of the U.S.…...
How has information technology shaped the ideas of civilization over the last 2500 years? Watch our conversation with historian and Graham School instructor Fred Beuttler to explore how IT has impacted the philosophical and spiritual ideas in Western culture. Together, we revisit the struggle between the “Ancients” and the “Moderns,” and look at the relationship…...
This First Friday Lecture is supported by gifts made in memory of Basic Program Instructor Claudia Traudt. What equips us – intellectually and emotionally – for open-mindedness? Is open-mindedness a virtue of the self’s core or of its periphery? How does open-mindedness affect our need for certainty, consistency, and safety? One facet of this big…...
In the era of “post-truth” it has become common to link a crisis of scientific authority with a crisis of liberalism. Democracies around the world are under threat, this reasoning goes, in part because of an attack on scientific truth. But what does liberalism – as political culture and as a form of governance –…...
Watch our conversation with Graham School instructor Clare Pearson to explore Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables, which is often described as one of the greatest novels of the nineteenth century. Les Misérables is a sophisticated novel that combines history, philosophy, and literature, crossing genres in a way that influenced Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The book interweaves…...