Discussion Colloquia

The purpose of this colloquium is to better understand recent trends in the study of the history of capitalism, to assess the strengths and weaknesses of the New History of Capitalism, and to ponder how scholars should define capitalism more broadly. The agenda will include topics such as the “old” and “new” history of capitalism, capitalism and slavery, big business, competition and the state, finance, and inequality. Participants will be encouraged to discuss how they might approach the history of capitalism in their own work.

This program was conceptualized by and created in partnership with Dr. David Sicilia.

This colloquium explores current academic debates on religious liberty with a view toward encouraging open and respectful dialogue between proponents of diverse perspectives. Religious pluralism, freedom of conscience, and the conflict between religious liberty and equal protection are among the topics that will be examined.

This program was conceptualized by and created in partnership with Dr. Barbara A. McGraw of Saint Mary’s College of California.

This discussion colloquium explores how liberal principles can inform responses to large-scale pollution problems in the environmental arena. Participants will include leading experts in environmental law, political science, and philosophy. After the colloquium, participants will produce original research on what resources liberalism provides and what challenges remain. A research workshop in which participants will critique each other’s research to prepare their work for publication in a prospective edited volume will follow in the fall of 2021.

This program was conceptualized by and developed in partnership with Professor Jonathan H. Adler, Director of the Coleman P. Burke Center for Environmental Law at Case Western Reserve University.

This program convenes leading scholars in law, the humanities, and the social sciences to think through how to conceptualize and measure the societal impacts of political speech understood as non-profit donor privacy and related First Amendment issues. Participants will seek to identify gaps in the academic literature, better understand how that literature relates to the policy conversation, develop key research questions, and prioritize what research is needed.

This program was conceptualized by and developed in partnership with Professors Bradley A. Smith and Jeffrey Milyo.

The purpose of this colloquium is to introduce scholars, policy makers and practitioners associated with the C. Boyden Gray Center for the Study of the Administrative State at George Mason University to seminal texts in the classical liberal intellectual tradition, while providing Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) scholars with a more concrete understanding of those texts as they apply to current debates about the modern administrative state.

This program was conceptualized by and developed in partnership with Prof. Adam White.