The spring semester may be all finished as of this week, but that doesn’t mean the party’s over! No indeed—starting next week, I’ll be offering three informal evening lectures on the following topics, all free and open to the public:
May 13: The Lost Art of Statesmanship, from Max Weber to Winston Churchill
Everyone craves the “statesman,” but not only is a precise definition or clear understanding nearly impossible (“A statesman is a successful politician who is dead”—Thomas Reed), but the idea is thought impossible to study formally. Some thoughts on how to approach “statesmanship” intelligibly.
May 20: The Constitution: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Tocqueville famously wrote that “Scarcely any political question arises in the United States that is not resolved, sooner or later, into a judicial question.” This lecture-seminar will survey the main currents of constitutional controversy today. This seminar will offer the highlights of Prof. Hayward’s two-semester course in Constitutional Law from this year.
May 27: Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and the Endgame of the Cold War:
The end of the Cold War was as dramatic as it was sudden and unexpected, with a number of new books appearing recently that deepen the revisionism. How did it happen? What were the relative roles of personal force and grand strategy—and what lessons might we take for today?
Time: All lectures from 6:30 to 8 pm.
Location: The Roser Atlas center, Room 100
Here’s the campus map link. On at least one of these evenings, I’ll be adjourning afterward to the Bohemian Beer Garden on 13th Street for some cold suds.
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