Freedom and Authority Lunch Discussion Group
"No such thing as a free lunch"
(unattributed saying, popularized by economist Milton Friedman)
The lunch discussion groups have long been an integral part of the Freedom and Authority Program. In the years before the block plan, when the course met for an entire year, faculty got together over lunch to discuss the texts they were teaching or considering for class. We continue this tradition by meeting twice each block to discuss texts faculty are using in class, although sections of the course take place only four blocks of the year. In addition we consider a variety of texts from literature, philosophy, political science, contemporary politics, along with an occasional film or video. As a rule, familiarity with the text is not a requirement for lively participation.
Meetings and Readings--Academic Year 2008-2009
| Date | Reading |
| 02/24 | Jill Lepore, from The Name of War |
| 03/10 | Jill Lepore, The Name of War, Chapter 3 |
| Block 7 | Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights |
Readings from 2007-2008:
| Date | Reading |
| 11/20 | Guy de Maupassant, "Boule de Suif" |
| 12/04 | Emilio Gentile, from Politics as Religion |
| 12/18 | Mark Lilla, "The Politics of God" |
02/12 |
Graham Maddox, introduction to Religion and the Rise of Democracy |
| 02/26 | Nancy Hirshman, introduction to Gender, Class, and Freedom in Modern Political Theory |
| 03/11 | Zinovy Zinik, "An Uninvited Guest" |
| 04/29 | Michael Frayn, Copenhagen |
Readings from 2006-2007:
DATE |
Reading |
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| 9/12 | Isak Dinesen, "Babette's Feast" | |||
| 9/26 | David Cole, "Why the Court Said No" | |||
| 10/3 | Aeschylus, Prometheus Bound (for Homecoming Discussion) | |||
| 10/10 | Anton Chekov, "The Lady with the Dog" | |||
| 10/24 | Herman Melville, "Bartleby the Scrivener" |
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| 10/31 | Meet in Gaylord | Michael Bérubé, "In the Liberal Faculty Lounge" from What's Liberal about the Liberal Arts? |
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| 11/7 | Ernest Hemingway, "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" | |||
| 11/21 | Robert L. Scott, "On Viewing Rhetoric as Epistemic" |
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| 11/28 | Franz Kafka,"A Hunger Artist" | |||
| 12/5 | Charlotte Perkins Gilman, "The Yellow Wallpaper" and "Why I wrote the Yellow Wallpaper" | |||
| 1/30 | Virginia Woolf, "Three Guineas" Chapter 1 | |||
| 2/13 | Virginia Woolf, "Three Guineas" Chapter 2 | |||
| 2/13 | Virginia Woolf, "Three Guineas" Chapter 3 | |||
| 2/20 | Mary Wollstonecraft, "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman," Chapters 1-2 | |||
| 2/27 | Cynthia Enloe, "Updating the Gendered Empire" | |||
| 3/13 | Burnham, et al, "Mortality after the 2003 Invasion of Iraq" | |||
| 5/15 | Glenn Gray, "The Ache of Guilt," from The Warriors | |||
Participants and Email List
