Tocqueville Forum

News

January 29, 2008: On Tuesday, January 29th, the Tocqueville Forum and Intercollegiate Studies Institute co-sponsored the first "Cicero's Podium"  debate at Georgetown University. Professor James Stoner of Louisiana State University debated Professor Michael Federici of Mercyhurst College on the topic "America: Republic or Empire?" Stoner affirmed a particular conception of republican empire, one which embraces a sense of national greatness chastened by moral realism in foreign affairs; Federici negated, arguing instead that such efforts betray a fundamental incompatibility with modest republican government. Moderated by Forum Director Patrick Deneen, this spirited debate drew a full house and thought-provoking questions from the audience.

January 16, 2008: Following its mission to enhance Georgetown’s undergraduate intellectual life, the Tocqueville Forum announces the continuation of its weekly reading group. Most of the members are Student Fellows of the Tocqueville Forum and all share interests in the issues the Forum was founded to address. Convened by Forum Graduate Fellow Brian Smith, over the course of the Spring 2008 semester the group will discuss a wide variety of Platonic dialogues, including Symposium, Apology, Gorgias, and Republic. The group meets on Wednesday afternoons. Georgetown undergraduates interested in participating should contact us for more information.

December 7, 2007: On Friday, December 7, the Tocqueville Forum hosted its final event of the Fall 2007 semester. We hosted Professor Harvey C. Mansfield of Harvard University, who presented a lecture entitled "Tocqueville's New Political Science - A Theory from Practice." Held in the ICC Auditorium, Mansfield's lecture elaborated the distinctive contribution Tocqueville made in his observations on America, and suggested modern political science could learn much from his method. The lecture was followed by a lively question and answer session and reception. We thank students, faculty, alumni, and our friends for helping us make this another successful semester!

December 1, 2007: At the roundtable "Revisiting the Regensburg Lecture of Pope Benedict XVI" on Monday, November 26, it was announced that the Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy was inaugurating "The Rev. James V. Schall, S.J. Award in Teaching and Humane Letters." The award will be conferred annually at an award ceremony on the campus of Georgetown University and its recipient will deliver a major public lecture and receive a $5,000 award prize. The first award will be conferred in Spring, 2008.

The award honors the contributions and example of Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., a professor in Georgetown's Department of Government. A beloved teacher and widely-read author, Fr. Schall embodies the ideal of the teacher-scholar. The Tocqueville Forum will honor individuals who share Fr. Schall's commitments to teaching and humane scholarship as well as his fierce devotion to transmitting Western thought to future generations.

November 28, 2007: Katherine Boyle (COL '08), a Tocqueville Forum Student Fellow and government major from Gainesville, Fla., is among 12 George J. Mitchell Scholarship recipients selected nationally for the 2008-2009 academic year. The annual scholarship links future American leaders to Ireland with a year of graduate study at one of Ireland’s academic institutions. Boyle will use her scholarship to study public advocacy and activism at National University of Ireland (NUI) Galway.

Ms. Boyle was among the student authors who contributed to the inaugural issue of Utraque Unum, the student-run and largely student-authored journal of the Tocqueville Forum. Her review of the movie Amazing Grace can be accessed here.

We congratulate Ms. Boyle on her accomplishment!

November 11, 2007: Student Fellow and Iraq War veteran William Quinn has published an opinion piece in today's issue of the Washington Post. Titled, "I'm Back Home, But Still in Iraq's Grasp," his article relates the enormous gap between the war and awareness of it at Georgetown. A sophomore in the SFS and ROTC cadet, Quinn studies international politics and security studies. We congratulate him on his fine article and encourage our visitors to read it.

October 30, 2007: At the Second Annual Templeton Enterprise Awards Dinner in New York City on October 30th, Tocqueville Forum Graduate Fellow Brian Smith received the first place award for his article "Adam Smith, the Concept of Leisure, and the Division of Labor," which appeared in the Fall/Winter 2006 issue of Interpretation. The Templeton Enterprise Awards are given annually to the best books and articles published in the previous year on the culture of enterprise. The awards are designed to encourage young scholars (thirty-nine or younger at the time of publication) to explore and illuminate the process by which economics and culture are related throughout the world. A copy of the article may be found here.

October 29, 2007: On Monday, October 29th, 2007, the Tocqueville Forum hosted the first of its “Great Encounters” series on books that change lives. Aimed primarily at Georgetown’s undergraduates, these events will bring a speaker to Georgetown to present on one work that profoundly influenced their life. Our first speaker, Hillsdale College English Professor David Whalen, gave a lecture entitled "Love in the Ruins: Walker Percy and the Perturbations of the Pilgrim Soul.” All students in attendance received a copy of Love in the Ruins. We hope to announce additional events in the Great Encounters series soon.

October 13, 2007: The Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy is pleased to announce the publication of its new student-run journal of ideas, politics, and culture, entitled Utraque Unum. The title reflects the motto of Georgetown's seal, "Both One," a testament to the University's historic commitment to combine faith and reason in order to better and more deeply understand our lives as citizens and human beings.

The first issue of the journal features an original article by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Georgetown College Class of 1957. Justice Scalia's article is based on the lecture he delivered at the first event of the Tocqueville Forum in October 2006, and is entitled "Constitutional Government and Civic Education." The journal also features a number of articles by current undergraduates and graduate students and an essay by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J., professor in the Department of Government. The journal's Editor in Chief is Eric Wind, a junior in the School of Foreign Service, and its editor is Matthew J. Engler, a senior in the School of Foreign Service. The Tocqueville Forum would be pleased to send interested readers a copy of the journal; please email us.

October 12, 2007: On Friday October 12, the Tocqueville Forum held a colloquium on "Natural Rights, Constitutionalism, and the Law,” at our new office space at 3307 M Street inside the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs. The event featured three prominent scholars of natural rights and constitutionalism, including Hadley Arkes, the Edward N. Ney Professor at Amherst College; Professor J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas at Austin; and Charles R. Kesler of Claremont McKenna College. Each presented a roughly forty minute lecture and the event concluded with an hour-long roundtable moderated by our Director, Patrick Deneen.

October 9, 2007: Our friend Stanley Kurtz commends the Tocqueville Forum - and especially our upcoming conference on "Natural Rights, Constitutionalism and Law" - to his readers at National Review Online's The Corner blog. We hope his readers will check back often for new events at Georgetown, and thank Stanley for the mention.

October 3, 2007: Tocqueville Forum Director Patrick J. Deneen appeared on a panel at a conference on October 3, 2007 devoted to a discussion of Allan Bloom's Closing of the American Mind. The conference was held at the Princeton Club in New York City and was sponsored by the Center for the American University of the Manhattan Institute. Deneen commented on a paper presented by Roger Kimball, editor of The New Criterion and author of Tenured Radicals. Deneen's comments focused on Bloom's argument that "openness" constituted a form of "closing" by shutting off the possibility that a University education was most fundamentally aimed at achieving knowledge about "the good life" and hence "the good." The session was filmed by C-Span - keep an eye out for its airing.

October 2, 2007: James Crowley, a recently initiated Tocqueville Forum Student Fellow, has received a second place cash award for his submission on the significance of Allan Bloom's book The Closing of the American Mind on the twenty-fifth anniversary of its publication. The essay contest was sponsored by the Center for the American University at the Manhattan Institute. They have posted his award-winning essay here. Mr. Crowley is a senior in the College and has taken several courses with Professor James V. Schall, S.J., and a seminar on Leo Strauss with Tocqueville Forum Director, Patrick Deneen. The Tocqueville Forum held a conference in Spring, 2007 reflecting on the significance of Bloom's book.

We congratulate Mr. Crowley on his accomplishment!

September 20, 2007: On September 20, 2007, the Tocqueville Forum hosted its first major event of the 2007-8 Academic Year, and the first in a series of lectures on the subject of Tocqueville and America. Georgetown Government Professor Joshua Mitchell gave a lecture titled “Modernity and its Prospects: Tocquevillian Thoughts.” In the lecture, he observed that Tocqueville’s analysis of America and democracy more generally holds profound and troubling implications for various global efforts at democratization, and more specifically, that America’s exceptionalism rests in its lack of an aristocratic past. Held at Georgetown’s Marriott Conference Center, the lecture was filled to capacity. A lively reception followed.

September 18, 2007: As part of our efforts to add to Georgetown’s undergraduate intellectual life, the Tocqueville Forum is pleased to announce the first meeting of its weekly undergraduate reading group. Most of the 15 initial members are Student Fellows of the Tocqueville Forum, and all share interests in the issues the Forum was founded to address. Convened by Forum Graduate Fellow Brian Smith, over the course of the Fall 2007 semester, the group will discuss Alexis de Tocqueville’s masterpiece Democracy in America.

September, 17, 2007: The Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy is pleased to announce it has moved into several offices in University-rented space at 3307 M Street, Suite 300. The Forum's offices accommodate its Director, the Program Coordinator, and its two Graduate Fellows. Additionally, the Forum will modify a large office for use as a small conference and Reading room. Smaller events - such as Reading groups and Student Fellow gatherings - will be held in this space, and students and friends of the Forum are invited to use the room as a quiet space for reading, discussion and enjoyment. The space will be leased from the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, and provides us the opportunity to collaborate with this major campus initiative. With the completion of our small Conference and Reading room and the larger Conference Room shared with the Berkley Center, we will begin hosting various events and gatherings in the new space - including our first major event on "Natural Rights, Constitutionalism and Law" on October 12. We welcome friends, Fellows, and visitors to stop by.

September 16, 2007: The Tocqueville Forum is pleased to announce its new Program Coordinator, Scott J. Faley. Scott is a 2005 graduate of Williams College where he majored in political science with a concentration in political philosophy. He was active in student journalism and started the "Williams Catholic Network," a new campus organization with a focus on bringing speakers and visitors to the Williams campus who could more deeply inform the student body about the Catholic tradition. He has participated in programs sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute and the Witherspoon Institute, and has interned at the Heritage Foundation. Scott will overtake many of the daily tasks of managing Forum activities, assisting in its operation and organizing events, and we are happy to welcome him aboard.

April 18, 2007: The Tocqueville Forum was pleased to host noted author, professor, and public intellectual Roger Scruton, who presented a lecture titled “Conservatism as Conservation.” In the lecture, he noted that conservatives have long neglected the environment as a subject for serious consideration, and made a provocative series of arguments about how – rightly understood – conservatism provides a far better grounding for stewardship of our natural environment. The event was well attended by the campus community, and was followed by a spirited discussion at our reception.

March 22, 2007: On March 22, 2007, the Tocqueville Forum hosted its Inaugural Carroll Lecture. Presented by James R. Stoner, Professor of Political Science at Louisiana State University and entitled “Republicanism and Orthodoxy: The Contribution of John Carroll,” the lecture developed an argument not only about the importance of the Carroll family to the American Founding, but one that illustrated the vital compromises over the relationship between church and state that the Founders effected. The lecture was followed with a spirited discussion of the political legacy that the Carrolls have left us, and the ways in which they influenced the Jesuit educational mission in America.

March 12, 2007: On March 12, 2007, the Tocqueville Forum hosted its first major event of the Spring 2007 semester at Georgetown’s Marriott Conference Center. A roundtable discussion commemorating the 20th anniversary of the publication of Allan Bloom’s Closing of the American Mind, the event brought four prominent intellectuals together for a discussion of Bloom’s enduring importance. They included Michael Zuckert of Notre Dame, Yale’s Norma Thompson, Michigan State English Professor James Seaton, as well as noted author Francis Fukuyama. Moderated by our Director, Patrick Deneen, the event drew a large audience, highlighting the enduring importance of the questions about American universities and public life that Bloom raised two decades ago.

January 19, 2007: The Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy was prominently featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article. The article, "The New Campus Dissidents," cited the Tocqueville Forum's "emphasis on classic texts, and particularly the way in which the American tradition draws on classical Western tradition and biblical tradition. The Tocqueville Forum has adopted Georgetown's emblem as its own -- an eagle clutching a globe, the calipers of rationalism in one claw, a Christian cross in the other...." It noted founding Director Patrick Deneen's hopes that the Tocqueville Forum would provide "a legitimate intellectual and academic space where the kind of questions that lie at the heart of a classic education could be discussed."

November 16, 2006: On November 16, 2006, the Tocqueville Forum hosted Peter Berkowitz, Tad and Diana Taube Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and Associate Professor of Law at George Mason University. Berkowitz presented an hour-long lecture titled “John Stuart Mill’s Idea of a University, and Our Own.” Held in Georgetown’s elegant Mortara Seminar Room, the event drew a mostly undergraduate audience, many of whom remained afterward at a small reception to further discuss the issues Berkowitz raised.

October 26, 2006: On October 26, 2006, the Tocqueville Forum held its second event, titled “Religion and Politics in America, Past Present and Future: On Michael Kazin’s A Godly Hero.” A roundtable discussion of Georgetown History Professor Michael Kazin’s recent biography of William Jennings Bryan, the event brought Kazin together with prominent scholars of religion and politics in America. Participants included Wilfred McClay of the University of Tennessee, Brown University Professor James A. Morone , Georgetown Theology professor Elizabeth McKeown, and our director, Patrick Deneen, who served as moderator. The event was co-sponsored by The Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs, the Political Philosophy Colloquium, as well as Georgetown’s History and American Studies departments, and brought together a large audience of students, scholars, and friends of the Tocqueville Forum.

October 20, 2006: The Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy held its inaugural event, a conference on “The Future of Civic Education in America,” on October 19-20, 2006. The keynote address (full summary) was delivered by Associate Justice Antonin Scalia on the subject of “Constitutional Government and Civic Education in America.” Justice Scalia was introduced by Professor Patrick J. Deneen, founding Director of The Tocqueville Forum on the Roots of American Democracy. During his introduction, Professor Deneen also reflected on the reasons for the creation of The Tocqueville Forum, and especially on the need to preserve Georgetown University's longstanding tradition of preparing students for responsible citizenship in a constitutional republic of ordered liberty.

A full day of three panels featuring such presenters as Jean Bethke Elshtain of the University of Chicago and the Leavey Chair at Georgetown University, James Ceaser of the University of Virginia, Peter A. Lawler of Berry College, and George Weigel of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, drew substantial audiences and spirited discussion throughout the day.