Our Past Events

is Senior Fellow at the Yorktown Institute and acting director of the Classics in Strategy and Diplomacy project, and an SME consultant for the George W. Bush Institute’s Veterans and Military Families program. She has two-plus decades of combined public policy, administrative, and academic experience, holding the position most recently as a research fellow both in Foreign and Defense Policy and Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute. Her work has been solicited for congressional testimonies, and featured in the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Economist, Military Times, Newsweek, and The American Interest, among others.

is the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and professor emeritus at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), where he has taught since 1990. His books include, most recently, The Hollow Crown: Shakespeare on How Leaders Rise, Rule, and Fall (Basic Books, 2023), as well as The Big Stick: The Limits of Soft Power and the Necessity of Military Force (Basic Books, 2017). He was a director in the Defense Department’s policy planning staff and from 2007 to 2009 he was counselor of the Department of State, serving as Secretary Condoleezza Rice’s senior adviser, focusing chiefly on issues of war and peace, including Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a contributing writer at The Atlantic, and his commentary has also appeared in the Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and on major television networks.

is a Professor of Politics at Assumption University in Worcester, MA where he teaches classes on politics and literature, political philosophy, and international relations. Dobski's scholarship focuses on the political wisdom of Thucydides, Shakespeare, and Mark Twain. His first book, Mark Twain's Joan of Arc: Political Wisdom, Divine Justice, and the Origins of Modernity, was published in 2024 by Palgrave Macmillan. He is currently a Visiting Professor at Arizona State University's SCETL program where he is working on his second book on Twain's democratic fiction.

is the Chamberlin Family Professor and Chair of the History Department at Miami University. She has published two books and several articles on the history of women and women's rights in the United States, and she teaches classes on the history of women, medical history, and other topics including voting rights and the American Dream.

is Professor of Political Science, Director of the Dawkins Scholars Program, and the founding Co-Director of the American Foundations minor at the United States Military Academy. Dr. Liebert is the author or editor of seven books, including Plutarch’s Politics (2016), and Gibbon’s Christianity (2022). A specialist on the history of political thought, he has also written widely on American politics and foreign policy. His articles and essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Texas National Security Review, The Point, Claremont Review of Books, and First Things. Dr. Liebert is currently working on a book manuscript on localism in American political thought.

Tuesday, November 18, 2025, 11:30 a m - 12:25 p m 

In Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno,” an American captain named Amasa Delano suggests that because “the past is past,” it is pointless to “moralize upon it.” Instead of endorsing Delano’s unreflective approach to life, Melville prompts us to wonder if American leaders and citizens actually must at times criticallyexamine – or “moralize upon” – the past and the present, in order tomore fully realize America’s democratic ideals.

Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 10:05 am - 11:00 am

What kind of literature forms leaders? Plutarch’s Parallel Lives—one of history’s most enduring studies of leadership—suggests that we learn to lead through the attentive study of character. In this seminar, we turn to Plutarch’s portraits of Greek and Roman statesmen to ask how examples of excellence shape the soul. We will consider how Plutarch invites readers not only to admire but to inquire and, ultimately, to imitate. Participants will leave with a richer sense of how biography can serve civic education by cultivating informed admiration.

Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 11:30 am - 12:25 pm

Achilles’ “cataclysmic wrath,” sparked by Agamemnon’s dismissal of the warrior code, takes center stage. Their quarrel raises a central Homeric question: what truly legitimizes power and rule? The two leaders’ scepters symbolize competing claims—hereditary authority, battlefield prowess, wisdom, and divine will. We’ll explore how Homer weaves these forces into a geopolitical struggle between Greeks and Trojans, two distinct peoples and ways of life.

Wednesday, November 19, 2025, 1:30 pm - 2:25 pm

What sort of wartime leader was Abraham Lincoln? How did he choose to exercise authority over subordinates who were often unruly and sometimes failed to act in a decisive manner? Participants will examine Lincoln’s leadership through a reading of some of his more important dispatches during the Civil War.

Thursday, November 20, 2025, 10:05 am - 11:00 am

In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin lays out the preconditions for democracy and he also outlines what is required of citizens in a democracy, especially in the section on Thirteen Virtues which we will read and discuss. What kind of citizens and leaders did Franklin imagine and try to prepare? What kind of leader was he himself? And which of his virtues and lessons seem most in need today?

Thursday, November 20, 2025, 1:15 pm - 2:10 pm

Mark Twain, often hailed as America’s greatest author, is celebrated not only for his humor and satire but also for his keen political insight. His “Jumping Frog” story, published just after the Civil War, invites readers to consider how rhetoric might reunite a nation dedicated to equality and individual flourishing. How does this seemingly simple tale model a democratic community that values both commonality and genuine differences in talent—and why does Twain use a children’s story to convey such a lesson?