Student Blog Post: Graduate Conference in Political Theory

Hira Shah/ March 23, 2020/ Conferences, Student Blogger

From February 6-7, 2020, Duke hosted its sixth annual Graduate Conference in Political Theory in Gross Hall. Following a highly competitive blind review process, graduate students from universities across the United States and Canada arrived to present papers on topics ranging from Mary Jo MacDonald’s “Gabrielle Suchon’s Reversals of Nature: Women’s Subjugation as a Natural Disaster” to Zachariah Black’s “Laughing with the Leviathan: Thomas Hobbes on the Political Potential of Laughter.” On Friday afternoon, all participants gathered in 230E Gross

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LLC recruiting new members

Nora Hanagan/ January 14, 2020/ Living Learning Community

The Visions of Freedom Living Learning Community is a free and well-funded alternative to SLG and Greek housing. Meals with professors, trivia nights, a house course by and for the LLC, and trips to Washington DC, Charleston, and the mountains of North Carolina are just some of the programming that have come to characterize the Visions of Freedom LLC. Though our members major in everything from Computer Science and Neuroscience to History and Religion, our programming is themed around politics,

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An overview of fall 2019

Nora Hanagan/ December 20, 2019/ Uncategorized

  As 2019 draws to a close, we would like to remember some of the highlights of the past semester. On September 19, Presidential Professor of History Emerita of Baruch College Carol Berkin gave our annual Constitution Day lecture in the sanctuary of the Freeman Center for Jewish Life. In an engaging discussion of the Constitutional Convention, Professor Berkin challenged the popular belief that James Madison played the starring role at the 1787 convention that produced the Constitution. She argued

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Ruth Grant: A Conference

Nora Hanagan/ November 25, 2019/ Conferences

In an essay discussing the relationship between political theory and political science, Duke Professor Emerita of Political Science Ruth W. Grant wrote that, “humanities research uses resources from the past to open possibilities, construct alternative, or generate new insights.”[1] This quote—intended to clarify the difference between humanistic and scientific inquiry—also sums up Grant’s scholarship, which explored John Locke’s contributions to liberal political thought, the meaning of evil, the ethics of incentives, and numerous other topics. Along with the Kenan Institute

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