Multi-Day Seminars

Taught by experts in their field, our multi-day seminars allow students the opportunity to have intensive and fruitful academic engagement with topics and thinkers often neglected in their Yale classrooms. Through these multi-day seminars, the Buckley Institute helps fill the gaps in the Yale curriculum.

Details

In March 2015, we launched our multi-day seminar program, allowing students the opportunity to have intensive and fruitful academic engagement with topics and thinkers neglected in their Yale classrooms. Held over three days during winter, spring, summer, and fall breaks, topics and professors have included:

Past Topics

Lincoln and the Crisis of American Democracy with Peter Ahrensdorf
Free Market Fairness with John Tomasi
Aristotle on The Good Life with Robert Bartlett
The Federalist Papers and the American Founding with Charles Kesler
Tocqueville's Democracy in America with Patrick Deneen

Upcoming Seminars

The Pros and Cons of Classical Liberalism in Hume’s Essays
March 22, 2023, 10:00 am – March 24, 2023, 3:30 pm

Today classical liberalism is under attack—from the left on the grounds that it is inattentive to historical injustices, from the “national conservative” right on the grounds that it is hostile to the common good. In this seminar, led by American University Professor Thomas W. Merrill, we will think about the viability of classical liberalism by considering one of its founding thinkers.

Seminar Photos

“I love the Buckley Program’s commitment to the humanities and great books. This was apparent to me after I took a seminar on The Tempest.”

— Yale Student ’24

“The multi-day seminars in general have been my favorite events. Of the multi-day seminars, I have probably been most impacted by the John Tomasi or Yuval Levin seminar. Although, I probably enjoyed Steve Hayward’s seminar most.”

— Yale Student ’24

“It’s an amazing learning environment and really pushed me to think about the topic outside of class, not because I needed to, but because I wanted to.”

— Maddy Megal ’25

“The Buckley Program seminar gave me the ability to communicate deeply about a topic with an esteemed professor, with people surrounding me who were passionate or intrigued about the topic and not worried about a grade.”

— Maddy Megal ’25