The conversation surrounding freedom of speech in higher education has a long and contested history, and is one that has enjoyed a revival in recent years to which Ralston College has contributed, not only in word, but in deed: we founded a new college dedicated to the belief that free speech is life itself.
It is fitting, therefore, that in the inaugural year of our first degree offering, an MA in the Humanities, that we should offer a platform to thinkers and scholars who have also dedicated their lives to thinking, writing, and talking about the role of the liberal arts and free speech in the university.
Our speakers will pose hard, challenging, and inspiring questions: Is it possible to separate academic and political speech? Can any form of speech truly count as free or hateful? Does the study of the liberal arts encourage liberty? Has something of what free speech truly means been lost in our culture where the contemplative life has become subordinated to the practical, rather than existing apart from and above the practical as its ordering principle?
These questions and many others will be posed - and perhaps answered! - by our exciting and distinguished roster of speakers in our series dedicated to free speech and the academy.
- Wednesday, January 11th, 5-7pm: What is Liberal about the Liberal Arts?, Mr Roger Kimball, Editor and Publisher of the New Criterion and President and Publisher of Encounter Books.
- Friday, February 17th, 5-7pm: Why Neither Free Speech nor Hate Speech is a Thing, Dr Stanley Fish, American literary theorist, legal scholar, and writer.
- Thursday, March 23rd, 5-7pm: Intellectual Freedom in the Medieval and Renaissance University, Dr James Hankins, Professor of History at Harvard University and Founder and General Editor of the I Tatti Renaissance Library.
Free and open to the public.
