Contemporary Political Ideologies
Examine the ideology of “neoliberalism” and its challengers.
Wednesdays | June 16, 23, 30, July 7, & 14
Online Seminar
What spurs ideological conversions? How do intellectuals who hold strong political views come to change their minds and adopt different — sometimes opposing — views?
In this online seminar, led by American Enterprise Institute fellow Matthew Continetti, students will track the ideological odysseys of five prominent intellectuals who broke ranks with their fellow partisans. Students will survey thinkers who journeyed from Left to Right (Whittaker Chambers, Norman Podhoretz, and Christopher Hitchens) and from Right to Left (George Will and Francis Fukuyama). In so doing, they will meditate on the nature of political ideology and identity, the conflicting pull of loyalty and dissent, and the larger shifts in American political and intellectual life over the last generation.
Images originally from Washington Post, Gobierno de Chile, Fred Palumbo, New York Times, & Commentary Magazine.
Matthew Continetti on the Future of the Conservative Movement
This online seminar will meet weekly over five weeks, on Wednesdays from 6 PM to 8 PM ET via Zoom. A $500 stipend and all course materials will be provided.
Matthew Continetti is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Prior to joining AEI, he was Editor in Chief of the Washington Free Beacon. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Matthew Continetti is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, where he focuses on American political thought and history, with a particular focus on the development of the Republican Party and the American conservative movement in the 20th century. He is the founding editor The Washington Free Beacon and was Editor in Chief until 2019. Prior to joining the Beacon, he was Opinion Editor of The Weekly Standard, where he remained a Contributing Editor until 2018.
The author of The K Street Gang: The Rise and Fall of the Republican Machine (Doubleday, 2006), Continetti’s articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post.
A 2003 graduate of Columbia University, where he majored in history, Continetti lives in McLean, Virginia.
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Matthew Continetti
Matthew Continetti is resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, Prior to joining AEI, he was Editor in Chief of the Washington Free Beacon. His articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
Martha Bayles
Martha Bayles is a fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and since 2003 she has taught humanities at Boston College. She is currently at work on a monograph on the threats to independent journalism around the world; and a book about the importance of “voluntary restraint” in the American tradition of free speech.
Thomas Merrill
Thomas Merrill is an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at American University. He is the author of Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment. He is also the co-editor of three edited volumes, including The Political Thought of the Civil War.