Each semester the PTP offers large lectures open to the entire Brown community and the general public, as well as a series of smaller workshops that are by invitation. Invited guests are experts in their field from around the world who present diverse topics that are interdisciplinary in nature.
For more information about our events, use the links below:
Due to COVID-19, this semester's events will be held virtually. Check back regularly for updates.
PPE Seminar welcomes Catherine Herfeld, University of Zurich. Professor Zurich’s researches topics in philosophy and history of science, with a focus on the social sciences and on economics.
As part of the Janus Forum conversations series, The Political Theory Project
welcomes professors Sanford Levinson and Scott Douglas Gerber to discuss the
potential needs and strategies of reforming the Supreme Court of the United States. Should Supreme Court justices have term limits? Should the Court have a greater or smaller number of justices? Is “court packing” appropriate? Does our current system successfully insulate the Supreme Court from partisan politics? If reforms are needed, how should they be achieved?
Levinson’s and Gerber’s research careers establish them as experts on this topic, but with substantially different ideological perspectives. We hope this event provides our audience with a unique opportunity to view the topic of Supreme Court reform from a plurality of viewpoints.
To register, please visit:
https://janusforum2021.eventbrite.com/?aff=eventsatbrown
Speaker Bios
Sanford Levinson is the W. St. Garwood and W. St. John Garwood, Jr. Centennial chair and professor of government at the University of Texas Law School. He is the author of six books and dozens of scholarly articles. His expertise spans a variety of interests apart from tonight’s topic, The Supreme Court, including the United States Constitution, Diversity, and the relationship between Law and Literature.
Scott Douglas Gerber is professor of law at Ohio Northern University and an
associated scholar at The Political Theory Project. His nine books include “A Distinct Judicial Power: The Origins of an Independent Judiciary, 1606-1787” (Oxford University Press). In 2020 he won the inaugural Christopher Collier Prize from the Connecticut Supreme Court Historical Society.
PPE Seminar welcomes Robin Douglass, King’s College London who will present his paper “Bernard Mandeville on Pride, Hypocrisy and Sociability”. Professor Douglass’s research expertise is in the history of modern political thought and he is especially interested in how interpretations of historical thinkers continue to influence and structure debates in contemporary political philosophy.
PPE Seminar welcomes Belinda Archibong, Barnard College, Columbia University who will present her paper”Prison Labor: The Price of Prisons and the Lasting Effects of Incarceration”. Professor Archibong’s research areas include development economics, political economy, economic history and environmental economics with an African regional focus. Her research investigates the role of historical institutions and environment in inequality of access to public services and the development of human capital.
PPE Seminar welcomes Vesla Weaver, Johns Hopkins University who will present her paper “Racial Authoritarianism”. Professor Weaver’s research addresses racial inequality, colorism in the United States, the causes and consequences of the dramatic rise in prisons, and the consequences of rising economic polarization.
PPE Seminar welcomes Krisztina Orban, NBER who will present her paper “The Inception of Capitalism Through the Lens of Firms”. Professor Orban’s main fields of research are in Industrial Organization (Productivity), Growth & Development, and Corporate Finance.
PPE Seminar welcomes Joshua Preiss, Minnesota State University who will present his paper “The American Dream after Covid-19”, a chapter from his new book Just Work for All: The American Dream in the 21st Century” (Routledge). Professor Preiss’s research is in social and political philosophy, political economy, applied ethics, and the philosophy of economics.
PPE Seminar welcomes Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve, Brown University who will present her paper “The Criminal Justice System as a Welfare Handout: How Criminal Justice Professionals Adapt Welfare-Dependency Narratives To The World of Custody and Courts”. Professor Gonzalez Van Cleve’s research addresses the equitability of laws, the creation of racial meaning, and the “consumer experience” of criminal justice institutions.
PPE Seminar welcomes Bernardo Zacka, MIT who will present his paper “Silenced by Design: The Interior Architecture of the Welfare State”. Professor Zacka’s main fields of research are contemporary political theory, bureaucracy, ethnographic methods, architecture and politics, 20th century European political thought.
PPE Seminar welcomes Peter Leeson, George Mason University who will present his paper “A Normal Market”. Professor Leeson’s main fields of research are economics and law.
Liberalism and its History: a Roundtable Discussion with Helena Rosenblatt (CUNY), Quinn Slobodian (Wellesley College), Jacob Levy (McGill University), Annelien De Dijn (Utrecht University).
Hosted by the Political Theory Project. All are welcome!
PPE Seminar welcomes Bart Wilson, Chapman University who will present his paper “The Property Species”. Professor Wilson’s main fields of research are Experimental Economics; Property; Civil Asset Forfeiture; Philosophy of Property; Biology of Property; Spontaneous Order and the Laws.
PPE Seminar welcomes Maura Priest, Arizona State University who will present her paper “Don’t be a Flake”. Professor Priest’s main fields of research are ethics, epistemology, political philosophy, and bioethics.
The Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) Research Seminar at Brown University is a workshop designed to appeal to researchers across disciplines. The PPE Seminar is sponsored by the Political Theory Project, whose mission is to foster the study of those institutions which contribute to societies that are free, prosperous, and fair.
PPE Seminar welcomes Julian Muller, University of Hamburg who will present his paper “The Logic of Populism”. Professor Muller main fields of research are political epistemology and applied ethics. Please click here for a link to the upcoming paper.
Kidnap for ransom is a lucrative but tricky business. Millions of people live, travel, and work in areas with significant kidnap risks, yet kidnaps of foreign workers, local VIPs, and tourists are surprisingly rare and the vast majority of abductions are peacefully resolved - often for remarkably low ransoms. In fact, the market for hostages is so well ordered that the crime is insurable. This is a puzzle: ransoming a hostage is the world’s most precarious trade. What would be the “right” price for your loved one - and can you avoid putting others at risk by paying it? What prevents criminals from maltreating hostages? How do you (safely) pay a ransom? And why would kidnappers release a potential future witness after receiving their money? Join us for a conversation with author Anja Shortland about this fascinating topic. Please click here for tickets.
PPE Seminar welcomes Alisha Holland, Harvard who will present her paper “Private Property Against Public Works”.
Professor Holland studies the comparative political economy of development with a focus on urban politics, social policy, and Latin America. Her book, Forbearance as Redistribution: The Politics of Informal Welfare in Latin America (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics), looks at the politics of enforcement against property law violations by the poor, such as squatting, street vending, and electricity theft.
Her current book project focuses on the political determinants of the level, quality, and social response to infrastructure projects in Latin America. Other research interests include migration, crime control, and subnational governance. Her articles have appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, American Review of Political Science, Comparative Political Studies, Latin American Research Review, Perspectives on Politics, and World Politics.
Dr. Heather Ann Thompson (University of Michigan) speaking at an Odyssey Lecture about her Pulitzer Prize winning book, Blood in the Water: The Attica Prison Uprising of 1971 and Its Legacy
Students at a Janus event
Students attending the Janus Lecture, "Socialism Now?" with Andrei Shleifer (Harvard University) and John Roemer (Yale University)
Students mingle with guest lecturers after the Janus Lecture, "Hip Hope: Should Artists be Accountable for Their Words?" with Michael Eric Dyson (Georgetown University) and Boyce Watkins (Texas Southern University)
Student asking a question at a Janus event
Students mingle with guest lecturer Richard Epstein (Hoover Institution) after a Constitution Day Lecture, "Was the New Deal a Good Deal?" (not pictured, Samuel Issacharoff, NYU School of Law)
Noam Chompsky (MIT) speaking at the Janus Lecture, "Thinking Strategically: Should the US support Isreal?" with diplomat Dennis Ross (not pictured)
Student speaking with Dambisa Moyo (Zambian economist and author) after the Odyssey Lecture, "How the West Was Lost"
Bill Krystol (founder and editor of The Weekly Standard) speaking at an Odyssey Lecture
Dr. Heather Ann Thompson
A student meets Bill Krystol after an Odyssey Lecture
Richard Locke, Brown University Provost and Christina Paxson, Brown University President attend the Janus Lecture, "College & Coal: Should Brown Divest" with panelists Bill McKibben (Middlebury College), Christian Parenti (CUNY), and James Rogers (Duke Energy)
Guest lecturers John Yoo (Berkeley) and Larry Cox (Amnesty International) speak at the Janus Lecture, "One World, Many People: Are There Universal Human Rights?"
Students speak with Glenn Greenwald (American journalist) after the Janus Lecture, "What if the US Legalized All Drugs?" (speaker John P. Walters, former Director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy in the George W. Bush administration, not pictured)
Joseph Carens (University of Toronto) speaks with a student post Janus Lecture, "Open Borders?" (David Miller, Nuffield College Oxford, not pictured)
Joseph Carens (University of Toronto) speaks with an attendee after a Janus event
Students in the audience awaiting an event
Audience at the Janus Lecture: "College & Coal: Should Brown Divest" with with panelists Bill McKibben (Middlebury College), Christian Parenti (CUNY), and James Rogers (Duke Energy)
Janus Student Committee member introducing guest lecturers at a Janus event
Students and faculty mingling after a lecture
Students speaking with Andrei Shleifer (Harvard University) after the Janus Lecture, "Socialism Now?" (John Roemer, Yale, not pictured)
Audience at the Janus Lecture, "Is Humanity Progressing?" with Paul Krugman (CUNY) and Steven Pinker (Harvard University)
More videos from past lectures are available on our Youtube playlist.
