Welcome to the Association for Political Theory’s first Virtual Reading Group!
We’ll be reading Martha Nussbaum’s Not for Profit and using it to guide our conversation about the place of the humanities (and humanities education) in democratic society. Our discussion promises to touch on a variety of topics, from the specific task of curriculum construction to the broad project of identifying the proper purpose of democratic nations.
Posting and commenting will be loosely organized according to the seven chapters of Not for Profit with one initiating scholar per chapter. Each scholar will present their thoughts on the specific chapter and the broader issues Nussbaum raises. Lisa and I will push the discussion forward if it begins to lag. While posting is restricted to invited participants, all who are interested in what Nussbaum terms “the crisis facing us” are welcome to comment, provided those comments are intellectual in nature.
As the summer draws to a close, we will sift through the discussion and present our ‘final’ (nothing is ever final, of course) thoughts on the issues raised by Not for Profit. With these final thoughts, we'll transition to the non-virtual portion of the VRG, the roundtable discussion.
In October, APT will host the roundtable featuring VRG-independent scholars (to avoid too much repetition). The roundtable will feature Patrick Deneen (Georgetown University), Fred Dallmayr (University of Notre Dame) and Arlene Saxonhouse (University of Michigan).
VRG participants are invited to attend and bring the questions, themes, concerns, conclusions, etc. drawn from the VRG to the panelists’ attention. In addition, all APT folks are invited to participate in the roundtable discussion. Thank you in advance to our participants, particularly the initiating scholars!
Peyton & Lisa, your VRG co-chairs
