Exploring the Ideas of Liberty

I’ve just returned from an exhausting yet rewarding week of teaching at an IHS summer seminar. One question which I hear a lot is, what do you enjoy about teaching these? The first thing that comes to mind is that they’re interdisciplinary: my philosophy lectures are mixed in with lectures from two economists, a historian, and a lit professor. As far as I can tell, this gives the students a far more complete picture of how the ideas work and how the disciplines relate to each other. It helps, also, that the other seminar faculty are awesome – in terms of being great teachers generally, and specifically being able to present material that makes the connections so clear to the students and enables us to hook into each others’ themes. Being on a team with excellent faculty helps bring out the best in me, so public thanks to Elizabeth Hull from Bethany College, my former USMA colleague Rob McDonald, IHS mainstay Howie Baetjer, and “Division of Labour” blogger Frank Stephenson. Frank has scooped me on blogging this – have a look. (L&P co-blogger Amy Sturgis was supposed to be joining us, but couldn’t make it – we missed you Amy!) It’s also a lot of fun to have such bright and curious and motivated students, and to help them explore the ideas of liberty. So, a big shout-out to the Institute for Humane Studies – thanks, and keep up the good work. The rest of my summer will be some combination of writing and swimming. And yard work.