Conservatives on the Quad

Not so long ago, conservatives, disappointed with colleges and universities, loved them still, thought them irreplaceable, and fought to preserve what was best in them. Today, they consider them enemy assets and dream of arson. In this lecture, Jonathan Marks argues that conservatives should not despair of liberal education.

Biography

Jonathan Marks is Professor and Chair of Politics and International Relations at Ursinus College. He has published on modern and contemporary political philosophy in journals like the American Political Science Review, the Journal of Politics, the Journal of American Political Science, and the Review of Politics. He is the author of Let’s Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case for Liberal Education and Perfection and Disharmony in the Thought of Jean Jacques Rousseau. He co-edited and contributed to Principle and Prudence in Western Political Thought. Marks also has written on higher education for InsideHigherEd, the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Weekly Standard, and the Wall Street Journal. He is a contributor to the Commentary Magazine blog.

Assigned Reading

Jonathan Marks, Let's Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case for Liberal Education (Princeton University Press, 2021)