Conference Spoilers

The draft conference program does not give away much about the keynote speeches. We can reveal a little more.

Timothy Fuller, entering with gusto into the comparative spirit of the conference, will be looking not just at Oakeshott, Strauss and Voegelin, but Hannah Arendt, too. In a paper tentatively titled “Victims of Thought”, he will explore how all four thinkers, despite their differences, can be seen as represenatives of a “common effort to restore an ancient tradition”.

Roger Scruton, in “Politics and Conversation”, will pursue the analogy, made at several points by Oakeshott, between the conservative view of civil association and our ordinary understanding of conversations. He will ask what makes conversations possible, how they succeed, and how they go wrong.

As for our third keynote speaker, Robert Grant – well, we can’t give everything away! Come to the conference and find out.