“The Roots of Ordered Liberty: America at 250”
June 4-6, 2026
College Park Marriott – College Park, MD
Thursday, June 4
2:00-3:30 Panel 1: The Role of Locality in Moral and Political Formation
Raleigh Adams, Yale University, “Educating the Affections: Jonathan Edwards, Yale, and the Moral Formation of Liberty”
Hayden Proborowski, Indiana University Bloomington, “A Moral Certainty: Selecting and Electing Virtuous Presidents”
Chair: Katherine L. Bradshaw, Ancient Language Institute
3:45-5:15 Panel 2: Republicanism, Liberalism, and Empire
Matthew Riffe, The Jack Miller Center, “George Washington’s Concept of Empire”
Thomas G. Lannon, The Society of the Cincinnati, “The Art of War and the Practice of Liberty in the American Revolution”
Luke Foster, Hillsdale College (DC), “Liberal Honor Between States: The Afterlives of Montesquieuian Nobility”
Wendy Piper, Dartmouth College, “Looking Back from 250: Hawthorne as Postliberal Prophet”
Chair: Ryan Holston, Viriginia Military Institute
5:30-7:00 Reception
7:00-9:00 Dinner Lecture: D.C. Schindler, The Catholic University of America
“Recovering the Roots of Ordered Liberty”
9:00-11:00 Fellowship
Friday, June 5
8:00-8:30am Late Registration
8:30-10:00 Panel 3: The Thinkers “Conservatism, Inc.” Ignores: Meyer, Röpke, Nisbet, Kendall
Dan Flynn, The Spectator (on Frank Meyer)
Ralph Ancil, Geneva College [Emeritus] (on Wilhelm Röpke)
Luke Sheahan, Duquesne University (on Robert Nisbet)
Matthew T. Cantirino, The University of Dallas (on Willmoore Kendall)
Chair: Christopher H. Owen, Northeastern State University (OK) [Emeritus]
10:00-10:30 Coffee Break
10:30-12:15 Debate: “Did the Federalist Get It Right?”
Jeff Polet, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation (for the Anti-Federalists)
Michael P. Federici, Middle Tennessee State University, (for the Federalists)
Moderated by APL President Shaun Rieley, Hillsdale College (DC)
12:15-1:45 Lunch Lecture: Nathan Pinkoski, The Center for Renewing America
“The End of the ‘Creedal Nation’”
2:00-3:30 Panel 4A: The American Founding: What Do Our Official Documents Presuppose?
Bruce Frohnen, Ohio Northern University College of Law, “Consent of the Governed in The Declaration of Independence and American Constitutional Practice”
William F. Byrne, St. John’s University (NY), “Democracy, Civility, and the Liberal Paradox”
Ralph Ancil, Geneva College [Emeritus], “Authority, Character, and American Renewal”
Chair: Michael P. Federici, Middle Tennessee State University
Panel 4B: Literature and the American Republic
Michael Lucchese, Pipe Creek Consulting, “There’s No Forgiveness for Our Being Human”: The Jeffersonian Legacy in Robert Penn Warren’s Brother to Dragons”
Christopher J. Scalia, American Enterprise Institute, “James Fenimore Cooper’s Revolutionary Novel: Imaging the American Founding in The Spy”
Darrell Falconburg, Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, “The Displaced Person”: American Humanitarianism in the Fiction of Flannery O’Connor
Chair: Eric Adler, University of Maryland—College Park
3:45-5:15 Panel 5A: Technocracy, Tyranny, and Mediocrity
Madeleine S. Austin, University of Oxford (UK), “Legibility and Tyranny: Lessons from James C. Scott’s Seeing Like a State”
Ethan Alexander-Davey, Campbell University, “Artificial Intelligence, Culture, and Human Quality”
Gene Callahan, New York University, “A Semiotic View of AI: There’s No Thirdness There”
Miriam Dawson, “Modern Technological Society and Virtue: What Is Our Telos, and Who Decides?”
Chair: Jason Jewell, State University System of Florida—Board of Governors
Panel 5B: Contemporary Political-Philosophical Dilemmas
Thomas Finan, Boston University, “The Good and Liberty: Freedom Beyond Negation”
José E. Idler, University of Maryland—College Park, “Moral Order and the Interest Equilibria”
Zachary Yost, The Yost Post, “The Eagle and the Condor: Eric Voegelin and Ernst Jünger on America’s Present Existential Crisis”
Katherine L. Bradshaw, Ancient Language Institute,“‘To Virtue And to Worthiness’: Dignitas, Gravitas, and Honestas in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar”
Chair: Shaun Rieley, Hillsdale College (DC)
5:30-7:00 Reception
7:00-9:00 Dinner Lecture: Kody W. Cooper, University of Tennessee—Knoxville
“The Art of Life: Thomas Jefferson on the Pursuit of Happiness”
9:00-11:00 Fellowship
Saturday, June 6
8:30-10:30 Member Breakfast
- For inducted APL members only
10:30-12:00 Panel 6: Religion and Civil Religion in America at 250
John Weichel, Heritage Preparatory Schools, “The Constitutional Personality and Christian Pedagogy”
Paul C. Fine, University of Oxford (UK), “‘Worshipping the Spirit of Freedom’: The Spiritual Roots of Independence Day During the Early Cold War”
John Parks, Lehigh University, “Evangelical Civic Religion: The Meaning of American Religious Disestablishment”
Kevan Keane, Liberty University, “No Room for Neutrality: The Polarizing Effects of New Liberalism on Education”
Chair: Winston Elliott, The Imaginative Conservative
12:00 Departures