Friday, April 4 at 4:00 PM in 3 Rockefeller

The Daniel Webster Project in Ancient and Modern Studies is pleased to announce the First Annual Janus Lecture to be held at 4:00 PM on April 4 in 3 Rockefeller Center.

What is the Daniel Webster Project in Ancient and Modern Studies?  It is a new faculty initiative to bring greater structure and focus to the liberal arts experience at Dartmouth College by bringing ancient and modern perspectives to bear on issues of permanent moral and political importance.  The Webster Program will sponsor regular lectures, conferences, and curriculum proposals designed to enrich the Dartmouth College experience.  We aim to bring faculty, students, and alumni/ae together around the core ideals of liberal education.  Daniel Webster, class of 1801, remains a compelling model of how the liberal arts can serve the highest ideals of American political life.  As a renowned orator, in the tradition of Demosthenes and Cicero, Webster always explicitly engaged Greek and Roman political thought in his arguments about the American republic, federalism, and slavery.  He is an exemplar of how liberal learning illuminates the most pressing moral and political issues.

Our first Janus Lecturer will be Anthony Kronman, Sterling Professor and former Dean of Yale Law School, who will be speaking about his new book “Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life”.  Find out why this famous law professor now teaches the great books of Western civilization to Freshmen students at Yale College.  Kronman argues that what students most need and want from their college education is the capacity to reflect upon and to choose the most worthy forms of human life.  Professor James Bernard Murphy of the Government Department at Dartmouth will respond to Professor Kronman’s lecture by explaining how the Daniel Webster Project in Ancient and Modern Studies plans to address these urgent questions about the nature of liberal education.  After the lecture and discussion, Professor Kronman will be available to sign copies of his new book.