Reports from the Telos Student Seminars in Irvine and Nanjing

The Telos Student Seminars provide a forum for students around the world to engage with critical theory by discussing a common set of paired texts from Telos—one current essay and one pertinent essay from our archives. The following reports from our first Telos Student Seminars at Concordia University in Irvine, California, and the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in Nanjing, China, compare Paul Kahn’s “Law and Representation: Observations from an American Constitutionalist” (Telos 195, Summer 2021) and Paul Piccone’s “The Crisis of Liberalism and the Emergence of Federal Populism” (Telos 89, Fall 1991). The Irvine seminar advocates addressing the political challenges highlighted by Kahn and Piccone through a new American civil religion “built on mysticism,” while the Nanjing group took the seminar as an occasion for a wide-ranging, cross-cultural discussion about society and politics. Telos Student Seminars participants across the globe will gather virtually for a discussion with Paul Kahn at the end of this month. For more details about the Telos Student Seminars, including summaries of the two essays under discussion, click here.

Read the reports here.

Continue reading →

Reports from the Telos Student Seminars in Hungary and Israel

The Telos Student Seminars provide a forum for students around the world to engage with critical theory by discussing a common set of paired texts from Telos—one current essay and one pertinent essay from our archives. The following reports from our first Telos Student Seminars in Budapest, Hungary, and Haifa, Israel, compare Paul Kahn’s “Law and Representation: Observations from an American Constitutionalist” (Telos 195, Summer 2021) and Paul Piccone’s “The Crisis of Liberalism and the Emergence of Federal Populism” (Telos 89, Fall 1991). The Hungarian seminar turned its attention to the relevance of political theology in the context of Viktor Orbán’s dismantling of liberal democratic institutions, while the Haifa seminar explored whether the essays by Kahn and Piccone “suggest a liberal, populist, or conservative solution to the crisis of the liberal state.” For more details about the Telos Student Seminars, including summaries of the two essays under discussion, click here.

Read the reports here.

Continue reading →

Introducing the Telos Student Seminars

In anticipation of our two-hundredth issue, the editorial board of Telos is organizing an exciting new international initiative: the Telos Student Seminars (TSS). We are reaching out to you as a valued friend of the journal in the hope that you will be a part of our efforts.

Modeled on the study groups from which Telos first grew, yet reconceived for the digital age, the Telos Student Seminars will provide a forum for students around the world to engage with critical theory by discussing a common set of paired texts from Telos—one current essay, and one pertinent essay from our archives—guided by questions drawn up by our student interns and our editorial board. These questions will seek to connect the past and present of the journal to its future.

We seek faculty from around the world under whose aegis TSS groups can meet and who can provide students with intellectual encouragement and support. These friends of Telos will be designated as our Seminar Conveners. We would be thrilled if you would serve in this special capacity. Conveners are responsible for ensuring that their institutions have a subscription to Telos and its backfile so that students can participate—they can do so by contacting their university librarians.

Continue reading →