James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions

James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions Princeton University's official program in American political thought and institutions

Madison's Notes has a new episode on "The Nature of Freedom."While philosophers often define freedom into rival concepti...
09/23/2026

Madison's Notes has a new episode on "The Nature of Freedom."

While philosophers often define freedom into rival conceptions—ancient vs. modern, positive vs. negative, freedom from something vs. for something—what if these dichotomies were false?

To settle this issue, in S6, Ep. 6, host Ryan Shinkel interviews Philip Pettit, a Professor at Princeton University's University Center for Human Values, a political philosopher, and the author of Republicanism (1997) and The State (2023), to discuss his theory of freedom as non-domination within the republican tradition.

Along the way, they talk about Henrik Ibsen's Doll House, Polybius, Machiavelli, Bentham, what Benjamin Constant and Isaiah Berlin got wrong, Quentin Skinner's intellectual history, plus the relationships between freedom and technology, the love of honor and citizenship, and political liberty with its other forms.

Please share and enjoy: https://apple.co/4ye1QBt

Madison's Notes has a new episode: "Writing Against the Machine."When AI can generate automatically what takes artists h...
09/16/2026

Madison's Notes has a new episode: "Writing Against the Machine."

When AI can generate automatically what takes artists hours, days, even years to produce, one asks: what is the good of human creation?

To answer that question, in Season 6, Episode 5, host Ryan Shinkel interviews the New York playwright, essayist, and novelist Matthew Gasda to talk about the future of the creative arts.

They discuss how Gasda trained an AI on his plays and impersonated one for his new novel, plus Borges' many paradoxes, Harold Bloom's Anxiety of Influence, DF Wallace & Kafka, Tolstoy's Confession, cultural monasteries, and seeing AI as a competitor to defeat.

Please enjoy: apple.co/4yJk9OI

TOMORROW: Join us for a lecture by Akhil Reed Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale Universi...
09/15/2026

TOMORROW:

Join us for a lecture by Akhil Reed Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, for the Princeton University Constitution Day Lecture titled, "America at 250: From “Created Equal” to Birthright Citizenship."

Hosted by Princeton University Public Lectures and co-sponsored by the James Madison Program, this event will be held on Wednesday, September 16 at 5:00-6:30 pm in McCosh Hall, Room 50.

For more details, please see here: https://bit.ly/4iXBM8A

Twenty five years since 9/11, we remember the victims and salute the heroes of that day. At the James Madison Program, w...
09/11/2026

Twenty five years since 9/11, we remember the victims and salute the heroes of that day. At the James Madison Program, we say: Never Forget.

NEXT WEEK: Join us for a lecture by Akhil Reed Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale Univers...
09/10/2026

NEXT WEEK:

Join us for a lecture by Akhil Reed Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, for the Princeton University Constitution Day Lecture titled, "America at 250: From “Created Equal” to Birthright Citizenship."

Hosted by Princeton University Public Lectures and co-sponsored by the James Madison Program, this event will be held on Wednesday, September 16 at 5:00-6:30 pm in McCosh Hall, Room 50.

For more details, please see here: https://bit.ly/4iXBM8A

Madison's Notes is back with "The Political Philosophy of Mark Twain."Many recall the Missouri author created some of Am...
09/02/2026

Madison's Notes is back with "The Political Philosophy of Mark Twain."

Many recall the Missouri author created some of America's most iconic characters—Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Pudd'nhead Wilson, and Jim—yet few know that Twain was one of our most incisive political thinkers.

So in Season 6, Episode 4, host Ryan Shinkel interviews Ivan Kenneally, a Twain scholar who wrote for The Hedgehog Review on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

They discuss Huck & Jim's many disguises, Tom's fealty to European escape novels, the con men Duke & Dauphin, technical versus tacit knowledge, Ron Chernow & Percival Everett, the nature of nobility and irony, plus what Twain can teach philosophers & comedians today.

Please enjoy: https://apple.co/3SOdfrU

Madison's Notes is out with a new episode: "Divining the Past."Host Ryan Shinkel interviews Anthony Grafton, the Princet...
08/27/2026

Madison's Notes is out with a new episode: "Divining the Past."

Host Ryan Shinkel interviews Anthony Grafton, the Princeton history professor and author of Magus (2023), about conjectural history.

They discuss how Italian humanists stole manuscripts and deciphered old languages, Jesuits argued for a land bridge to the Americas, Renaissance magicians helped create modern science, and much more.

Please enjoy: https://apple.co/4qBjSdE

Madison's Notes has a new episode: "A Cure for Loneliness."Host Ryan Shinkel interviews the philosopher Ian Marcus Corbi...
08/19/2026

Madison's Notes has a new episode: "A Cure for Loneliness."

Host Ryan Shinkel interviews the philosopher Ian Marcus Corbin, program director at Harvard University's Public Culture Project and author of To Arrive Where We Started (2026), about our longing for homecoming and the modern loneliness crisis.

They discuss neurobiology & culture, texts like T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets, Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday, Plato’s Symposium, Dostoyevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov, & Karl Polanyi’s The Great Transformation, and figures from Black Elk to Roger Scruton.

Please enjoy: https://apple.co/4qcXlna

Some of our Undergraduate Fellows are in England this week. Staying at Jesus College, they are studying the Bible, Pluta...
08/17/2026

Some of our Undergraduate Fellows are in England this week. Staying at Jesus College, they are studying the Bible, Plutarch, Shakespeare, and Jane Austen for our annual Convivium at Oxford.

Today, they went on a tour of Oxford University's Bodleian Library, as well as the deer park by Magdalen College.

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