The Buntrock Institute of Freedom and Community welcomes Kari Hong, attorney and scholar with deep expertise in US immigration policy, to St. Olaf College to discuss the legal landscape around federal immigration enforcement and will offer concrete immigration policy proposals. All are welcome to attend.
The Institute of Freedom and Community invites guest lecturer Dr. Michael Munger, Professor of Political Science and Economics from Duke University, to campus to present Populism and Democracy: A Public Choice View. Munger will use an economic lens to understand populist movements and American democracy.
This panel will feature perspectives from three different experts responding to immigration enforcement in Minnesota in different ways, including an organization (MN Voice) providing Constitutional Observer training, an organization providing relief to affected families in Rice County, and a policing expert who teaches police ethics and tactics at the Minneapolis and St. Paul police academies. […]
College and community officials will give their perspective on immigrant enforcement in Minnesota in a moderated panel style format, and will field questions from audience members. All members of the community are welcome.
Ken-Ichi Takashima, Professor Emeritus of the University of British Columbia, will explore the origins of the Chinese civilization as reflected in the oldest writings, “oracle-bone inscriptions” (OBI). Datable to the Late Shang Dynasty, ca. 1230-1050 BCE, the topics of the OBI range widely, such as weather, agriculture, hunting, warfare, medicine, childbirth, sacrificial and ritual practices, etc. They […]
The Ninth Annual James M. May Lecture in Classics will be delivered by His Grace the Right Reverend Irenei (Matthew Steenberg ’01), Bishop of London and Western Europe in the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia (ROCOR), on Thursday, November 13, 2025, at 7:00 p.m. in Viking Theater. The lecture, entitled "‘Cicero Speaks Norwegian’: Reconsidering […]
Hahrie Han is the Inaugural Director of the SNF Agora Institute at Johns Hopkins University and the faculty director of the P3 (“Possible, Probable, and Powerful”) Research Lab. Han’s lecture, “Revitalizing Democracy,” will draw on her pathbreaking research on social movements and collective action. Her book will be available for purchase following the lecture.
Corey Robin is a Professor of Political Science at CUNY Brooklyn College and author of books such as The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Donald Trump and Fear: The History of a Political Idea. Robin will be discussing his new research which evaluates contemporary politics through an analysis of capitalism and American democracy.
When we disagree, we should try to work out the truth. For that we have debate. But the meaning of debate is also debatable, and this lecture arranges just such a clash of minds across time and space, between the 19th century English philosopher John Stuart Mill and the classical Buddhist scholar Nāgārjuna.
From vaccines to climate change, skeptics ask: why does some intellectual elite get to tell us what to think? We can best understand the frustrating dilemma of scientific authority by looking back to a time when modern science emerged alongside modern views on political authority.