The Future of Conservatism - October 12, 2009

This panel discussion among four conservative thinkers will address the role of conservatism in the current political arena—where it fits in the major parties, what role it may play in the next election, and what will happen to the right and far right. Ross Douthat is an author and blogger. Formerly a senior editor at The Atlantic, he is the author of Privilege: Harvard and the Education of the Ruling Class (Hyperion, 2005) and, with Reihan Salam, Grand New Party (Doubleday, 2008). In 2009 he replaced William Kristol as the conservative columnist at the New York Times. David Frum was an economic speechwriter for former President George W. Bush. A resident fellow of the American Enterprise Institute and a former contributing editor of National Review, he is the founder of NewMajority.com, a site “dedicated to the modernization and renewal of the Republican party and the conservative movement.” He is the author of several books, most recently, Comeback: Conservatism That Can Win Again (2008). Daniel Larison is a contributing editor at The American Conservative, which publishes his blog Eunomia. A scholar of Byzantine history, Larison recently completed a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. Virginia Postrel ‘82 is the author of The Future and Its Enemies (1998) and The Substance of Style (2003). From 1989 to 2000, she was the editor-in-chief of Reason. She has been an economics columnist for The New York Times, “Commerce and Culture” columnist for The Atlantic, and a columnist for Forbes and Forbes ASAP. A pioneering blogger, she currently edits a group blog at DeepGlamour.net and continues to blog sporadically at Dynamist.com, the website she founded in 1998. She is writing a book on glamour for The Free Press.