Recent publications have included an essay with Steven Horwitz on Bastiat's broken-window fallacy and the zombie apocalypse, an essay on why libertarians should read more romance novels, and a consideration of equality, theology, and law in the writing of 17th-century Quaker Margaret Fell. Her research and writing focuses primarily on the intersections between literature and economics. Sarah Skwire is a senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc. He has authored plays on famous statesmen and political issues, one on Alexander Hamilton, one on Woodrow Wilson, a third on ShakespeareвЂ™s Thomas More. West, Shakespeare as Political Thinker (Carolina Academic Press, 1979), revised ed. He is editor of Areopagitica and the Political Writings of John Milton (Liberty Fund Press, 1998) and, with Thomas G. Alvis is the author of ShakespeareвЂ™s Understanding of Honor (Carolina Academic Press, 1988), Divine Initiative and Heroic Response: The Political Plan of Zeus in Homer and Virgil (Rowman & Littlefield, 2002), and Nathaniel Hawthorne as Political Philosopher: Revolutionary Principles Domesticated and Personalized (Transaction Publishers, 2012). Alvis is presently professor of English and director of American Studies at the University of Dallas, where he has taught literature and political thought since 1969, John E. Urban, 'Henry V: Corrupt beyond the Machiavellian Norm?'

Alvis, 'Can Power in the Right Hands Prevent Tyranny?' Urban, 'The Corrupting Effects of Gonzalo's Hypothetical 'Man of System'вЂќ Urban, ' The Tempest's Antonio, Conscience, and Adam Smith' Sarah Skwire, 'Do the Sonnets Hold the Key?'.Michael Zuckert, 'Tyranny in The WinterвЂ™s Tale, Part 2: Lord Acton redux'.Michael Zuckert, 'Tyranny in The WinterвЂ™s Tale, Part I'.Alvis, 'ActonвЂ™s Axiom and Shakespeare: Two Further Plays for Consideration' Sarah Skwire, 'Ethical Leadership and the Temptations of Absolute Power'.Michael Zuckert, 'ShakespeareвЂ™s Moral Universe'.John E Alvis, 'Power, Character, and Disorder'.Michael Zuckert, 'More Like Aristotle than Acton'.Urban, 'Power and Corruption in Shakespeare's Plays' Sarah Skwire, 'Power and Innocent Blood'.Alvis, вЂњThe Corrupting Influence of Power in Shakespeare's Plays' Dreux Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame. Urban who is a professor of English at Calvin College, and Michael Zuckert who is Nancy R. Alvis, professor of English and director of American Studies at the University of Dallas, and the other participants are Sarah Skwire who is a senior fellow at Liberty Fund, Inc., David V. For both those who apply their power and those subject to the wielder thereof, ShakespeareвЂ™s works display the exercise of power to have consequences that bear upon oneвЂ™s understanding of liberty and responsibility.The lead essay is by John E. At the same time the plays portray the transitive effects of exercising power upon those who find themselves subject to the possessors of means to benefit or to harm. From one perspective his dramas depict the effects of possessing power upon the soul of the person thus endowed. And absolute power corrupts absolutely.вЂќ ShakespeareвЂ™s plays qualify as so many imaginative investigations into the consequences of possessing power. Lord Acton famously maintained that вЂњpower tends to corrupt.

To commemorate the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) the discussion this month will focus on вЂњThe Corrupting Influence of Power in ShakespeareвЂ™s Plays'.

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