The PPE Cinema, organized by the Kellogg Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, welcomes faculty and students from across campus who are interested in watching and discussing great films.

Together we watch movies on the big screen and discuss the questions in philosophy, politics, and economics that they raise. Food and beverages are provided.

Film title: The Hunt. In a small Danish village, a kindergarten teacher is wrongly accused of sexual abuse and becomes a social outcast. The jury at the Cannes Film Festival awarded the powerful psychological drama by Thomas Vinterberg a “Special Palme d’Or” for the first time ever (2012).

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact ppe@nullvt.edu at least ten business days before the event.

American Legal Scholar Bruce Ackerman will deliver the 2025 PPE Distinguished Public Lecture at Virginia Tech.

Bruce Ackerman has served as the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University. He is the author of nineteen books in political philosophy, constitutional law, and public policy.

Professor Ackerman is a Commander of the French Order of Merit, a member of the American Law Institute, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. The American Philosophical Society has awarded him the Henry Phillips Prize for lifetime achievement in Jurisprudence, especially noting his exploration of the great turning points in American constitutional history in his three-volume series, We the People. The book considers today’s U.S. constitution as the product of three great exercises in popular sovereignty, led by the Founding Federalists in the 1780s, the Reconstruction Republicans in the 1860s, and the New Deal Democrats in the 1930s.

Professor Ackerman’s scholarship has had a global impact. He has been named a Leading Global Thinker by Foreign Policy magazine. His book, Before the Next Attack (2006), served as a basis for the reform of the French constitution dealing with emergency powers. The Stakeholder Society (with Anne Alstott) has served as the basis for reform initiatives in Brazil, Britain, and elsewhere.

His most recent book, Revolutionary Constitutions (2019), puts the world-wide constitutional crisis in historical perspective and discusses the current assault on checks-and-balances. The book offers a robust defense of democratic populism, considering it not necessarily as a threat to the democratic world.

At Virginia Tech, Professor Ackerman will speak about “Rebuilding Our Shattered Democracy: The Race Against Time.”

The lecture will take place on March 26, 2025, from 5-6:30pm in the Anne and Ellen Fife Theatre of the Moss Arts Center. No tickets are required. The lecture will be followed by a public reception.

All faculty, students, and members of the public are cordially invited to attend this event.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact ppe@nullvt.edu at least ten business days before the event.

At this panel discussion, current PPE Research Fellows Ariel Ahram, Clara Suong, and Xu Lin will discuss their work on governance, secrecy, and social networks.

Dr. Ahram’s work explores the role of non-state actors and social institutions in governance, using the Iraq as a test site. Dr. Suong’s work, using a combination of formal and empirical methods, focuses on government secrecy about politics and its implications. Dr. Lin’s work analyzes how real-life network structures shape social interaction, with the goal of developing a unified modeling framework.

Join this informal, yet intellectually rich discussion. All faculty and students are welcome to attend. Please see here for more information.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact ppe@nullvt.edu at least ten business days before the event.

The Kellogg Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics will host a one-day workshop on Indigenous Economics on Friday, August 14, 2025, in the Lury and Barbara Goodall Room in the Newman Library.

Indigenous peoples had lived in the Americas and developed complex and diverse economic systems for thousands of years before Europeans arrived and began to establish colonies. The interaction of indigenous and colonial economic institutions fundamentally altered conditions for both the peoples that were already here and the new nations that would form. Today, people of Indigenous descent are amongst the poorest in the United States and Canada. Analyzing the role of Federal laws in the evolution of the economic conditions of Indigenous peoples is critical when formulating policies to improve their economic status both on and off of reservations. Furthermore, the economic growth, institutional formation, and distribution of income in North American today is a function of what was here in 1492. A true understanding of American economic development requires clarifying the connections between its past and present.

This workshop will provide a forum for scholars to explore emerging research in indigenous economics, considered from an interdisciplinary perspective.

The workshop will follow the traditional economics format of questions interspersed through each talk. Please see here for more information about the speakers and schedule.

The workshop is open to the public. All faculty, students, and members of the public are cordially invited to attend. For more information about this workshop, please contact Melinda Miller (millermc@nullvt.edu).

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact ppe@nullvt.edu at least ten business days before the event.

Join the David H. Kellogg Center for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics for its annual “Meet and Greet” event on September 9, 2025, from 3:30-4:30pm, at the Center (free parking).

We will have an informal reception (free food) for faculty, staff, students, and anyone interested in PPE. Learn more about the Center, its faculty, degree programs, student club, and our events and activities this year.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact ppe@nullvt.edu at least ten business days before the event.

This semester, the PPE Reading Group will meet for lunch and discussion of Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (2023) by Nobel Laureates Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. Free pizza and soft drinks will be provided!

From plows to factories to AI, new technologies have driven economic change. While technology is often viewed as bringing progress, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson argue that the reality is more complicated. Technology can provide new opportunities and new growth, but who will reap the benefits if contested. The powerful are often able to harness technological change for their own gain. Acemoglu and Johnson lead us through a discussion of how technological change occurs, who benefits from it, and how we can bend its trajectory to make everyone better off. As they emphasize in their introduction, “you can’t stop technological change, but you can shape it.”

The reading group will meet from 12:30-1:45pm on September 16, September 30, October 21, and November 11, in Pamplin Hall, Room 1028.

The Center will provide free copies of the book. Participation is open to all Virginia Tech students and faculty.

To receive your free book, please sign up with PPE Core Faculty member Melinda Miller (millermc@nullvt.edu), ideally well before the first meeting

Mercedes Corredor, a PPE affiliate and faculty member in Philosophy at Virginia Tech, will give a talk with the title “When Porn Doesn’t Speak.”

The talk will take place on September 24, 2025, from 12:15-1:30pm, in the conference room of the Kellogg Center (820 University City Blvd).

The PPE Working Paper series offers a friendly and constructive intellectual environment for sharing and advancing preliminary research in PPE. Please see here for more information.

All faculty and students are welcome to attend. Lunch will be served! Please RSVP (strongly recommended).

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact ppe@nullvt.edu at least ten business days before the event.

This semester, the PPE Reading Group will meet for lunch and discussion of Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (2023) by Nobel Laureates Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. Free pizza and soft drinks will be provided!

From plows to factories to AI, new technologies have driven economic change. While technology is often viewed as bringing progress, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson argue that the reality is more complicated. Technology can provide new opportunities and new growth, but who will reap the benefits if contested. The powerful are often able to harness technological change for their own gain. Acemoglu and Johnson lead us through a discussion of how technological change occurs, who benefits from it, and how we can bend its trajectory to make everyone better off. As they emphasize in their introduction, “you can’t stop technological change, but you can shape it.”

The reading group will meet from 12:30-1:45pm on September 16, September 30, October 21, and November 11, in Pamplin Hall, Room 1028.

The Center will provide free copies of the book. Participation is open to all Virginia Tech students and faculty.

To receive your free book, please sign up with PPE Core Faculty member Melinda Miller (millermc@nullvt.edu), ideally well before the first meeting.

William Thomson, Professor of Economics at the University of Rochester, will give a talk with the title “Claims Problems: An Introduction and Progress Report.”

The talk will take place on October 15, 2025, from 4-5:30pm in Owens Ballroom (Owens Hall).

The talk is tailored to appeal to both faculty and students, with plenty of time for discussion and interaction with the guest speaker. The talk will be followed by a public reception.

All faculty and students are welcome to attend. Please see here for more information.

If you are an individual with a disability and desire an accommodation, please contact ppe@nullvt.edu at least ten business days before the event.

This semester, the PPE Reading Group will meet for lunch and discussion of Power and Progress: Our 1000-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity (2023) by Nobel Laureates Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson. Free pizza and soft drinks will be provided!

From plows to factories to AI, new technologies have driven economic change. While technology is often viewed as bringing progress, Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson argue that the reality is more complicated. Technology can provide new opportunities and new growth, but who will reap the benefits if contested. The powerful are often able to harness technological change for their own gain. Acemoglu and Johnson lead us through a discussion of how technological change occurs, who benefits from it, and how we can bend its trajectory to make everyone better off. As they emphasize in their introduction, “you can’t stop technological change, but you can shape it.”

The reading group will meet from 12:30-1:45pm on September 16, September 30, October 21, and November 11, in Pamplin Hall, Room 1028.

The Center will provide free copies of the book. Participation is open to all Virginia Tech students and faculty.

To receive your free book, please sign up with PPE Core Faculty member Melinda Miller (millermc@nullvt.edu), ideally well before the first meeting.