Free Educational Topics in Chicago
It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3: Browse for a topic, Click the orange request button, Fill out the contact form.
Now the speaker will contact you in the next few days to coordinate details.
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Navigating Solar Options
Ivonne Rychwa, Director of Outreach, Citizens Utility Board (CUB)
Request This Free SpeechA presentation on solar and the benefits of clean energy. Listen to a CUB expert explain different solar programs and incentives you can get involved in, why clean energy is more affordable and reliable, and how policies like CEJA (Climate and Equitable Jobs Act) and the Inflation Reduction Act benefit consumers. MORE >
During this presentation, you will receive information on: how solar panels work with your home and the grid, an overview of state and federal incentives, how consumers can benefit from renewable energy, and programs like Community Solar and Illinois Solar for All. -
Our Culture Wars: Intellectual Roots and Historical Precedents
Mark McGarvie, J.D., Ph.D.,, Retired Professor of History and Law, College of William and Mary
Request This Free SpeechProfessor McGarvie describes the development of pragmatism in the early 19th century as a critique of the individualistic and rights-oriented ideology of the Enlightenment. Pragmatism served as the basis for the first progressive movement, which was ultimately repudiated in the ascension of the Coolidge, Harding, and Hoover Republicans in the 1920s. How are today's progressives repeating the political errors of their predecessors? MORE >
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The New Women: From Gibson Girls to Flappers in the early 1900s
Mark McGarvie, J.D., Ph.D.,, Retired Professor of History and Law, College of William and Mary
Request This Free SpeechIn the early days of the 20th century, New Women caused a media sensation in newspapers and magazines by threatening standards of sexual propriety, living alone while single, pursuing careers, and engaging in politics even before given the right to vote. These college-educated young women in their 20s forced a reconsideration of sexual roles in America that contributed to women's suffrage and the free expression existing several years later in the flapper movement. MORE >
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Creating A Private Sector: Contract Law & The Constitutional Protection of the Right of Conscience
Mark McGarvie, J.D., Ph.D.,, Retired Professor of History and Law, College of William and Mary
Request This Free SpeechProfessor McGarvie is considered one of our leading authorities on the separation of church and state. His ground-breaking thesis articulated in 2004 with the publication of One Nation Under Law has gained tremendous support and led to invitations to write successor volumes and essays for both Oxford and Cambridge University Presses and to speak on the subject across the country. MORE >
In this presentation, Professor McGarvie will explain how the separation of church and state resulted from the Founders' creation of a private sector through the contract clause of the Constitution. Contract law revolutionized the relationships between citizens and their governments. Placing religion in the private sector required its separation from government and the removal of churches from performing public functions in education, poor relief, and record keeping, for which they had responsibility in the colonial era. -
Rethinking the Colonizing of North America
Mark McGarvie, J.D., Ph.D.,, Retired Professor of History and Law, College of William and Mary
Request This Free SpeechEuropean colonialism recently has been presented, both popularly and scholastically, as an evil that decimated native populations, destroyed native cultures, precipitated extensive wars, and caused irreparable environmental harm. Avoiding judgment in favor of understanding, Professor McGarvie will develop the context for European discovery of the New World in the intellectual, technological, political, and cultural contexts of both the Native Americans and the European explorers in the 16th - 18th centuries. MORE >