American Politics and Government Summit

Enter ISIā€™s second American Politics and Government Summit.


Our theme, ā€œThe Golden Thread: Reassessing Western Civilization,ā€ will be co-chaired by Allen Guelzo and James Hankins. The Summit will provide a place for professors across disciplines to have a serious academic dialogue about emerging researchā€”rooted in timeless principlesā€” in the fields of politics, philosophy, and economics. 

ISIā€™s Second APG Summit will take place from November 8-10, 2024 at ISIā€™s Linda L. Bean Center in Wilmington, DE. The deadline to submit abstracts for conference papers is March 30, 2024, and can be submitted below. Faculty attending the conference will be able to book their hotel rooms below.

Reach out to Tom Sarrouf at [email protected] with questions.

Faculty and graduate students can book their hotels using our special group rates at either the Homewood Suites By Hilton Wilmington Downtown, the Hyatt Wilmington Downtown or the DoubleTree by Hilton hotels, and Homewood Suites Wilmington-Brandywine.

Become a Sponsor

Join ISIā€™s American Politics and Government Summit as a Gold or Silver sponsor!

Silver sponsors are invited to organize a panel during the summit. Gold sponsors are invited to organize a plenary lunchtime panel during the summit. Both Silver and Gold sponsors will be listed in the summit program and thanked from the podium.

Sponsorship opportunities are limited by the event schedule, so donā€™t delay in contributing to this great project of American renewal!


Submit a Proposal

In partnership with Encounter Books and their upcoming multi-volume history of Western Civilization by James Hankins (Harvard) and Allen Guelzo (Princeton), the APG Summit will accept paper and panel proposals related to the theme of tradition (or the Golden Thread) in Western Civilization.  

Tradition is fragile. If you have just one or two generations that neglect the tradition, the thread is broken. If manuscripts had not made it through the breakdown of traditions, the West would be very different: ā€Æno Aristotle, no Plato, no Roman jurisprudence, many key texts of Greek and Roman literature and history would be lost.ā€ÆYet, tradition is formative. The Romans built upon the tradition of the Greeks, the Christian tradition is built upon the Judaic, the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian tradition fuse in Christian Rome. Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome led to Philadelphia and shaped the American experiment. 


We invite proposals of scholarly papers and panels from across the disciplines as we explore The Golden Thread: Reassessing Western Civilization for the American Politics and Government Summit.

Graduate students whose proposals are accepted will be offered a $250 stipend to attend and present at the conference.

Examples of topics eligible for consideration include: 

  • Contingency and Determinism in History 
  • ā€œThe Argument from Heavenā€: Reason as a Defining Factor in Civilization 
  • Monotheism as a Factor in the Establishment of Western Civilization 
  • Civil, Civility, Civilized: The Etymology of the Word ā€˜Civilizationā€™ 
  • Clio Triumphans: Why does History Have a Muse? 
  • History and Culture 
  • From Inquiry to Narrative: Herodotus and Foucault and a Few Others 
  • Why Does the Revolution Not Need Historians? 
  • Irony and Order as Interpretations of Civilization 
  • Is the Enlightenment the Beginning, the Middle or the End of Western Civilization?

Proposals are due by March 30th, 2024.

Thank you for your interest.  

Please email Tom Sarrouf at [email protected] for more information.