George Washington Forum News and Events

Roger Ailes

Roger Ailes is the Chairman and CEO of FOX News. A native of Warren, Ohio, and a 1962 OHIO alumnus, Ailes served as WOUB Radio’s student manager for two years before embarking on an accomplished career as a television producer and executive. In 1996, he oversaw the creation and launch of FOX News Channel, the top-rated news channel in America. Prior to FOX, Ailes was president of CNBC, making it the fastest growing major cable network in America and a leading source for business news, tripling ratings and increasing profits from $9 million to well over $100 million. In 2003, he was named Broadcasting and Cable’s first Television Journalist of the Year. In addition to his media work, Ailes served as an advisor to the campaigns of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and as a trustee for the National Trust for Historic Gettysburg.

Amanda Foreman

Amanda Foreman is the author of the award-winning best seller Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire and A World on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Divided. Born in London, brought up in Los Angeles and educated in England, she did her undergraduate work at Sarah Lawrence College and Columbia University before taking her doctorate in history from Oxford University in 1998. In addition to extensive commentary in newspapers, magazines, and radio, she has served on the juries for the Orange Prize, the Guardian First Book Prize and the National Book Awards.

Wilfred McClay (University of Tennessee-Chattanooga)

Wilfred McClay is the SunTrust Bank Chair of Excellence in Humanities at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and, in addition, serves as a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center and as a senior scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. A current member of the National Council on the Humanities, he also serves on the editorial boards of First Things, The Public Interest, National Affairs, and Wilson Quarterly. He has written or edited a number of books including The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America (1994). He is currently completing an intellectual biography of the American sociologist David Riesman.

Hadley Arkes

Hadley Arkes is the Ney Professor of American Institutions at Amherst College, where he has taught since 1966. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. Arkes has written or edited ten books, including The Philosopher in the City (1981), First Things ( 1986), Beyond the Constitution (1990), Natural Rights and the Right to Choose (2002), and Constitutional Illusions and Anchoring Truths: The Touchstone of the Natural Law (2002). A member of the advisory board for First Things, Arkes was the chief advocate and one of the primary architects of the Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act of 2002.

This is a major international conference on the economic causes and consequences of the Great Depression. The conference opens on Thursday, 13 October, at 7:30 PM in the Baker Center Theater with the first plenary address by Amity Shlaes (Council on Foreign Relations) . Other plenary speakers include Anthony Badger (University of Cambridge), Brian Balogh (University of Virginia), David Beito (University of Alabama), Briam Domitrovic (Sam Houston State University), Gauti Eggertsson (Federal Reserve Bank of New York), Alonzo Hamby (Ohio University), Lee Ohanian (UCLA) and Eric Rauchway (UC–Davis). Jack Epstein (Ohio University & Miller Center on Public Affairs), Andrew Morris (Union College), John Moser (Ashland University) and Kathy Olmsted (UC–Davis) will also deliver papers.