Just a quick announcement that there will be something of a PoT presence at the American Philosophical Association’s Eastern Division meeting this January in New York (to be held at the opulent, hence utterly unaffordable Sheraton New York Times Square). Roderick Long has, through the Molinari Society, arranged a two-part session for Tuesday afternoon, January 16th: “Nation-States, Nationalism, and Oppression” in the 2-3:50 pm slot (Session G7C, listed at APA Draft Program, p. 33), and “Topics in Radical Liberalism” in the 4-5:50 pm slot (Session G8C, listed at APA Draft Program, p. 37). I’ll be presenting some version of my PoT blog post, “Teaching Machiavelli in Palestine” in the first of the two sessions.
Full sessions are listed below. For whatever it’s worth, the sessions are only open to registered APA participants. But if you’re in Manhattan, and are willing to brave the registration fee, consider yourself invited. Hard to invent more timely topics.
2-3:50 pm, G7C. Molinari Society
Topic: Session 1: Nation-States, Nationalism, and Oppression
Chair: Jennifer L. McKitrick (University of Nebraska–Lincoln)
Speakers:
Irfan Khawaja (Independent Scholar)
“Teaching Machiavelli in Palestine”
Akiva Malamet (Queen’s University, Canada)
“Free Migration as Self-Determination: Open Borders and Project Pursuit”
Zachary Woodman (Center for a Stateless Society)
“Against the Nationalism of the Oppressed”
Commentator: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
4-5:50 pm, G8C. Molinari Society
Topic: Session 2: Topics in Radical Liberalism
Chair: Jennifer L. McKitrick (University of Nebraska–Lincoln)
Speakers:
Jason Lee Byas (University of Michigan)
“The Problem of Pervasive Historic Injustice”
Nathan P. Goodman (Mercatus Center, George Mason University)
“A Radical Liberal Approach to LGBTQ Emancipation”
Cory Massimino (Center for a Stateless Society)
“Ayn Rand’s Novel Contribution: Aristotelian Liberalism”
Commentator: Roderick T. Long (Auburn University)
Policy of Truth 
Thanks! I should announce this on my media too.
Jennifer has had to pull out, unfortunately.
I’m staying a couple of blocks away at the more affordable Park Central (just across the street from the now sadly no longer extant Hotel Wellington, which used to be my go-to APA hotel). Of course still affordable to me only because I’ll be reimbursed.
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To anyone interested in attending, the APA doesn’t release meeting locations ahead of time or to non-registrants, but I plan to post the info here and on facebook and on my website as soon as I know it (which will be no sooner than when I arrive in NYC).
I could go into a long rant about how I think the APA overestimates the costs and underestimates the benefits of “free riding” in this context. Well, short version: the APA seems to assume that a high percentage of those who attend sessions without paying the registration fee would pay the registration fee if that were the only way to attend sessions. I think they exaggerate the elasticity of demand, which for those who aren’t academic philosophers is often just for one or two sessions. And they underestimate the benefit to presenters of having more people in the audience. Since academic philosophers would still have to register to get access to the reception and to the book display, and would be motivated to do so, I don’t think there’s much of a revenue issue. And the ban on attending sessions unregistered (unlike the bans for the reception and book display, which are each in a single large room) are virtually unenforceable anyway.
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Here’s the promised location update: Both Molinari panels are in Madison 4 on the 5th floor.
Note: most of the conference rooms are accessed by the elevators and escalators toward the back of the lobby. But the 5th floor conference rooms are instead accessed by the guest room elevators at the front of the lobby.
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