Caledonia Fellowship

Carberry Tower in East Lothian, Scotland.

Caledonia Fellowship

Carberry Tower, East Lothian, Scotland

About the Fellowship

The Caledonia Fellowship brings together a selective group of professionals committed to preserving and advancing the principles of liberty, prosperity, and beauty. Over six days of intensive seminars with renowned scholars, fellows explore the foundational principles of Western civilization and culture, with a special emphasis on the thinkers and ideas of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Convened at historic Carberry Tower in East Lothian, Scotland (fifteen minutes outside of Edinburgh), the Caledonia Fellowship provides an opportunity for participants to explore the interrelationships among liberty, prosperity, and beauty while acquiring the necessary tools to further their education and become effective leaders in their respective communities and career fields.

The Caledonia Fellowship convened in 2023 and is not currently accepting applications.

Questions about this fellowship can be directed to fellowships@commonsensesociety.org.

Sample Topics
  • The First Principles of Liberty
  • Ancient and Modern Political Thought
  • The Moral Foundations of Economic Behavior
  • Tocqueville and Intermediary Institutions
  • Scruton and the Listening Culture
  • Defending Western Civilization
  • The Ethics of Nationalism
  • Building Humane Cities
  • Conservation and Stewardship

Distinguished Faculty Include

Mr. Benjamin Crocker is academic programs manager at UATX in Austin, Texas, and since 2022, has been research fellow in music studies at Common Sense Society. He is from North Queensland, Australia, and most recently taught at the King’s School in Sydney. Ben has lectured and guest conducted at the University of Sydney and recorded for nationwide radio broadcast at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2021, he was appointed as an inaugural Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation scholar to Washington, D.C. His columns have been published by The Spectator, The Federalist, and Australia’s Quadrant magazine.

Theodore Dalrymple (the pen name of Dr. Anthony Daniels) is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and a contributing editor of City Journal. He is a retired physician who, most recently, practiced in a British inner-city hospital and prison. Denis Dutton, editor of Arts & Letters Daily, called Dalrymple the “Orwell of our time.”

Prof. Niall Ferguson is the Milbank Family Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Center for European Studies, where he was the Laurence A. Tisch Professor of History. He is also a visiting professor at Tsinghua University, Beijing, and the Diller-von Fustenburg Family Foundation Distinguished Scholar at the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Ferguson is the author of twenty-two books, including Doom: The Politics of Catastrophe, which gives a historical and theoretical account of disasters, and Civilization: The West and the Rest, which traces the development of Eastern and Western culture and shows where they stand today. His 2015 biography of Henry Kissinger, Kissinger, 1923-1968: The Idealist, won the Council on Foreign Relations’ Arthur Ross Prize. He is also an award-winning filmmaker, having won an international Emmy for his PBS series The Ascent of Money. His many other prizes include the Benjamin Franklin Prize for Public Service (2010), the Hayek Prize for Lifetime Achievement (2012), and the Ludwig Erhard Prize for Economic Journalism (2013).

Dr. Juliana Geran Pilon is a senior fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization. The author of eight books, including The Utopian Conceit and the War on Freedom and Why America is Such a Hard Sell: Beyond Pride and Prejudice, she has published over two hundred articles and reviews and makes frequent appearances on radio and television. Over three decades, she has also taught at the National Defense University, George Washington University, St. Mary’s College of Maryland, the Institute of World Politics, and currently at American University.

Dr. Joshua Mitchell is a senior fellow at Common Sense Society and a professor of political theory at Georgetown University. He has also been chairman of the government department and associate dean of faculty affairs at Georgetown University in Qatar. He has published several books including The Fragility of Freedom: Tocqueville on Religion, Democracy, and the American Future and American Awakening: Identity Politics and Other Afflictions of Our Time.

Dr. James Orr is associate professor of philosophy of religion in the faculty of divinity at the University of Cambridge, a position he took up after four years as McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow in Theology, Ethics, and Public Life at Christ Church, Oxford. He holds a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in philosophy of religion from the University of Cambridge and a B.A. in classics from Balliol College, Oxford. Before entering academia, he worked for several years in corporate law.

Dr. Maria Pia Paganelli is a professor of economics at Trinity University. She is the author of The Routledge Guidebook to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, and co-edited the Oxford Handbook on Adam Smith and Adam Smith and Rousseau. She formerly served as vice president of the History of Economics Society and the book review editor for the Journal of the History of Economic Thought. She is the current president of the International Adam Smith Society, and the president-elect of the History of Economics Society.

Dr. Roger Pilon is a senior fellow in the Cato Institute’s Center for Constitutional Studies, which he founded in 1989 and directed until 2019; the inaugural holder emeritus of Cato’s B. Kenneth Simon Chair in Constitutional Studies, Cato’s first endowed chair, established in 1998; the publisher emeritus of the Cato Supreme Court Review, which he founded in 2001; and Cato’s vice president for legal affairs, which he was named in 1999. Prior to joining Cato, Pilon held five senior posts in the Reagan administration, including in the Departments of State and Justice. He holds a B.A. from Columbia University, an M.A. and a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago, and a J.D. from the George Washington University School of Law.

Dr. David C. Rose is a senior fellow at Common Sense Society and a professor of economics at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. He is also a member of the Missouri Advisory Committee of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission. He is widely published on these and other topics, including business ethics, E.S.G. investment and management, global warming, and monetary policy. In 2008, Dr. Rose received the St. Louis Business Journal’s Economic Educator of the year award. His book, The Moral Foundation of Economic Behavior, was selected as one of CHOICE’s outstanding titles of 2012. His most recent book, Why Culture Matters Most, was published by Oxford University Press. Dr. Rose frequently contributes to policy debates through radio and television interviews as well as in op-eds in outlets such as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Word on Business, The School Choice Advocate, Forbes, Washington Examiner, The Washington Times, and The Christian Science Monitor on topics ranging from freedom of speech, social security, monetary policy, fiscal policy, judicial philosophy, education reform, and healthcare reform. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia and his B.S. from Southwest Missouri State University.

Dr. Jean Yarbrough is a professor of government and the Gary M. Pendy, Sr. Professor of Social Sciences at Bowdoin College. She has twice received research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities (N.E.H.). She is the author of American Virtues: Thomas Jefferson on the Character of a Free People and Theodore Roosevelt and the American Political Tradition, and editor of The Essential Jefferson. Dr. Yarbrough is also the author of numerous articles and essays in American political thought and public policy, as well as other topics in political philosophy. She recently completed a Senate-confirmed appointment to the N.E.H.’s National Council. In 2021, she was awarded the Henry Salvatori Prize for her scholarly work and public service in upholding the principles of the American Founding.

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