Goddess of the Market: Ayn Rand and the American Right Read Online Free PDF Page A

draw on documentary and archival material to craft increasingly sophisticated analyses of Rand’s philosophy and writings. The first author to integrate Rand’s life and thought was Chris Sciabarra, who situated Rand within the tradition of dialectical philosophy in The Russian Radical (1995). Though written without access to Rand’s personal papers, Sciabarra’s book employed original research and brought to light hitherto unknown information about Rand’s educational background. Along with Mimi Reisel Gladstein, Sciabarra attempted to draw Rand scholarship out of the Objectivist ghetto by assembling a broad range of contributors for the volume Feminist Interpretations of Ayn Rand (1999). Sciabarra and several collaborators also launched the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies , a publication that touts its independence from any group, institution, or philosophical perspective. The prolific libertarian philosopher Tibor Machan, once an acquaintance of Rand’s, added to the academic literature with his study Ayn Rand (1999).
    In recent years there has been an explosion of scholarship on Rand, much of it fed by the newly opened Ayn Rand Archives and funded by the Ayn Rand Institute. Modeled on other libertarian advocacy groups, such as the Institute for Humane Studies, the now defunct Volker Fund, and the Liberty Fund, ARI has launched an Objectivist Academic Center that runs seminars and conferences on Rand’s thought and supports a journal, The Objective Standard . The newly active Anthem Foundation, an affiliated organization, offers grants and other financial support to university professors interested in Rand. These efforts have yielded Facets of Ayn Rand (2001), a sympathetic memoir by Charles and Mary Ann Sures; Ayn Rand (2004), a short and factually accurate biography of Rand written by the head archivist, Jeff Britting; and Valliant’s The Passion of Ayn Rand’s Critics (2005). The Institute has also sponsored a series on each of Rand’s major novels, edited by Robert Mayhew, which includes Essays on Ayn Rand’s We the Living (2004), Essays on Ayn Rand’s Anthem (2005), Essays on Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead (2007), and Essays on Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged (2009). Although they are clearly written by partisans of Rand and thus lack a critical edge, the essays in Mayhew’s books are based on historical evidence and carefully argued. They represent a significant step forward in Objectivist scholarship.
    Another major source of funding for Objectivist scholars is the charitable foundation of BB&T, one of the country’s largest banks. Run by John Allison, an avowed Objectivist, BB&T has stirred controversy with its grants to universities that require the teaching of Atlas Shrugged . Most of the scholars supported by BB&T are also affiliated with ARI in some capacity, including the Aristotelian scholar Alan Gotthelf and the philosopher Tara Smith, who holds the BB&T Chair for the Study of Objectivism at the University of Texas, Austin, and is the author of Ayn Rand’s Normative Ethics (2006). The success of Smith’s book, which received generally positive reviews from her peers, suggests that Objectivism may finally be granted a hearing by the guild of professional philosophers.
    Though orthodox Objectivist scholarship has taken important steps to engage in dialogue with the broader academic community, it remains hampered by a spirit of faction. Rand’s emphasis on judgment and moral sanction remains important to many ARI-funded scholars, who have attacked independent outposts like the Journal of Ayn Rand Studies and are often unwilling to acknowledge the work of independent scholars. Until these disputes evolve into the more routine, measured, and impersonal disputation of scholarly life, Objectivists will remain stigmatized within the intellectual world.
    Finally, Rand has begun to find her place within the literature about conservatism and the American right that has flourished of late in the historical