Hello John,

The fall leaves are bursting with color in Mecosta these days, and the Kirk Center is bustling with programs on several platforms. 

I’d like to highlight three of them.

The first is an evening webinar of Russell Kirk’s “Ten Conservative Principles” on Tuesday, October 22. Dr. Jason Jewell of Faulkner University will explain the meaning of the word “conservative” by discussing Kirk's ten principles outlined in The Politics of Prudence. Dr. Jewell is a popular teacher and experienced at teaching Kirk’s works.

This will be an instructive and enjoyable introduction to the meaning of American conservatism. If you are part of a reading group, we encourage you to consider viewing it together as it is wonderful material for an evening conversation. Here's the link to register. I hope you can join Jason Jewell and the Kirk Center staff on October 22!

Second, this Thursday we are looking forward to the arrival of The Fund for American Studies’ Woodhouse Public Policy Fellows. These young professionals are among the brightest and most talented of their generation. They come having read The Roots of American Order, along with a number of essays by important conservative thinkers that shed light on the consensus of freedom and virtue that animated the pages of William F. Buckley Jr’s National Review. They do not seek merely to revive the same old arguments, but then, they won’t be easily swayed by the same new ones these days either.

Our discussion leaders are excellent intellectual guides and good friends to the Kirk Center: Dr. David Corey (Baylor University) and Dr. Bradley Birzer (Hillsdale College). In addition to the sessions, we’ll explore an iconic used bookstore and enjoy a fall afternoon at a Mecosta winery. There will be lots of good fellowship in and out of the sessions. 

Finally, it’s Kirktober time and that means University Bookman editor Luke Sheahan will host a Book Gallery webinar on the ghostly fiction of Russell Kirk. He will be joined by James Panero of The New Criterion and Hollywood screenwriter Adam Simon to discuss Kirk’s fiction and moral imagination on October 29.

The discussion will range from masters of the genre of the ghostly tale to themes of morality and judgment in stories of the uncanny. This annual discussion of Kirk stories is enormously popular. James Panero and Adam Simon are always entertaining and they make Kirk’s gothic horror come alive for us. Follow this link and enjoy this special episode! 

Speaking of the University Bookman, this journal is an oasis of thoughtful book reviews and essays in light of “the right and the good” for a growing number of readers across the country. You might have heard that the Bookman is running its one-and-only campaign this year to raise $20,000 for direct operating expenses through the spring of 2025. This “Kirktober” campaign has raised nearly $5,000 from 26 kind donors to date. One considerate person asked if we accept direct deposit via a donor advised fund. Indeed we do and you may obtain banking information by contacting [email protected]. We are very grateful to these supporters. If you are not yet among them, would you please consider supporting the Bookman to give it a boost this week?

• An Interview with Kirk Center Senior Fellow George Nash
• R. J. Snell on “The Patience of Conservatism” at Public Discourse
• John Wood Jr on “Martin Luther King’s Transcendent Conservatism” at National Affairs
• Christopher Scalia on One of Sir Walter Scott’s Best Novels at Law & Liberty

As always, in Ordered Liberty,

Jeffrey O. Nelson, Ph.D.
Executive Director & CEO