Plus a young writers' contest
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Hello
John,
In the fall of 2025, the Kirk Center will introduce its School of Conservative Studies ([link removed]) . As a prelude to the kinds of course offerings you can expect, we are hosting a very special class on Edmund Burke’s masterpiece of political wisdom, Reflections on the Revolution in France.
We have secured outstanding faculty, including two of the nation's foremost Burke scholars, Ian Crowe and Gregory Collins, to lead a virtual seminar on Burke’s thought and legacy. Indeed, this course will serve as an introduction to Burke's historical and intellectual significance and to his most influential book. Students will consider how Burke’s ideas spoke to the dilemmas of the late eighteenth century and continue to speak to the moral, cultural, and social challenges of our own time.
Dr. Ian Crowe is associate professor of History at Belmont Abbey College and executive editor of the journal Studies in Burke and His Time. He has long been concerned to make Burke’s historical and intellectual influence on conservative thought in Europe and the United States recognizable to young scholars, and it was this interest that first brought him to the Russell Kirk Center. His efforts to move Burke studies on from the debates of the Cold War period are also a tribute to the spirit of scholarship in which Russell Kirk, Peter Stanlis, and Francis Canavan invigorated Burke studies and ensured that Burke’s thought would remain vital and accessible to future generations. Ian studied Modern History at the University of Oxford and earned his Ph.D. in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Ian will be joined by one of the most celebrated Burke scholars of the rising generation, Gregory Collins. Greg is Lecturer in the Program on Ethics, Politics, and Economics and Department of Political Science at Yale University, and he recently received the Buckley Institute’s 2024 Lux and Veritas Faculty Prize. His first book, Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke’s Political Economy, examined Edmund Burke’s understanding of the connection between markets and morals. Greg has also published articles on Adam Smith, F.A. Hayek, Frederick Douglass, Eric Voegelin, Leo Strauss, and Britain’s East India Company. His additional writings and book reviews can be found in Modern Age, Law & Liberty, National Affairs, National Review, and University Bookman.
This online seminar is available to the first 35 registrants. Those who register after the first 35 spots have been filled will be placed on a waitlist and may be added if an initial registrant drops. Waitlisted registrants will also be considered for future educational opportunities offered by the Russell Kirk Center's School of Conservative Studies.
* Term: February 4 - 25, 2025
* Time: Tuesdays, 7:00 - 8:30 PM ET
* Total Class Sessions: 4
Register for the Perennial Burke course ([link removed])
Wilbur Fellow spotlight: Thomas Philbrick
This fall, the Kirk Center welcomed Thomas Philbrick, a lawyer, writer, and composer, for a residential Wilbur Fellowship. As a lawyer and legal scholar, Thomas' law review scholarship has focused on issues of administrative law, constitutional law, and the First Amendment. During his time at the Kirk Center, Thomas completed a law review article that analyzes several recent Supreme Court decisions that deal with the intersection of religious education and First Amendment rights. He also continued his work as a fiction writer, finishing the draft of a second novel and editing several other works-in-progress.
“Piety Hill is a wonderful, almost magical place. The combination of scholarly rigor, contemplative solitude, and warm familial friendships - all within the almost tangible aura of Russel Kirk’s astounding life and work - are quite unlike anything I’ve ever experienced. My time there was the highlight of my academic career.”
Thomas lives with his wife and two children in Detroit, Michigan, where he recently finished a two-year clerkship with a federal judge. Beyond his legal and literary interests, Thomas is on the board of a new classical Christian school, Detroit Christian School.
Welcoming Dr. Daniel Pitt, Wilbur Fellow
This coming summer the Kirk Center will welcome Dr. Daniel Pitt from England as a residential Wilbur Fellow. Daniel was one of Sir Roger Scruton’s last students, and has since been contributing to Scruton studies. I’d like to call your attention to this excellent article by Daniel, a teaching Associate at the University of Sheffield and a member of the Centre for British Politics at the University of Hull.
You’ll see why we are looking forward to his arrival in Mecosta next year: Common Law Conservatism ([link removed]) .
A Banner Year
The Kirk Center held 36 educational events this calendar year, the most in its history. Our program year concluded when the McConnell Center at the University of Louisville, led by Kirk Center Senior Fellow Dr. Gary L. Gregg, travelled to Mecosta this past weekend for an undergraduate seminar on “Imagining the Afterlife." It was an appropriate way to close the year with a unique study on the theme through the prism of literature, philosophy, and theology (engaging Shakespeare, Vergil, Dante, Hawthorne, Eliot, Hemingway, and Kirk).
The week prior, we gathered at the Amway Grand Plaza with a full crowd for the inaugural McLellan Prizes free speech celebration with Greg Lukianoff, Samuel Goldman, Josiah Joner, Luke Sheahan, Susan Goldberg, Judge James Ho, Heather Mac Donald, and Governor John Engler. Those two final 2024 programs highlight the range of our events.
Each of our programs aims to recover, conserve, and enliven those enduring norms and principles that Russell Kirk called the Permanent Things. Our seminars and lectures reached state legislators and policymakers, undergraduate students, high school teachers, young professionals, and the general public. Scholars and research visitors and journalists came to the Center from China, Japan, Great Britain, Hungary, Argentina, and Spain. It has been a busy and productive year!
If you have the means at this time, please remember the Russell Kirk Center in your year-end giving. We would very much appreciate your support for our efforts to teach American conservatism at its highest to the next generation. Thank you for participating in and supporting our much-needed shared work of cultural renewal.
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Young Writers’ Contest
As you may know, many younger writers have published their first pieces in The University Bookman. Next year, we will be pleased to publish in our online journal the writings of two articulate high schoolers.
Thales College, a premier Classical Christian school in Wake Forest, North Carolina, is currently accepting essays for its 2024-2025 Essay Contest ([link removed]) . It is open to all high school students in 10th-12th grade and the submission deadline is January 15. This year's prompt focuses on how best to promote virtuous American individualism. Various prizes will be awarded to the top submissions—including publication of the winning essays in The University Bookman.
Thank you to all our friends who have extended many kindnesses, support, and prayers for the Kirk Center this past year. We wish you and your loved ones a blessed Christmastide and a happy start to the New Year!
Warm regards,
Jeffrey O. Nelson, Ph.D.
Executive Director & CEO
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