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Dear
John,
This past November 7, 2021, the Russell Kirk Center’s flagship publication, The University Bookman, lost its longtime editor, Gerald J. Russello, to cancer. Gerald was just 50 yet had been a fixture in our world, with such a breadth of humanistic learning and a deep understanding of the American conservative tradition. He was also someone of great cheer and enthusiasm and welcomed to the Bookman authors he did not always agree with and, more importantly, he identified and championed many young writers who under his careful editorial eye often were first published in the Bookman. He was loved and respected by all and he has been missed.
This is a long way of saying that filling behind Gerald as editor of The University Bookman was no easy task and I wanted a deliberate process to be sure we had the right successor. After some time and reflection, and the strong recommendation of many senior writers, I settled on one of those young writers and academics that Gerald encouraged and published, someone with whom he held many common interests and whom he held in high regard.
I am pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Luke C. Sheahan, a professor of politics at Duquesne University, as the fifth editor in the history of The University Bookman. As Gerald did in his time, Luke represents both change and continuity moving forward, and, maybe not so coincidentally, is about the same age as Gerald was in 2005 when he took the helm of this journal.
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Luke shares Gerald’s generous and joyful disposition. He is genuinely open to the exchange of ideas and to exploring in good faith the beliefs, practices, and institutions that have shaped Western Civilization and the American experience within it, and the conservative tradition that extends from both the West and America. Like Gerald, he has a keen interest in the intersection between aesthetics, the arts, and the imagination. He has written widely on conservative thinkers such as Robert Nisbet, William F. Buckley Jr, Alexis de Tocqueville, and Russell Kirk.
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Gerald cemented the Bookman’s reputation for publishing thoughtful, wide-ranging reviews for a general readership–as an oasis of serious ideas and the moral imagination. Dr. Sheahan is looking forward to assuming that mantle, observing on this appointment:
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As one of the foremost journals of humane letters, The University Bookman has been a rare gem in an intellectual age distinguished by increasingly specialized and arid scholarship on the one hand and decadent and fleeting activism on the other. As always, but especially now, there is the need for conversation and critique free of cant and spite, a place where temperate minds may contribute to the intellectual milieu of an unusually intemperate age. As Kirk writes in The Politics of Prudence, “ages of decadence sometimes have been followed by ages of renewal.” If a new Augustan Age is to be, The Bookman will be central to the effort. Continuing in the legacy of past editors Russell and Annette Kirk, Jeff Nelson, and Gerald Russello, I look forward to leading The Bookman once more into the breach. By continuing to join moral imagination to right reason, we will continue to follow Kirk’s founding mission to “redeem the time.”
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Luke is planning a number of special features for the journal, and he will revive Gerald’s popular webinar series of interviews and discussions with Bookman authors. He will also appoint some assistant editors, and will tell you more about that, in the weeks ahead.
I want to close with a quote from Gerald Russello on the enduring importance of journals like The University Bookman and ask that you consider helping us defray the expenses which, for the Kirk Center, are considerable. Thank you in advance for supporting the Bookman and, hopefully, praying for us. Here are Gerald’s words about our cultural mission:
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T. S. Eliot wrote that “the small and obscure papers and reviews” bore responsibility for the “continuity of culture.” It was they that would “keep critical thought alive” amidst troubled times. And despite the wonders of the Internet and social media, and the variety of multimedia spectacles that are supposed to replace “obsolete” books, we believe Eliot still, as did Kirk when he founded this journal. Books and the periodicals that engage them seriously, will continue to have a place in cultural debate, and the Bookman seeks to be an engaged participant.
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Jeffrey O. Nelson
Executive Director & CEO
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