Conservative Thought from Burke to Eliot

Description

This course traces the development of conservative thought in the Anglo-American tradition, providing special attention to the ideas and importance of Edmund Burke. Emerging from Burke’s response to the French Revolution, conservatism has a long lineage that includes some of the leading statesmen, clergymen, poets, and men of letters in the English-speaking world. 

Students will read primary text excerpts from thinkers such as Edmund Burke, John Adams, Alexis de Tocqueville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, John Henry Newman, Irving Babbitt, Robert Nisbet, Christopher Dawson, T.S. Eliot, Michael Oakeshott, and Roger Scruton, among others. Attention is given to Russell Kirk’s magnum opus, The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot (1953), which is used throughout the course as a guide and framework. 

This course is available to Certificate students only.