Valor Fall Symposium with Dr. Jason Baxter
Our symposia are large gatherings that celebrate the intellectual life among friends. Rooted in a spirit of gratitude and renewal, these occasions are marked by true leisure — time intentionally set aside for reflection on the highest things. With opportunities for seminar and lecture alongside moments of fellowship, participants are invited into formation, contemplation, and authentic community. These days seek to deepen our understanding of a full human life by integrating timely reflections with timeless truths.
These days bring together a community of more than five hundred participants, including Valor faculty as well as friends who share our interesting in promoting an adequate philosophical anthropology, a fitting community for the human person, and a deep gratitude for the gift of creation.
This year’s Fall Symposium theme is “The Poet and the Polis,” which will invite Valor faculty and friends to reflect on the role of poetry and art in a republic. Our keynote speaker this year is Dr. Jason Baxter, Director of the Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College.
About the Speaker
Dr. Jason Baxter is Executive Director of the Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College, where his teaching and writing explore the relationship between beauty, contemplation, technology, and the Christian intellectual tradition. Prior to joining Benedictine, he served for more than a decade at Wyoming Catholic College, where he was Associate Professor of Fine Arts and Humanities and later Academic Dean. He has also served as a Visiting Associate Professor at the University of Notre Dame. Dr. Baxter’s work consistently seeks to recover the imaginative and contemplative dimensions of education and culture in an age shaped by technological distraction and fragmentation.
Dr. Baxter earned his doctorate in Literature from the University of Notre Dame, where his studies focused on medieval literature, Dante, cosmology, and the Christian intellectual tradition. He is the author of numerous books, including The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis and A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy. He is also currently completing a new translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. His scholarship and public writing frequently engage themes of beauty, imagination, pilgrimage, friendship, and the recovery of humane learning within contemporary culture.
In addition to his academic work, Dr. Baxter is a widely celebrated lecturer and essayist whose writing and interviews have appeared through organizations and publications including the Lumen Christi Institute, The Imaginative Conservative, EWTN, and numerous podcasts and lecture series devoted to literature, education, and culture. His work brings together literature, philosophy, theology, and cultural criticism in order to illuminate the enduring relevance of the classical and Christian tradition for the modern world.