Join us for an Academic Retreat on William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom by Dr. Glenn Arbery of Wyoming Catholic College.

About the Leader

Dr. Glenn Arbery currently serves as Professor of Humanities at Wyoming Catholic College. From 2016 to 2023, he served as the third President of WCC.  He has served as Director of the Teachers Academy at the Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture and as an editor at People Newspapers in Dallas, where he won regional and national awards for his writing. In addition to numerous essays and reviews, he has published two volumes with ISI Books, Why Literature Matters (2001) and The Southern Critics (2010), editor. He is also the editor of The Tragic Abyss (2003) for the Dallas Institute Press and Augustine’s Confessions and Its Influence, St. Augustine Press (2019). His novel Bearings and Distances was published by Wiseblood Books in 2015, and his second, Boundaries of Eden, was published in 2020.

Join us for an Academic Retreat titled “Embodying Charity in Flannery O’Connor” led by Dr Farrell O’Gorman of Belmont Abbey College.

About the Leader

Dr. Farrell O’Gorman is Professor of English at Belmont Abbey College and taught previously at Mississippi State University and DePaul University. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. O’Gorman is the author of two monographs: Peculiar Crossroads: Flannery O’Connor, Walker Percy, and Catholic Vision in Postwar Southern Fiction (2004) and Catholicism and American Borders in the Gothic Literary Imagination (2017). He has spoken on O’Connor at a variety of regional and national events, at conferences in France and Italy, and at the 2014 O’Connor conference in Ireland, for which he served on the organizing committee.

O’Gorman’s teachings focus on O’Connor, Catholicism, and gender in the American Gothic, in part by exploring O’Connor’s relationship to Nathaniel Hawthorne and Katherine Anne Porter. His work places O’Connor in a tradition of “American women writing Catholicism” that includes Kate Chopin, Willa Cather, and Toni Morrison as well as Dorothy Day and Rose Hawthorne Lathrop.

Important Details

Travel: Participants are expected to pay for their own travel to and from the retreat. We recommend flying into Austin-Bergstrom International Airport and arriving at the Kingfisher Center at least an hour before the event begins.

Scholarships: Full scholarships are available for undergraduate and graduate students, teachers, and professors. Please indicate your desire for a scholarship on the application. We do not want cost to be a barrier for anyone desiring to participate in one of our retreats.

Academic Retreats are offered free of charge to Valor faculty and staff.

Sponsorship: The Valor Institute is looking for partners to join us in expanding our retreat offerings. Please contact Joel VanDerworp if you are interested in sponsoring our programs.

Join us for an Academic Retreat on “Friendship in Athens, Rome, and the New Jerusalem” led by Dr. Matthew Walz of the University of Dallas.

About the Leader

Dr. Matthew Walz completed undergraduate studies at Christendom College, double-majoring in philosophy and theology and graduating as the valedictorian of the class of 1995. He earned a doctorate in philosophy at The Catholic University of America by completing a dissertation on Thomas Aquinas's understanding of free will.

Dr. Walz is Chair of the Philosophy Department, Associate Dean of Constantin College, Director of Pre-Theology Programs at the University of Dallas, as well as the Director of Intellectual Formation at Holy Trinity Seminary.

Dr. Walz’s research and writing focus primarily on medieval philosophy, ancient philosophy, and philosophical anthropology. Besides Aquinas, his favorite philosophical authors include Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Anselm, and Wojtyla.

Academic Retreat: Dietrich von Hildebrand’s Aesthetics

An Academic Retreat at the Kingfisher Center in Austin, Texas, led by Maria Fedoryka, Phd, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Ave Maria University.

About the Leader

Dr. Fedoryka has studied, taught and lectured widely on questions related to the nature and dignity of the human person, especially the philosophy of love, and the place of love in the lives of persons, examining issues spanning from the centrality of love in the being of God, to its role at the center of creation, to its meaning for marriage, family, and sexuality.

About the Text

Written in the early 1970s during the last years of his life, as if harvesting a lifetime of reflection, Aesthetics is Dietrich von Hildebrand’s comprehensive two-volume study and defense of beauty and art.

The retreat is open to anyone who wishes to join others and reason together as friends, including especially

• Graduate students

• University professors  

• Teachers, educators, and school leaders

• Anyone with an appreciation for classical education

William Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure

An Academic Retreat at the Kingfisher Center in Austin, Texas, led by Andrew Moran, Phd, English Department Chair and Associate Professor at the University of Dallas.

The retreat is open to anyone who wishes to join others and reason together as friends, including especially

• Graduate students

• University professors 

• Teachers, educators, and school leaders

• Anyone with an appreciation for classical education

Collegiate Retreat: Dante’s Purgatorio

The Valor Institute’s College Program offers collegiate Juniors and Seniors the opportunity to spend a week in Austin, TX immersed in study, friendship, and the natural world.

About the Leader

Dr. Jason Baxter is the Director of the Center for Beauty and Culture at Benedictine College. He holds a Doctorate in Literature from the University of Notre Dame. Prior to joining Benedictine, he spent time as a visiting associate professor at Notre Dame preceded by twelve years at Wyoming Catholic College. His written works include The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis and A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy, among others, and he is currently working on an original translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Baxter has written many academic and popular articles, and he frequently makes media appearances ranging from podcasts to EWTN. He is currently translating Dante’s Divine Comedy for Angelico Press.

About the Text

This retreat will explore Purgatorio, the second part of Dante’s Divine Comedy. In his Divine Comedy, writes Dr. Jason Baxter, Dante “intentionally gathered creatures, places, landscapes, and practices from across the world and types of encyclopedic texts and then filled his book with their imagines; and, second, the poet consistently and insistently constructs moments in which we—along with the pilgrim—must take it all in at a glance, as if we are viewing the whole imago mundi from above.”

Ferdinand Ulrich on Childhood

An Academic Retreat at the Kingfisher Center in La Jolla, CA led by Andrew Shivone.

Ferdinand Ulrich (1931-2020) was a German philosopher whose thought is only beginning to be appreciated in the English-speaking world. Yet during the second half of the twentieth century his contemporaries considered Ulrich a profoundly significant thinker for the modern era. His writings on the nature of the human being, God, and reality place him in conversation with the great Western philosophers and theologians. Mr. Andrew Shivone is completing his doctoral research on the thought of Ulrich, particularly on the theme of childhood, an under-appreciated topic in the history of philosophy. We are grateful for the opportunity to explore the texts of Ulrich under the guidance of Mr. Shivone.

Eric Voegelin's The New Science of Politics

An Academic Retreat at the Kingfisher Center in La Jolla, CA led by Michael Hickman, Ph.D., Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics at the University of Mary.

Considered one of the most important political thinkers of the 20th century, Eric Voegelin escaped from Nazi-occupied Vienna and spent most of his later career in the United States. In his most famous work, The New Science of Politics, Voegelin presents a compelling view of human beings, reality, and society. He argues that the modern age involves a resurfacing of ancient Gnosticism, resulting in an alienation of individuals from the political order. Dr. Michael Hickman from the University of Mary has lectured and written on Voegelin’s thought. Hickman's forthcoming book Husserlian Phenomenology and Contemporary Political Realism in some ways continues Voeglin’s project. We are excited to learn from Dr. Hickman in our journey through The New Science of Politics!

Readings for the retreat:

• Art and Scholasticism by Jacques Maritain

• Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford

Topic: The Crisis of Western Education

Texts: The Crisis of Western Education, Christopher Dawson

Leader: Dr. Andrew Seeley is Director of Advanced Formation for Educators and Concurrent Professor of Philosophy at the Augustine Institute. He received a Licentiate from the Pontifical Institute in Medieval Studies in Toronto and a Ph.D. in Medieval Studies from the University of Toronto. In three decades as a Tutor at Thomas Aquinas College, Dr. Seeley taught every subject in its integrated Great Books curriculum. He is co-author of Declaration Statesmanship: A Course in American Government. Desiring to share his love of learning, Dr. Seeley co-founded the Institute for Catholic Liberal Education in 2005, where he served as Executive Director for 12 years, and continues as a Faculty Consultant. He became Executive Director of the Arts of Liberty Project in 2021, and recently co-founded the Boethius Institute for the Advancement of Liberal Education with Dr. Jeffrey Lehman. For his work in the renewal of liberal education, he was named as the 2023 recipient of the Circe Institute’s Paideia Prize. He is an avid devotee of the works of JRR Tolkien, and an amateur director of the plays of William Shakespeare.

Topic: Philosophy of Authority

Texts: A General Theory of Authority

Leader: Dr. Daniel Connelly serves as Assistant Professor and Course Director of the Department of Leadership at the US Air Force's Air Command and Staff College and serves on the Board of Valor Education. Prior to his current post, he served there as Assistant Professor of International Security and the college's Director of Faculty Development. He holds a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology from Auburn University, an M.S. from the Joint Military Intelligence College, an M.A. from American University, and a B.A. from Trinity College in Russian Studies. During his doctoral matriculation, he specialized in Organizational and Social Psychology. He offers elective courses in Russian strategic culture and the contemporary applications of the Just War Tradition. Dr. Connelly was assigned to the Air Force's Squadron Officer College in 2004, returned there as Dean of Academic Affairs and Faculty Development in 2010, and was assigned to the Air Command and Staff College (ACSC) in 2015 for his last military assignment before retirement from the US Air Force.

Topic: Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park

Leader: Dr. Dutton Kearney, Associate Professor of English, Hillsdale College and Dr. John Finley, Academic Director of the Valor Institute

Topic: “The Human Person and Modernity”

Texts: End of the Modern World, Romano Guardini, “Violence and Modern Gnosticism,” Augusto Del Noce, “The End of Modernity,” Robert Spaemann

Leader: Dr. Jon Kirwan, Director of Graduate Programs at University of St Thomas (TX) and Dr. John Finley, Academic Director of the Valor Institute

Topic: Dante’s Paradiso

Leader: Dr. Jason Baxter, Associate Professor of Fine Arts and Humanities at Wyoming Catholic College

Dr. Baxter has been with WCC for eleven years. His primary research interests include medieval and Renaissance ideas of beauty, the long-lived legacy of the thought of Plato, and the poetry of Dante. He is also interested in medieval mysticism, humanism, the relationship between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and increasingly, the relationship between science and the arts. You can read more about that on his personal website, JasonMBaxter.com)

His scholarly publications include articles on the Platonic tradition in the Latin West, and writings on Dante. Dr. Baxter worked with Wyoming Catholic College’s Distance Learning Program to produce a free, eighteen-part introduction to the Comedy: “Dante in the Year of Mercy.” His A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy, which focuses on the spiritual meaning of Dante’s poetics, is available from Baker Academic. He has also published Falling Inward: Humanities in the Age of Technology, An Introduction to Christian Mysticism: Recovering the Wildness of Spiritual Life. He has made multiple media appearances and frequently writes and speaks on his own experiences in travel, the relevance of the liberal arts, the relationship between humanistic studies and technology, and topics on Dante for both popular and scholarly audiences.

His monograph, The Infinite Beauty of the World: Dante’s Encyclopedia and the Names of God (Oxford, UK: Peter Lang, 2020), explores the spiritual meaning of the Comedy’s famous “encyclopedism.” He recently published The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis (IVP, 2022). He is currently working on a new translation of the Comedy and a trade book tentatively entitled, What Were Humans?

Topic: “Can We Master Nature?” An Academic Retreat on Nature and Technology

Leader: Dr. Adrian Walker, Professor of Philosophy at St. Patrick’s Seminar

Dr. Walker has taught theology and philosophy at The Catholic University of America’s School of Theology and Religious Studies, The Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family at The Catholic University of America, and the Pontificio and Istituto Giovanni Paolo II per Studi su Matrimonio e Famiglia. He is an editor of Communio.

Texts:

“Thinking About Technology,” George Grant

Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis

Topic: Hemingway's Farewell to Arms and Other Stories

Leader: Dr. Benedict Whalen, Kingfisher Fellow in Residence at the Valor Institute and Associate Professor of English at Hillsdale College.

Dr. Benedict Whalen is the Valor Institute’s Kingfisher Fellow in Residence for the 2021-2022 academic year. Dr. Whalen currently serves as an associate professor of English at Hillsdale College. Much of his teaching is in the literature of the Renaissance, including especially the works of Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights. He also regularly teaches courses on English Renaissance lyric poetry, including the metaphysical poets. For his excellence in teaching, Ben was awarded Professor of the Year at Hillsdale for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Texts:

Farewell to Arms

 "In Another Country", "A Clean, Well-Lighted Place", and "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber"

Topic: Greek Comedy and Tragedy

Leader: Dr. Kent Lasnoski, Associate Professor of Theology at Wyoming Catholic College.

Texts:

Frogs, Aristophanes

Antigone, Sophocles

Topic: Dante’s Purgatorio

Leader: Dr. Jason Baxter, Associate Professor of Fine Arts and Humanities at Wyoming Catholic College

Dr. Baxter has been with WCC for eleven years. His primary research interests include medieval and Renaissance ideas of beauty, the long-lived legacy of the thought of Plato, the poetry of Dante. He is also interested in medieval mysticism, humanism, the relationship between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and, increasingly, the relationship between science and the arts (you can read more about that on his personal website, JasonMBaxter.com).

His scholarly publications include articles on the Platonic tradition in the Latin West, and writings on Dante. Dr. Baxter worked with Wyoming Catholic College’s Distance Learning Program to produce a free, eighteen-part introduction to the Comedy: “Dante in the Year of Mercy.” His A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s “Divine Comedy,” which focuses on the spiritual meaning of Dante’s poetics, is available from Baker Academic. He has also published Falling Inward: Humanities in the Age of Technology, An Introduction to Christian Mysticism: Recovering the Wildness of Spiritual Life. He has made multiple media appearances, and frequently writes and speaks on his own experiences in travel, the relevance of the liberal arts, the relationship between humanistic studies and technology, and topics on Dante, for both popular and scholarly audiences.

His monograph, The Infinite Beauty of the World: Dante’s Encyclopedia and the Names of God (Oxford, UK: Peter Lang, 2020), explores the spiritual meaning of the Comedy’s famous “encyclopedism.” He recently published The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis (IVP, 2022). He is currently working on a new translation of the Comedy and a trade book tentatively entitled, What Were Humans?

Topic: Shakespeare’s Roman Trilogy

Leader: Dr. Benedict Whalen, Kingfisher Fellow in Residence at the Valor Institute and Associate Professor of English at Hillsdale College.

Dr. Benedict Whalen is the Valor Institute’s Kingfisher Fellow in Residence for the 2021-2022 academic year. Dr. Whalen currently serves as an associate professor of English at Hillsdale College. Much of his teaching is in the literature of the Renaissance, including especially the works of Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights. He also regularly teaches courses on English Renaissance lyric poetry, including the metaphysical poets. For his excellence in teaching, Ben was awarded Professor of the Year at Hillsdale for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Texts: Corliolanus, Julius Casear, and Mark Antony

Topic: Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue

Leader: Dr. John Finley, Professor of Philosophy, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary

Topic: Ovid’s Metamorphoses

Leader: Dr. Benedict Whalen, Kingfisher Fellow in Residence at the Valor Institute and Associate Professor of English at Hillsdale College.

Dr. Benedict Whalen is the Valor Institute’s Kingfisher Fellow in Residence for the 2021-2022 academic year. Dr. Whalen currently serves as an associate professor of English at Hillsdale College. Much of his teaching is in the literature of the Renaissance, including especially the works of Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights. He also regularly teaches courses on English Renaissance lyric poetry, including the metaphysical poets. For his excellence in teaching, Ben was awarded Professor of the Year at Hillsdale for the 2019-2020 academic year.

Topic: Writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Leader: Dr. Joseph Boyne, Professor of English, Tulsa Community College

Texts:

This Side of Paradise

“Winter Dreams”

“Bernice Bobs Her Hair”

“Babylon Revisted”