Bradley J. Birzer

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Bradley J. Birzer (born September 6, 1967 ) is an American historian with a Christian , humanistic and conservative orientation. He is Professor of History at Hillsdale College , Michigan, and holds the Russell Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies .

Educational path

Bradley J. Birzer was born in the US state of Kansas and attended the Wiley Elementary School in Hutchinson . He graduated from the University of Notre Dame , which he graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1990. In 1987/88 he spent a year abroad at the University of Innsbruck . He received his PhD from Indiana University in 1998 .

Academic and journalistic career

Birzer has taught at Hillsdale College in Michigan since 1999. Here he is Professor of History on the Russel Amos Kirk Chair in American Studies. In the 2014/15 academic year he was Scholar of Residence and Visitung Scholar in Conservative Thought and Policy at the University of Colorado Boulder . Birzer is a board member of the Free Enterprise Institute and the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal and a Fellow of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library , the McConell Center at the University of Louisville , the Intercollegiate Studies Institute , the Foundation for Economic Education, and the Center for Economic Personalism in Brazil .

In 2010 Birzer co-founded the conservative-humanistic-oriented online cultural portal The Imaginative Conservative and is still one of the main authors to this day. In 2012 he helped found Progarchy.com, an internet magazine for music with a focus on progressive rock . He also writes for the Catholic web portals Ignatius Insight, Catholic World Report and Catholic World, and the paleoconservative magazine The American Conservative . Birzer runs a personal blog called Stormfields.

Work and thought

Birzer's thinking and working range from the tension between Catholicism and conservatism . He claims to have grown up in a " Goldwater household", which determined his ideas in his youth. He cites a visit to a speech by Ronald Reagan at the University of Notre Dame a few months after his election as American president as a particularly formative event for his political awareness . Birzer gives the entrepreneur and publicist Robert J. Ringer and the economist Milton Friedman as early influences on his political thinking, both of whom represented the principles of the free market economy . Of central importance to Birzer was Russell Kirk, who is considered the father of modern American conservatism and on whom he wrote a large number of essays and the biography Russell Kirk: American Conservative (2015). Birzer also published an accompanying commentary on Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France in 2018 .

Following on from Russell Kirk, Birzer advocates the concept of an Imaginative Conservatism, in which the cultural products of the human imagination play a decisive role. The cultural dimension does not exist separately from the political one, but is essentially intertwined with it. The literary influences on Birzer are very important in terms of this approach. Among them he names the writer Ray Bradbury , who was committed to the genres of science fiction , horror and fantasy , Leon Uris , who wrote historical novels , and above all JRR Tolkien , about whom he wrote the book JRR Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth (2003).

Although Birzer grew up Catholic, at the beginning of his studies he was a believer in atheism . He turned away from this attitude after a train journey to Morocco in January 1988 as a result of the experiences there and became a convinced Christian. In this respect, many of Birzer's works deal with thinkers with a Catholic background. These include Russell Kirk, JRR Tolkien and the cultural historian Christopher Dawson .

As a historian of American history, Birzer focuses on the period from the War of Independence to the first half of the 19th century. During this period he published a biography of Charles Carroll , the only Catholic signatory to the American Declaration of Independence , two biographically oriented works on the seventh American President Andrew Jackson and the political writings of James Fenimore Cooper as editor.

family

Bradley J. Birzer is married to Dedra Birzer (née McDonald), who also teaches history at Hillsdale College. They have seven children together.

Publications

Monographs

  • (with Larry Schweikart) The American West . Wiley Desk Reference, Wiley 2002, ISBN 978-0471401384 .
  • JRR Tolkien's Sanctifying Myth . ISI Book 2003, ISBN 978-1932236200 .
  • Sanctifying the World: The Augustinian Life and Mind of Christopher Dawson . Christendom Press 2007, ISBN 978-0931888861 .
  • American Cicero: Charles Carroll of Carrollton . ISI Books 2014, ISBN 978-1497635715 .
  • Neil Peart: Cultural (Re) Percussions . WordFire Press 2015, ISBN 978-1614753544 .
  • Russell Kirk: American Conservative . University Press of Kentucky 2015, ISBN 978-0813166193 .
  • In Defense of Andrew Jackson . Regnery History 2018, ISBN 978-1621577287 .
  • Reflections on Reflections: A Close Reading of Edmund Burke . Spirit of Cecilia Books 2018.
  • Andrew Jackson Redux: Further Thoughts on His Life and Times . Spirit of Cecilia Books 2019.
  • Birzer Guide to Pop and Art Rock . Cecilia's Notations 1st Spirit of Cecilia Books 2019.
  • Seeking Christendom: An Augustinian Defense of Western Civilization . Spirit of Cecilia Books 2019.
  • Beyond Tenebrae: Christian Humanism in the Twilight of the West. Angelico Press 2019, ISBN 978-1621384977 .

Editing

  • James Fenimore Cooper: American Democrat and Other Political Writings . Conservative Leadership Series 8, Gateway Editions 2001, ISBN 978-0895262424 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j biography on Bradley Birzer's blog . Stormfields. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b c d e Bradley Birzer: Authors Who Shaped Me . The Imaginative Conservative. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  3. ↑ a b c Bradley Birzer: Surprised by Faith: My Moroccan Odyssey . The Imaginative Conservative. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  4. ^ The American Conservative: Bradley Birzer . Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  5. ↑ Bradley Birzer's Blog: Stormfields . Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  6. ^ A b Bradley Birzer: Imagination and Conservatism . The Imaginative Conservative. Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  7. ↑ National Review: Dedra Birzer . Retrieved August 15, 2019.
  8. ^ Spirit of Cecilia: Brad Birzer . Retrieved August 15, 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Birzer, Bradley J.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Young, Bradley J.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American historian
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1967