Institute for Classical Education

Gregory Roper from the University of Dallas sits down with Rob Jackson to discuss Geoffrey Chaucer, author of "A Knight's Tale" and "The Canterbury Tales."  Greg Roper, Ph.D. has interests in Middle English literature, rhetoric and composition, literary theory, and pedagogy. 

He has published essays on Medieval penitential manuals and their influence on late Medieval literature, on the Canterbury Tales, and on teaching survey courses and literary theory. He has recently published a book using ancient and medieval notions of imitation to help students write better, entitled The Writer’s Workshop. Academic Articles  

“From Nothing to Being: Medieval Lyric and Poetic Form as Entelechy.”  The Prospect of Lyric. Ed. Bainard Cowan. Dallas, Texas: The Dallas Institute Publications, 2012.  

“Brighten the Corner Where You Are: How I Found A Way to Marry Teaching and Research and Just Maybe Be Happy.” Studies In Medieval and Renaissance Teaching 11 (Fall 2003). (Special issue on tensions between teaching and research edited by Edward Risden.)  

“Confessional Rhetoric in Chaucer’s Last Tales: Fulfillment and Transformation,” 13th Biennial Congress of the New Chaucer Society, Boulder, Colorado, July 19, 2002.  

“The Problems With the Postmodern Performance of Penance.” 40th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May, 2000.  

“Dropping the Personae and Reforming the Self: The Parson’s Tale and the End of The Canterbury Tales.” Closure in The Canterbury Tales: The Role of the Parson’s Tale. Ed. David Raybin and Linda Tarte Holley. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 2000.  

“The Middle English Lyric ‘I’, Penitential Poetics, and Medieval Selfhood.” Poetica: An International Journal of Linguistic-Literary Studies, 42 (1994): 71-103.  “Pearl, Penitence, and the Recovery of the Self.” Chaucer Review 28 (1993): 164-186.

David Bobb from the Bill of Rights Institute sits down with Rob Jackson to discuss the classical education K-12 movement.

Lecture by Dr. Michael Poliakoff, American Council of Trustees and Alumni

Exploring the great epics of all time, Dr. Turner shows us what is truly human in our storytelling.

Andrew J. Zwerneman is the founding president of Cana Academy. He earned a B.A. in history and an M.A. in Government and International Relations from the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. in Catholic Doctrine from the Pontifical Institute at St. John’s University in New York City.

In the early 1980’s Andrew worked as the New York correspondent for the National Catholic Register. In 1986 Greenlawn Press published his book In Bloody Terms: the Betrayal of the Church in Marxist Grenada. For thirty-four years Andrew has taught or consulted in classical schools. Most of his career he taught with the national group of Trinity Schools. For nineteen years he served as a headmaster, two for the public charter school, Tempe Preparatory Academy in Tempe, Arizona, and seventeen for the independent school Trinity School at Meadow View in Falls Church, Virginia. During those seventeen years Andrew was on the management team for Trinity Schools, Inc. Through his consulting firm, The Academy Project LLC, he and his team developed the curricula and trained the faculties of Thomas MacLaren School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and Trinity Academy in Portland, Oregon. He has coached headmasters with the Great Hearts Academies and lectured for principals studying in the M.Ed. program for Administration and Supervision at Marymount University. Andrew and his wife Jeannette have been married for thirty-one years. During that time they have devoted themselves to helping others to learn, mainly in schools but in continuing education efforts outside of school environments as well. They continue this lifelong commitment with the establishment of Cana Academy.

A panel discussion and lecture with Matt Post, Brian Williams, Adam Seagrave, and Dan Coupland

Dr. Mark Bauerlein recounts his days in the college literature classroom, where students wanted, most of all, a compelling and coherent story.

Dr. Josh Kinlaw explores the thought of ancient philosophers

Part 2 of the lecture, "History of Happiness", with Dr. Jenna Storey.

Dr. Benjamin Storey of Furman University outlines "The History of Happiness" from the perspective of three great French thinkers: Michel de Montaigne, Blaise Pascal, and Alexis de Tocqueville.