Augustine's Confessions

Russell A. Berman is the Walter A. Haas Professor in the Humanities at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. His scholarship spans German and comparative literature, cultural theory, religion and culture, the Middle East, and international relations.

Samuel Postell is Assistant Director of the Lyceum Scholars Program at Clemson University’s Snow Institute for the Study of Capitalism. He holds a Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Dallas, with a dissertation on Henry Clay, union, and legislative statesmanship. His teaching and research span American political thought, capitalism, politics and literature, and antebellum political life. He has a forthcoming book on Melville’s Moby-Dick entitled American Epic: Philosophy, Power, and Impiety in Melville’s Moby-Dick.

Teaching Assistant

Lillian Tweten is pursuing an M.A. in English at The Catholic University of America and holds a B.A. in Political Science and French from Hillsdale College. Her background includes editorial and content-management work, and she studied William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! in graduate school. A Hertog alumna, she will serve as teaching assistant for the Fall 2026 seminar on Faulkner’s novel.

Angel Adams Parham is Associate Professor of Sociology and senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture (IASC) at the University of Virginia. She is active in public-facing teaching and scholarship where she provides resources and training for K-12 educators who are looking to better integrate Black writers and Black history into their teaching.

Laurence Cooper is Professor of Political Science at Carleton College. Most of his research has addressed the question of human flourishing—what it is, how we can know what it is, what it requires from education and politics, and the risks that arise from misunderstanding it.

Daniel Burns is Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas. His research in political philosophy focuses on the relation between religion and citizenship. He has recently served as a staffer for the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee and as a full-time contractor for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Jacob Howland has published five books and roughly 60 scholarly articles and review essays on the thought of Plato, Aristotle, Xenophon, Kierkegaard, the Talmud, the Holocaust, ideological tyranny, and other subjects. His most recent book is Glaucon’s Fate: History, Myth, and Character in Plato’s Republic.

Bryan Garsten is Professor of Political Science at Yale University. He writes on questions about political rhetoric and deliberation, the meaning of representative government, the relationship of politics and religion, and the place of emotions in political life.