Postdoctoral Fellows
Jefferson Center Postdoctoral Fellowships allow young scholars the opportunity to teach in a collegial interdisciplinary setting while continuing their own research. Fellowships are awarded to scholars in all areas of the liberal arts who have in the past 7 years completed doctoral dissertations on one or more of the great books and have shown a commitment to the interdisciplinary study and teaching of the great books. The fellowships normally carry a teaching load of one course each semester and are renewable for a second year.
Jefferson Center Postdoctoral Fellowships have been supported by generous grants from the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Jack Miller Center for Teaching America's Founding Principles and History, the Veritas Fund, the Thomas Smith Foundation, and a number of individual donors in Texas. We are currently building an endowed fellowship with a multi-year gift from the Jack Miller Center and matching funds from Robert Patton.
Application Information
The Jefferson Center is not currently taking applications for the Postdoctoral Position.
Current Fellow
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Alexis Carré
Alexis Carré’s work deals with the philosophical groundings of liberal democracy as they are put to the test by the permanence of war. He was awarded the 2021 Raymond Aron prize for research for his dissertation, completed at the École Normale Supérieure (Paris), entitled “War and Law: The Refounding of Liberalism Against the Conservative Revolution in Leo Strauss and Raymond Aron”. He is now working on a book manuscript based on his dissertation.
Past Fellows
Nicholas Anderson
Nicholas Anderson received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston College and his BA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College, Santa Fe. He wrote his dissertation on the role the account of historical progress plays in Kant’s political philosophy. His research interests include late modern political philosophy, German Idealism, 20th century German philosophy, and American political thought.
Timothy Brennan
Timothy Brennan received his doctorate in political science from Boston College. He is originally from Sydney, Australia, and did his undergraduate work at the University of Melbourne. His research interests include early modern political philosophy, democratic theory, comparative constitutionalism, American political thought, and contemporary challenges to liberal democracy. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in History of Political Thought, History of European Ideas, The European Legacy, and The Journal of Politics.
Philip Yoo
Philip Yoo earned his Ph.D in Hebrew Bible at the Faculty of Theology and Religion, University of Oxford in October 2014, with his dissertation and book Ezra and the Second Wilderness (2017). His research focuses on a continuing interest in Pentateuchal theory with an upcoming research project centered around the Exodus and Israelite wilderness accounts and the reception of this tradition by the earliest Jewish and Christian interpreters. He is Assistant Professor of Hebrew Bible and Jewish Studies at The University of British Columbia.
Jonathan Koefoed
Jonathan Koefoed earned his Ph.D. in history from Boston University with a dissertation on the American Transcendental movement. He has published articles on Kant, Coleridge, and their influence on American intellectuals, such as the philosopher James Marsh and the painter and aesthetician Washington Allston. He is Associate Professor of History and Director of the Honors Program at Bellhaven University in Jackson, MS.
Daniel Burns
Daniel Burns earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston College in 2012, with a dissertation on the political thought of Augustine, on which he has published, in leading journals, numerous articles, as well as on the political thought of Alfarabi. He is an Associate Professor of Politics at the University of Dallas.
David Newheiser
David Newheiser earned his Ph.D. in Religion at the University of Chicago in 2012, with a dissertation on the theme of "Hope in the Unforeseeable God." He has edited (with Eric Bugyis) a volume of essays entitled Desire, Faith, and the Darkness of God, published by U. of Notre Dame Press in 2015, and has published several articles in various journals of religious studies and theology. He is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Religion and Critical Inquiry of Australian Catholic University.
Lesley-Anne Dyer Williams
Lesley-Anne Dyer Williams earned her Ph.D. in Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame in 2011, with a dissertation on the concept of eternity in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance. She was the Founding Director for the LeTourneau University Liberal Arts Guild and served for seven years as an Associate Professor of Literature and Latin at LeTourneau U.
Christopher Moore
Christopher Moore earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Minnesota in 2008, with a dissertation on Socratic persuasion. He has published several books and numerous articles in leading journals on Plato and classical philosophy. He is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Classics at Penn State U.
Benjamin Lorch
Benjamin Lorch earned his Ph.D. in Political Science from Boston College in 2008, with a dissertation on moderation as a political virtue in Xenophon's Memorabilia—and has published several articles on that and related themes. He holds a lectureship in the James Madison College of Michigan State University.
Patrick Gardner
Patrick Gardner earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame in 2003, with a dissertation on the thought of Dante, and has published several articles on that and related themes. He has been a tutor at Thomas Aquinas College since 2012.
