About Glenn Davis

Glenn A. Davis is the Academic Dean at All Saints Episcopal School in Lubbock, Texas, where he teaches Latin and Russian. He holds a Ph.D. in Slavic Languages and Literatures from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. His dissertation topic was Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s historical imagination. He has published in the Slavic and East European Journal, Christianity and Literature, Modern Age, and Humanitas.

Russia and the Rebirth of History

By |2022-03-10T21:29:42-06:00July 26th, 2017|Categories: Conservatism, Featured, Glenn Davis, History, Russia, Senior Contributors|

There is no escape from historical existence. With all its contingencies, unexpected happenings, and mysteries, historical existence offers opportunities for grasping the great drama of life. Conservative intellectuals have long been suspicious of the pressures that political ideologies place on the writing of history. Most famously, Herbert Butterfield, in his classic work, The Whig Interpretation [...]

Beauty and the Enlivening of the Russian Literary Imagination

By |2019-07-16T21:15:41-05:00May 1st, 2016|Categories: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Beauty, Christendom, Featured, Glenn Davis, Russia, Timeless Essays, Truth, Virtue|

Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Glenn Davis as he discusses Fyodor Dostoevsky and the concept that “beauty will save the world.” —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher Readers of The Imaginative Conservative know well the phrase “beauty will save the world.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn borrowed it from Fyodor Dostoevsky [...]

Albert Jay Nock & the Russian Roots of a Gentleman Anarchist

By |2023-08-18T18:22:11-05:00July 17th, 2014|Categories: Conservatism, Glenn Davis, Russia|Tags: , |

Albert Jay Nock was one of the more eccentric grand old men of the nascent American conservative movement in the twentieth century. His opposition to corruption and malfeasance in the public realm was admirable; his tone of crankiness was, is, and will remain a matter of the reader’s individual taste. Episcopal priest, professional baseball player, [...]

Beauty and the Enlivening of the Russian Literary Imagination

By |2017-08-03T13:54:56-05:00August 4th, 2013|Categories: Beauty, Christendom, Glenn Davis, Imagination, Russia|Tags: |

Fyodor Dostoevsky Readers of The Imaginative Conservative know well the phrase “beauty will save the world.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn borrowed it from Fyodor Dostoevsky to set the theme of his Nobel Lecture in 1970. British conservative writer Roger Scruton has written extensively about how aesthetics—and beauty in particular—enlarges our vision of humanity, helps us [...]

Gifts for Imaginative Conservatives- Truth and Beauty

By |2015-04-28T01:30:51-05:00December 9th, 2012|Categories: Books, Christmas, Gifts for Imaginative Conservatives, Glenn Davis|Tags: |

The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, by George Gissing The Big House: A Century in the Life of an American Summer Home, by George Howe Colt To recommend a book is an ethical undertaking that reveals something about both the giver and the recipient. It is an act that says, “I believe you are a [...]

The Effects of War on Education in the Writings of Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet

By |2015-04-28T01:30:51-05:00August 13th, 2012|Categories: Education, Glenn Davis, Robert Nisbet, Russell Kirk, War|Tags: |

This is part 2 of this essay, for part 1 click here. Glenn Davis According to Nisbet, warfare seduces largely because acts of war demand certain qualities of character from its participants which the community values: valor, heroism, courage, and sacrifice. Individuals who are given the opportunity to manifest these moral qualities, often [...]

Russell Kirk and Robert Nisbet on War and Education: Part I

By |2015-04-28T01:30:52-05:00August 9th, 2012|Categories: Civil Society, Education, Glenn Davis, War|Tags: , |

Robert Nisbet In a recent posting on The Imaginative Conservative, Bruce Frohnen laments the loss of civility and decency in present-day America. By looking at the roots of foul behavior (in this case, a group of middle school boys bullying an elderly school bus monitor), he finds fault in the “warehouse model” of [...]

Truth and the Demands of Loyalty: Nothing But the Truth

By |2015-04-28T01:30:52-05:00July 28th, 2011|Categories: Film, First Amendment, Glenn Davis|Tags: , |

“I hate the idea of causes, and if I had to choose between betraying my country and betraying my friend, I hope I should have the guts to betray my country.” As Thomas Fleming points out in his book, The Morality of Everyday Life (2004), when E. M. Forster made this statement, he was defending [...]

Where has the Reader of Conservative Classics Gone?

By |2019-06-06T10:07:41-05:00August 29th, 2010|Categories: Books, Conservatism, Glenn Davis|Tags: |

I often reserve my Sunday afternoons for trips to the local university library. These visits are bittersweet, for although I live in an area of the country which is considered to be “very conservative” and is very Republican (the Democratic Party often does not field a complete list of candidates in an election), I rarely [...]

Irving Babbitt: Moral Imagination & Progressive Education

By |2019-07-23T14:06:31-05:00August 5th, 2010|Categories: Education, Featured, Glenn Davis, Irving Babbitt, Liberal Learning|Tags: |

When Literature and the American College, Irving Babbitt’s critique of the new educational theories, was first published in 1908, it was a shot fired across the bow of the ship of progressive reform in American higher education. Babbitt fired a sound shot, but he lost the war. Since that time, educational reform has run through [...]

The Domestic Consequences of Foreign Wars

By |2017-06-12T16:12:04-05:00July 31st, 2010|Categories: Foreign Affairs, Glenn Davis, Robert Nisbet, War|Tags: |

There is no quicker way to get the blood up than to question the integrity of our nation’s war policies. Yet, on the political right, it used to be respectable, without being narrowly isolationist or pacifist, to examine and challenge the wisdom of military engagement, especially abroad. We need mention just a few names to [...]

Gather Round the Hearth to Enjoy Things

By |2017-06-12T15:51:15-05:00July 28th, 2010|Categories: Glenn Davis, Old Republic, Richard Weaver, Russell Kirk|Tags: |

Our pessimism begins with the realization that very few of our neighbors subscribe to such views today, maybe excepting the “loathing of public debt, taxes, and excises.” As Professors Frohnen and Birzer state, with the Louisiana Purchase, the original republican himself, Jefferson politically succumbed to the impulse to expand the nation and inflate the desires [...]

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