is a professor, scholar of political philosophy, and an educational reformer. He holds the position of BB&T Research Professor of Political Science at Clemson University and is also Executive Director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. Dr Thompson has previously been Garwood Family Professor in the James Madison Program at Princeton University, a John Adams Fellow at the Institute of United States Studies (University of London), and a fellow of the Program in Constitutional Studies at Harvard University. His award-winning contributions to American Revolutionary philosophy can be found across a prolific oeuvre of articles and books, including John Adams and the Spirit of Liberty, Neoconservatism: An Obituary for an Idea, “Freedom of School Choice” in American Education, and America’s Revolutionary Mind.
Complementary to his leading work on Americanism, Dr Thompson is a dedicated and passionate teacher. He founded Clemson’s Lyceum Scholars Program, which introduces undergraduates to primary texts spanning the Ancient Greeks through the American founders to the twentieth century. In following with Thompson’s vision, students have direct and challenging engagements with past and present thinkers, seek out the most important questions—including moral ones—and connect theory to practice via regular conversations with Socratic tutors. This modern liberal education, which Thompson writes and speaks about eloquently, also seeks to introduce students to the evolution of ideas—a comprehensive design rather than a scattered assortment—and to liberate students from their narrow time and place through such encounters. Thompson sees this kind of pedagogical reform, suitable for producing revolutionary minds in turn, as the necessary foundation for a free and moral society.
