Welcome all. If you’re reading this then you have stumbled across the site of a scholarly pilgrim. My name is Paul Krause. Perhaps you’ve stumbled across my writings in journals and magazines; or perhaps you’re stumbling across me for the first time. If so, welcome!
I’m the editor-in-chief of VoegelinView, the journal of the Eric Voegelin Society. I’m also a teacher, writer, and historian. I have written widely on the Greco-Latin classics and English literature, as well as philosophy and politics, for numerous publications across the English speaking world including, Quadrant Magazine, Front Porch Republic, The Imaginative Conservative, VoegelinView, Merion West, New Oxford Review, Touchstone, and FORMA among other publications. I’ve contributed op-eds on a wide range of topics: art, culture, economics, literature, education, politics, religion, and book reviews, for Arc Digital, American Thinker, The American Conservative, Crisis Magazine, Forbes, Salon, The Federalist, The University Bookman and The Wanderer, among other publications. My peer reviewed work has appeared in the journals Kritike, Valley Humanities Review, and the Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History. My more popular writings, essays, and literary criticism are meant to both educate and instill a sense of awe and wonder to our humanities tradition. I’m an accidental classicist by the circumstances of my education (philosophy and biblical/religious studies) and an arts & literary critic by choice. Pick up and read and be inspired by our beautiful world!
I hold a master’s degree in religious studies (theology & Bible) from Yale University’s Divinity School and a master’s degree in philosophy from the University of Buckingham (UK) where I had the honor of studying with Sir Roger Scruton just prior to his death. My theses were on the political theology of Saint Augustine (arguing that Augustine’s cultural criticism and deconstruction of Rome constitutes the basis of his political theology) and the political aesthetics of Edmund Burke (arguing that Burke’s aesthetic philosophy influenced his critique of the French Revolution). I also hold a bachelor’s degree in economics, history, and philosophy from Baldwin Wallace University where I concentrated in economic theory, American and Ancient (esp. Islamic) history, and the history of philosophy and ethics (with particular attention to Greek philosophy and German Idealism). My first full-length book, The Odyssey of Love, was published by Wipf and Stock in 2021. I have contributed to The College Lecture Today (Lexington Press, 2019) and Making Sense of Diseases and Disasters (Routledge, 2022). I also self-published a collection of articles and essays on Plato, The Politics of Plato: A Beginner’s Guide (Amazon, 2020).
This site is dedicated to my more personal and random musings with a semi-academic disposition. You can also find a portfolio of my essays and scholarly works available at my Academia Page. The purpose of his website is to bring the humanities to as wide an audience as possible. In these pages you will find discussions and explanations of art, classics, literature, the Bible, theology, philosophy, history, book reviews, and more.
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Discourses on Minerva is free for all and doesn’t charge for access to any material. However, it is not free to produce and maintain. If you enjoy the content and education, please consider making a donation. Any help is appreciated and goes to the content and maintenance of this site.
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“Discourses on Minerva” makes three obvious allusions to any educated reader. First is to the political philosopher and man of letters Niccolò Machiavelli and his magnum opus Discourses on Livy—his less famous but more profound work (the other being The Prince). Second is to the philosopher Georg W.F. Hegel, who famously captured the so-called dreary, or tragic, spirit of philosophy that comes to know the historical condition of the world only after it has come to pass. Third is the fact that by naming the site after Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom, this site portends to hold wisdom which aids in the fight to slay confusion and discord. For a while I used to write under the alias “Hesiod,” an inside-joke among those who know me, but if you read enough you might figure it out.
Part of the mission here at Discourses on Minerva is to revisit that past and see what insights and wisdom it has for us in the present. For those who would really like to gain knowledge, have a better understanding of the reality of the world, and leave the darkness of the Cave, perhaps you will enjoy the content here. If so, all I can recommend to you is Read On!
The content here will be similar to my more professional work, which concerns itself with the interstices of anthropology, philosophy, political philosophy, philosophy of history, and theology, as well as my more public work: literary exegesis and film criticism. The published content here is a combination of personal essays, teaching reflections, and republished essays, reviews, and YouTube lectures all meant for the public! May the content you find here help you in your own intellectual pilgrimage.
Discourses on Minerva 