About Christopher Nelson

Christopher B. Nelson is a Senior Contributor to The Imaginative Conservative. He was the President of St. John's College in Annapolis (1991-2017). St. John's College is devoted to liberal education. Students and faculty engage directly—not through textbooks and lectures but through study and discussion—with original texts and ideas that are the foundation of Western thought.

Music of the Republic

By |2024-03-02T19:15:28-06:00March 2nd, 2024|Categories: Christopher B. Nelson, Classics, Great Books, Liberal Learning, Music, Plato, St. John's College, Timeless Essays, Virtue|

Music pervades our lives and always has. It has taken you outside of yourselves and taken you deep within. It has been associated with things divine. There comes a time in every year when I find myself saying to a friend or a prospective student that this is a very musical College [Convocation, St. John’s [...]

The Miracle of Imagination

By |2023-07-09T17:23:52-05:00December 25th, 2022|Categories: Christmas, Christopher B. Nelson, Imagination, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

At this celebratory time of year, when sparks of magic dance on the cold night air, let us wonder about the worlds we want to live in, and give thanks for the miracle of imagination. Making choices about life depends critically on the ability to imagine possibilities. Speaking as an advocate for liberal education, I [...]

Honoring Veterans, Envisioning Peace

By |2022-11-10T18:53:38-06:00November 10th, 2022|Categories: Abraham Lincoln, Christopher B. Nelson, History, St. John's College, Timeless Essays, Veterans Day, Virtue, War|

On Veterans Day, we honor our surviving warriors. We rightly give thanks to those who have sacrificed their personal peace for the survival of the nation. And we rededicate ourselves to fulfilling the pledge “to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan.” War endures. The oldest [...]

The Trials and Death of Socrates

By |2022-08-22T17:23:36-05:00August 22nd, 2022|Categories: Apology, Christopher B. Nelson, Classics, Crito, Liberal Learning, Phaedo, Socrates, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

The body of Socrates may be gone but the Real Socrates has stayed with Phaedo, his friends and with all of us who will take up a life devoted to philosophy. I am grateful for the opportunity to have reflected on the life of Socrates as I wrote this evening’s lecture. Of course, it’s not [...]

Fit for the World

By |2022-05-14T11:07:02-05:00May 14th, 2022|Categories: Antigone, Apology, Graduation, Great Books, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Plato, Socrates, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

Your world needs you; it needs your desire to understand it, your openness to what it has to teach you, your acceptance of its imperfections, and your sincere wish and best efforts to be useful to it because you care for it as it has cared for you, however unconscious that care may have been. [...]

The Imitation of Heroes

By |2021-05-29T05:45:43-05:00May 28th, 2021|Categories: Christopher B. Nelson, Classical Education, Classics, Featured, Liberal Learning, Phaedo, Plato, Socrates, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

The demise of imitation has been devastating for personal growth. It used to be a commonplace that successful people need to have extraordinary “heroes” whom they admire and try to emulate. But the historical disciplines in the twentieth century waged something of a war against the very idea of the hero. Imitation, like so many [...]

Car Repair, Self-Interest, & the Benevolent Investor

By |2021-05-19T10:43:50-05:00May 19th, 2021|Categories: Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, Christopher B. Nelson, Happiness, Liberal Learning, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

The figure of the universally benevolent man seems in many circles to have taken a back seat to the stunted, self-centered Economic Man. We ought to ask ourselves: Are we losing a nuanced sense of self-interest rightly understood? I have been reminiscing a lot lately, probably a sign of my age. But I recently came to [...]

Fit for the World

By |2021-05-19T07:45:07-05:00May 5th, 2019|Categories: Antigone, Apology, Christopher B. Nelson, Essential, Great Books, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Plato, Socrates, St. John's College|

The mysteries of the human heart, and of the soul within you, are every bit as wondrous as the mysteries of the political and the natural worlds. And so you have asked questions of the world, in part because it is your nature to wish to know, in part because you wish to know your [...]

On Being Eva

By |2021-04-03T15:54:25-05:00January 21st, 2019|Categories: Christopher B. Nelson, Eva Brann, In Honor of Eva Brann at 90 Series, Jacob Klein, St. John's College|

Eva Brann seems to have a refreshing effect on all who meet her. This must have something to do with her openness to the world in all its manifestations, her spritely and generous spirit, her mischievous love of play, and her gift of friendship. Today, she still looks like she is experiencing a giddy delight [...]

What Is Unique About St. John’s College?

By |2019-06-10T15:45:29-05:00July 27th, 2017|Categories: Christopher B. Nelson, Classical Education, Great Books, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors, St. John's College|

Join The Imaginative Conservative's Winston Elliott as he talks with Christopher Nelson, president of St. John's College, about his service at St John’s, and about the unique kind of liberal arts education offered there. President Nelson discusses the mission of St. John's College, the role of the Great Books in their classes, and explains the [...]

The Pursuit of Happiness

By |2019-08-27T16:40:50-05:00December 19th, 2016|Categories: Classical Education, Featured, Happiness, Liberal Learning, St. John's College|

A free mind is necessary for our personal happiness, for living a good life, the life suited to our nature... Fifty years ago I shook the hand of our president, signed the College Register, and sat where you freshmen are sitting today, awaiting the happy start of a four-year adventure into the books and conversation [...]

Is the Future of Reading at Risk?

By |2021-07-26T09:21:30-05:00April 20th, 2016|Categories: Christopher B. Nelson, Featured, Liberal Learning, Modernity, St. John's College, Technology|

Reading is critical to our freedom and our happiness. Is it possible to be fully plugged in and at the same time to be absorbed by the greatest books ever written? Some educators are beginning to worry that the wired generation is going to give up serious reading altogether. Judging from our experience here at [...]

Slogans: Belief without Thought

By |2019-09-05T10:42:20-05:00April 6th, 2016|Categories: Christopher B. Nelson, Education, Featured, Great Books, Liberal Learning, Socrates, St. John's College|

A good slogan, whether it’s comical or serious, catches your attention. Slogans satisfy our innate desire for simplicity and pith. Sometimes they even rhyme, which implants them deeply into our minds—rhyme and music being powerful aids to memory. (Remember the rhyme “Thirty days hath September, / April, June, and November”? How could you forget it?) [...]

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