About Mitchell Kalpakgian

Dr. Mitchell A. Kalpakgian (1941-2018) was a Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative and was Professor of English at Simpson College (Iowa) for thirty-one years. During his academic career, he received many academic honors, among them the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar Fellowship (Brown University, 1981); the Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship (University of Kansas, 1985); and an award from the National Endowment for the Humanities Institute on Children's Literature.

The Leisure of “Walden”

By |2020-09-05T15:32:49-05:00November 7th, 2015|Categories: Beauty, Conservation, Featured|

As Thoreau’s “Walden” testifies in every chapter, man can live simply or extravagantly, in freedom or in bondage, at frantic speed or deliberate leisureliness, according to fashion and convention or in tune with higher laws, in the midst of beauty or drabness, a poetic life or mechanical existence, and either a human or dehumanized life. [...]

Dr. Johnson: The Man of Letters Behind the Dictionary

By |2022-05-11T13:33:44-05:00September 6th, 2015|Categories: Books, Featured, History, Literature, Mitchell Kalpakgian|Tags: |

James Boswell’s biography, The Life of Johnson, portrays a distinguished man of letters after whom a whole literary period was named: The Age of Johnson. To read of Johnson’s life (1709-1784) is to learn of an eminent man of learning whose love of literature, passion for truth, and genius for writing achieved extraordinary works of excellence [...]

The Difference Between Good Boys & Nice Boys in “Tom Sawyer”

By |2023-03-05T10:25:11-06:00July 26th, 2015|Categories: Books, Family, Featured, Mitchell Kalpakgian, Order|

It is easy to be nice. But Tom Sawyer shows that it is demanding to be good—to speak the truth when it provokes enemies, to accept suffering for having integrity, and to risk danger to protect the innocent. As the saying goes, children can be “naughty or nice,” but naughty does not always mean bad [...]

The Moral Wisdom of “Tanglewood Tales”

By |2021-04-09T12:03:17-05:00March 6th, 2015|Categories: Myth, Wisdom|Tags: |

In the Tanglewood Tales Nathaniel Hawthorne retells famous classical myths with imaginative charm that captures the universality and moral wisdom of the stories. Hawthorne’s lively, fresh retelling of six famous myths—“The Minotaur,” “The Pygmies,” “The Dragon’s Teeth,” “Circe’s Palace,” “The Pomegranate Seeds,” and “The Golden Fleece”—captures the essence of great stories that always possess, in Chesterton’s words, [...]

Matchmaking and Imagined Sentiments: Jane Austen’s Emma

By |2018-11-21T14:41:11-06:00January 15th, 2013|Categories: Jane Austen, Marriage|Tags: , |

What do matchmakers know that eludes the common man? What does the common man know that escapes the matchmakers? Austen’s novel Emma shows that true romance originates from equality of social background and education, compatibility of temperaments, similarity of moral ideals and manners, natural attraction based on reason and feeling, and mutual admiration. Matchmaking ignores [...]

Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”: A Book of Love & Marriage

By |2018-10-16T00:20:02-05:00August 26th, 2012|Categories: Books, Jane Austen, Marriage|Tags: , |

Jane Austen’s genius comprehends the subject of marriage and the book of love in all its intricacy, practicality, goodness, and mystery. Her novels center on the importance of marriage as one of life’s most important choices and life’s greatest source of happiness—“all the best blessings of existence” to use a phrase from Emma. In Emma [...]

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