Joseph Bottum, a writer, author, editor and poet, will be the University of Colorado Boulder’s visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy in the upcoming academic year.

Bottum will join CU Boulder’s Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization this fall, according to a release. He will teach classes on “The Rise and Fall of the Novel” and “Philosophical Mysticism,” among others. His interests and expertise range across philosophy, literature and the social condition.

Bottum has a bachelor’s degree in philosophy from Georgetown University and a doctorate in philosophy from Boston College.

He has written hundreds of essays and reviews for periodicals online and in print and is the author of eight books, including “The Decline of the Novel,” “Frankincense, Gold, and Myrrh: A Christmas Chrestomathy” and “An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America”.”

From 1991 to 1993, he was an assistant professor of philosophy at Loyola University in Maryland. He held several positions at Dakota State University in South Dakota from 2017 to 2024, including director of the Classics Institute, visiting professor of computer and cyber sciences and associate professor of philosophy.

He’s given public lectures at colleges and universities, including Princeton, Yale, Georgetown, Duke and Notre Dame. He also served as the host for Book Talk on Radio America, Book-TV on C-Span and the Library of Liberty.

Bottum was a monthly literary columnist at Crisis magazine from 1995 to 1998, the Washington Free Beacon from 2015 to 2019, the London Spectator from 2018 to 2019 and the New York Sun from 2022 to 2024.

Bottum is the former literary editor of the Weekly Standard and editor of First Things. He recently co-founded the poetry newsletter “Poems Ancient and Modern” on Substack.Former Visiting Scholars in Conservative Thought and Policy include Notre Dame Professor Patrick J. Deneen, who held the position in the 2024-2025 academic year, and historian, political theorist and author Alan S. Kahan, who held the position the two years prior.

John Eastman held the position during the 2020 to 2021 academic year. He drew condemnation from the university for his remarks regarding President Donald Trump, including unproven claims of widespread election fraud in the 2020 presidential election. His classes were canceled and he was essentially stripped from his duties in the position.

Eastman took initial steps to sue the university in 2022 for defamation and retaliation after his involvement in a rally that preceded the U.S. Capitol insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021. Eastman has not followed through with filing the lawsuit.