Amazingly enough, thanks to my very few essays at The Imaginative Conservative (usually cranky ones about statues coming down and wondering where on God’s Green Earth the Knights of Columbus are in the defense of their patron) on the great Italian explorer, Christopher Columbus, I was invited to give the Columbus Day address this year for the James Madison Program at Princeton University. Yes, this is the same program founded and run by the formidable and intensely intelligent Robert P. George and the mighty and gregarious Brad Wilson. Frankly, I was a bit surprised (and quite pleased) to be asked, as I really don’t know all that much about Christopher Columbus as a person—that is, biographically speaking—and I often have to ask my wife (another mighty one, Dedra Birzer!) about Columbus’s personal details. She seems to know everything about the man, and I, more often than not, bask and benefit from her knowledge.
Additionally, the ego (yes, I admit it; I have an ego) is always a bit stoked to be asked to speak at an Ivy League school. I’ve spoken at Princeton before—though never at the behest of the university—but I’ve had the chance to lead a week-long seminar on Russell Kirk and conservatism at Yale. Yeah, I’ll admit, all this is pretty cool— especially for some Kansas kid who only slowly climbed his way up through academic circles. Admittedly, it’s pretty great to be asked to speak anywhere, Ivy League or not, all the way from Colorado Christian to UC-Boulder to Seattle Pacific University to Faulkner University to the University of Notre Dame (my undergraduate institution… which should be an Ivy League school, frankly). I’m grateful to all of them for caring about what I think.