PHOENIX

3 days / 70+ speakers
80+ seminars, workshops, and panels
National Symposium for Classical Education

Phoenix Convention Center
February 22-24, 2023
https://classicaleducationsymposium.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Vigen-Guroian-bw-320x320.jpg
University of Virgina (retired)

Vigen Guroian

Dr. Vigen Guroian retired in 2015 from his endowed position as Professor of Religious Studies in Orthodox Christianity at the University of Virginia.

He is the author of ten books, including Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classical Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination, 2nd expanded edition 2023, and hundreds of articles on a wide range of subjects including culture, politics, literature, ethics, liturgy, marriage and family, and gardening. Dr. Guroian is Permanent Senior Fellow of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, Senior Fellow of the Center on Law and Religion of Emory University, Distinguished Fellow of the John Jay Institute, and Senior Fellow of the Trinity Forum.

SESSIONS:

The Grammar of Our Lives and the Attack Upon It

In traditional classical education grammar stands as the first of three modes or levels of learning called the Trivium. And yet the grammar is the foundation of everything that follows it, and is never left behind.The grammar, however, is not merely the parts of speech or an exercise in diagramming sentences. The grammar establishes not just the rules or norms by which we communicate with one another. It also guides us in bringing into existence an orderly world and sustaining it. The grammar is constituted, as well, in the foundational texts of our culture, which include the Greek and Roman myths, the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and, in my view, also, the great fairy tales. The whole of the grammar is under assault today, ranging from the recent and ongoing campaign to gut the meaning of personal and reflexive pronouns to the abandonment of the foundational texts of the culture. What is the nature of this challenge and how are we to answer it?