The Alliance for Civics in the Academy held "Civics Programs and their Critics" with John von Heyking, Anthony Ives, Hollis Robbins, and Joseph Knippenberg on October 29, 2026, from 9:00-10:00 a.m. PT.
The recent resurgence in postsecondary civic education has been anchored by a proliferation of new civics centers across the country. These centers have attracted attention, funding, and critics who question their political independence and their place in faculty governance. On this month's episode of Civics in the Academy, our panelists will explore the arguments for and against the role of these centers in the civics ecosystem.
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
John von Heyking is Associate Director and Professor at the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, where he teaches courses in political philosophy. He is author of Comprehensive Judgment and Absolute Selflessness: Winston Churchill on Politics as Friendship (2018), The Form of Politics: Aristotle and Plato on Friendship (2016), and Augustine and Politics as Longing in the World (2001). He has coedited numerous volumes including two volumes of the Collected Works of Eric Voegelinand, most recently, Friendship Studies: Politics and Practices Across Cultures (2024). He has published scholarly articles on topics including liberal and civic education, friendship, personhood, resistance to totalitarianism, cosmopolitanism, empire, Islamic political thought, punishment, and religious liberty.
Anthony Ives has been an Assistant Professor of Politics and Public Affairs at Denison University since 2022. He is a graduate of Washington and Lee University and received his doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. His published scholarship examines Frederick Douglass, civic education, and constitutionalism. He has work under review interpreting the meaning of the Colorblind Constitution and has developed a book manuscript examining Congressional Health and Congressional Failure.
Dr. Hollis Robbins is Professor of English. Her scholarly focus is on AI and language, with a focus on phase: how meanings combine, invert, and coordinate across readers. Other work is on civic thought, American and African American literature, the films of Quentin Tarantino, artificial intelligence, and poetics. She was formerly Dean of the College of Humanities. She has been for two decades the Co-Director/Managing Editor of the Black Periodical Literature Project at Harvard University. She is currently completing four books: a monograph on Robert Hayden (Penguin), an anthology of African American Sonnets (drawing on her monograph Forms of Contention: Influence and the African American Sonnet Tradition), an anthology of essays on Hannah Crafts's The Bondwoman's Narrative, and a new edition of The Trials of Phillis Wheatley with Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Joseph Knippenberg is Professor of Politics at Oglethorpe University in Brookhaven, GA, where he has taught courses on American government and political philosophy since 1985 and won numerous awards for teaching. He received his B.A. from Michigan State University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. Writing mostly about liberal political thought and liberal education, his articles and reviews have appeared in numerous edited volumes and professional journals (e.g., Perspectives on Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and the Journal of Religion, Culture, and Democracy), as well as on various websites (e.g., the Ford Forum, Minding the Campus, VoegelinView, and the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal). He has in the past served on the Georgia Advisory Committee for the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and the board of the American Academy for Liberal Education, and currently serves on the Board of the Association for Core Texts and Courses).
