Joshua Patch

Biography

I owe my education to scrappy, idealistic institutions and underpaid, passionate teachers, all dedicated to the preservation of the liberal arts. The vibrancy of these places and people convinced me that liberal learning was something a whole life could be built around. Aiding in the continuance of lively communities of learning—both formal and informal—is the personal mission behind all my work. Modeling curiosity and seriousness in the classroom, cultivating new audiences for classic poetry through scholarship, fomenting book-clubs and campfire sing-alongs—all are avenues by which I’m interested in pursuing this goal. I’m blessed to be at working at as lively a community of learning as Hillsdale College.

My training is in literature, with a focus on the English Renaissance and especially Edmund Spenser. I have a broader interest in Renaissance poetics, especially in the narrative romances from Ariosto to Milton. But I’m also a “Great Books” guy, and I love tracing connections among the most influential works of philosophy, politics, and literature, especially in a seminar context.

Poetry interests me as fertile ground for the study of the classical arts of language. It represents the almost infinite flexibility of language as a tool and its mysteriousness as a phenomenon. I like to teach courses on grammar, logic, and rhetoric as preparatory to engagement with poetry and literary prose. I also think the trivium is a great paradigm to help both teachers and students communicate better. Strategies of instruction (lecture, Socratic seminar, etc.) and writing education are both concordant passions that grow out of my background as a classical student and teacher.

My wife Hannah is also a seasoned classical teacher. She gives me many insights into teaching, and we enjoy arguing about books and educational philosophies while we do the dishes. She and I have a son and a daughter, and together we like to sing, hike, and take road trips.