The Catholic College of the South
Dr. Thomas Varacalli
Meet Dr. Thomas Varacalli
OF NOTE:
I consider my undergraduate studies at Belmont Abbey as the four most transformational years of my life.
KNOWN FOR:
Dad jokes
WHEN NOT IN THE CLASSROOM, CAN OFTEN BE FOUND:
Visiting used bookstores, traveling around the country, trying new restaurants, and, of course, reading.
POPULAR QUOTE:
“Human experience is very, very old. It is our surest monitor, our safest guide. To ignore it crudely is the error of those ardent but uninstructed missionaries who have lightly undertaken the rebuilding of of the social world.” – Agnes Repplier
Examples of classes taught by Dr. Thomas Varacalli:
- American Founding
- Augustine and Aquinas I
- Augustine and Aquinas II
- Doctors of the Church
- Homer and Virgil
- Modern Political Thought: Machiavelli to Hume
- Modern Political Thought: Rousseau to Marx
- B.A., Belmont Abbey College, 2011, History
- M.A., Louisiana State University, 2014, Political Science
- Ph.D., Louisiana State University, 2016, Political Science
Publications
- “Catholics and Political Parties,” in The Future of the Catholic Church in the American Public Order, ed. Kenneth Grasso and Thomas Varacalli (Steubenville, OH: Franciscan University Press), forthcoming, probably in late 2023.
- An Invitation to Political Science, co-authored with Sherri Mora (Dubuque, IA: Kendall Hunt, Preliminary Edition, 2021, 1st Edition).
- “The Legacy of Trump’s Judicial Appointments” Catholic Social Science Review, vol. 26 (2021): 117-123.
- “In Defense of Christian Exceptionalism” Catholic Social Science Review, vol. 25 (2020): 43-50.
- “In Defense of Catholic Fusionism” Catholic Social Science Review, vol. 24 (2019): 11-18.
- “Thomas Aquinas, the Thomists, and the Consent of the Governed” History of Political Thought, vol. 39, no. 3 (Autumn 2018): 422-438.
- “Coronaeus and the Relationship between Philosophy and Doctrine in Jean Bodin’s Colloquium” Logos, vol. 20, no. 3 (2017): 122-146.
- “National Interest and Moral Responsibility in the Political Thought of Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan” Naval War College Review, vol. 69, no. 2 (2016): 108-127.
- Thomas Aquinas and Thomism
- History of Law
- American Constitutionalism
- American Conservatism
- Catholic Intellectual Tradition
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