Dr. Matthew Mehan is the Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Government for the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C., right on Capitol Hill. He has been teaching and designing humanities and civics curricula for twenty-five years. For over a decade, he has also taught humanities courses for the College’s Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program for undergraduates.

Dr. Mehan has consulted for national leaders and heads of state. He has written for various outlets both scholarly and popular, including Moreana and The Wall Street Journal. He has won numerous fellowships and awards from such institutions as the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Folger Shakespeare Library, and the Earhart Foundation. He is also the author of The Handsome Little Cygnet as well as Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals, an illustrated, best-selling book of poems that one critic called ‘a new classic’ in children's literature. His forthcoming book, The American Book of Fables, celebrates America’s 250^th and releases this May. He is on the board of advisors for Hillsdale’s K-12.

Dr. Mehan graduated valedictorian from the University of Dallas, and he received from his alma mater a B.A. in Politics, an M.A. in English, and an honors Ph.D. in Literature on the education of leading citizens. His lovely wife and their passel of children live in Northern Virginia.

 

Recent Publications

Mehan, Matthew, Joseph Massey, and Leigh Brown. “In Memory of Charlie Kirk.” Blaze Media, September 21, 2025. https://www.theblaze.com/align/in-memory-of-charlie-kirk.

Mehan, Matthew. “Ken Burns Gives America the Wrong Parents.” The American Mind, December 12, 2025. https://americanmind.org/salvo/ken-burns-gives-america-the-wrong-parents/.

Mehan, Matthew. “A Commentary on Thomas More’s Progymnasmata Culminating in Epigram 18: Neoptolemus, the Image of a New Sort of Warrior.” Moreana 62, no. 2 (December 2025): 208–23. https://doi.org/10.3366/more.2025.0190.

Mehan, Matthew. “Restoring America’s Founding Imagination.” The Heritage Foundation, August 4, 2025. https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/report/restoring-americas-founding-imagination.

Mehan, Matthew T. The Higher Purpose of Children in American Society, December 17, 2024. https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/report/the-higher-purpose-children-american-society.

Mehan, Matthew. “More Schools Playing the Parental Role, but Not for the Good of Students.” RealClearEducation, August 10, 2023. https://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2023/08/10/more_schools_playing_the_parental_role_but_not_for_the_good_of_students_971996.html.

Mehan, Matthew. “The Mouse That Didn’t Stir The Literary History of the Absent Little Rodent on ‘the Night before Christmas.’” Wall Street Journal, December 22, 2022. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-mouse-that-didnt-stir-comfort-counsel-shakespeare-hamlet-st-nicholas-christmas-aesop-11671744463.

Mehan, Matthew. “Compelled Political Speech Cuts Friendship ‘Right in Two.’” Wall Street Journal, March 19, 2018. https://www.wsj.com/articles/compelled-political-speech-cuts-civic-friendship-right-in-two-1520634890.

 

Published Books

Mehan, Matthew T. American Family’s Book of Fables. S.l.: Sophia Institute Press, 2026.

Mehan, Matthew, and John Folley. Mr. Mehan’s Mildly Amusing Mythical Mammals. Charlotte, NC: TAN Books, 2018.

Mehan, Matthew, and John Folley. The Handsome Little Cygnet. Gastonia, NC: TAN Books, 2021.

 

Recent Interviews 

“Imagination: The Raw Material for Thinking.” Episode. HeightsCast, August 21, 2025. https://heightsforum.org/podcast/imagination-the-raw-material-for-thinking/.

“Hillsdale College Professor Matthew Mehan Wins America250 Innovation Prize from the Heritage Foundation.” Hillsdale in D.C. | News, August 20, 2025. Hillsdale College. https://dc.hillsdale.edu/News/Hillsdale-College-Professor-Matthew-Mehan-Wins-Ame/.

 

Courses Taught

Van Andel Graduate School of Government 

• Political Thought and Literature 1 and 2
• The Art of Rhetoric
• Romanticism, American Renaissance, and Realism: 1820–1890
• Elective Topics
  • Homer’s Politics
  • Dante’s Politics
  • Shakespeare’s Politics
  • Early Modern Statesmanship
  • Roman Political Philosophy
  • American Political Literature
  • Literature for Leadership
  • Plato
  • Aristotle
  • Cicero
  • Virgil
  • Seneca
  • Augustine
  • Thomas More
  • Machiavelli
  • Liberal Arts Education
  • American Poets
  • Pedagogy
  • Wisdom Literature
  • Fables
  • Children’s Literature

Washington-Hillsdale Internship Program

• Great Books in Continental Literature: Renaissance to Modern