Why Law Requires Love: A Reflection on Genesis and Cicero

How do we, as a people, hand down love, one generation to another? Is that the role of the law? What did previous generations know about this tradition of love and law that we, today, may have forgotten? Join Dr. Matthew Mehan for a reflection on possible answers to these and related questions, drawn from revered foundational texts of the Americans who came before us. Such reflections may, perhaps, change the way we make, uphold, and, in a special way, love the law.

Dr. Matthew Mehan is the Associate Dean and Assistant Professor of Government, Graduate School of Government. He has been teaching and designing humanities curricula for twenty years. Dr. Mehan is a graduate of the University of Dallas and the valedictorian of his class. He received a B.A. in politics, an M.A. in English, and a Ph.D. in Literature (with honors) for his dissertation on Shakespeare, Thomas More, and the education of leading citizens. For the last five years, he has also taught 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 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 lovely wife and their passel of children live in Virginia. He graduated from Okemos Public High School in Okemos, Michigan, and he misses Michigan summers.