Joseph Loconte
Senior Fellow
Joseph Loconte, Ph.D., is a presidential scholar-in-residence at New College of Florida and the C. S. Lewis scholar for public life at Grove City College. He has served as the director of the Simon Center for American Studies at the Heritage Foundation and as Senior Fellow in Christianity and Culture at The King’s College in New York City. He previously served as a distinguished visiting professor at Pepperdine University’s School of Public Policy, and as senior fellow and co-director of the Evangelicals and Civic Life program at the Ethics & Public Policy Center in Washington, D.C.
He has testified before Congress on international human rights and served as a human rights expert on the 2005 Congressional Task Force on the United Nations, contributing to its final report, “American Interests and U.N. Reform.” He served as an informal advisor to the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. More recently, Dr. Loconte was a speechwriter for British MP Andrew Mitchell, Shadow Secretary of State for International Development.
Loconte has been a frequent contributor to print and broadcast media. For 10 years, he was a monthly commentator on religion and the public square for National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. His other media appearances include the BBC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Aljazeera Television. In 2007 he co-hosted Britain and America, a weekly political program on the London-based 18 Doughty Street, the UK’s first internet-television program. His commentary has appeared in The New York Times, The Times of London, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Weekly Standard, The New Republic, The American Interest, National Review, and Books and Culture. He is a regular contributor to The Huffington Post and the London-based Standpoint.
Loconte is the author of several books, including A Hobbit, a Wardrobe, and a Great War: How J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis Rediscovered Faith, Friendship, and Heroism in the Cataclysm of 1914-1918, God, Locke, and Liberty: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in the West, The Searchers: A Quest for Faith in the Valley of Doubt, and The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm.
He received his M.A. from Wheaton College, and he earned his Ph.D. in history at King’s College London, University of London. A native of Brooklyn, N.Y., he divides his time between New York City and Washington, D.C.
Speaker’s Bureau
April 24th, 2020 | “Suffering, Friendship, and Courage: What Lewis & Tolkien Teach us about Resilience & Imagination” an Online Conversation with Joe Loconte
October 20th, 2017 | “The Forgotten Keys to American Freedom” an Evening Conversation in Washington, DC with Os Guinness and Joe Loconte
June 20th, 2015 | “The Fascinating Friendship between C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien” an Evening Conversation in Washington, DC with Joe Loconte
Publications and Scholarly Work
• God, Locke, and Liberty: The Struggle for Religious Freedom in the West (2014)
• The Searchers: A Quest for the Faith in the Valley of Doubt (2012)
• Christianity and Human Rights Christians and the Struggle for Global Justice (2009)
• Toward an Evangelical Public Policy: Political Strategies for the Health of the Nation (2005)
• The End of Illusions: Religious Leaders Confront Hitler’s Gathering Storm (2004)
• Seducing the Samaritan: How Government Contracts Are Reshaping Social Services (1997)