Minnesota Classical Education Conference 2026 

Angel Adams Parham is Associate Professor of Sociology and senior fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia.  She is also the Associate Director for UVA’s major in Political and Social Thought where she equips students to examine transformations in political and social thought from antiquity through the present.  Her research is in the area of historical sociology, engaging in inquiry that examines the past in order to better understand how to live well in the present and envision wisely for the future. She is the author of American Routes: Racial Palimpsests and the Transformation of Race (Oxford, 2017) and The Black Intellectual Tradition: Reading Freedom in Classical Literature (Classical Academic Press, 2022, co-authored with Anika Prather).  Parham has published articles on the intersection of Black writers and the classics in popular outlets including the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Public Discourse, and Common Good Magazine.  She is the co-founder and executive director of Nyansa Classical Community which provides curricula and programming designed to connect with students from diverse backgrounds, inviting them to take part in the Great Conversation, cultivate the moral imagination, and pursue truth, goodness, and beauty.