Mitchell Foyle-York

Mitchell is the Special Assistant to the Executive Director at the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation (RSLF). His role at the RSLF covers administrative assistance, events planning, academic research, and fundraising assistance. Mitchell has helped to deliver key projects for the RSLF, including The Oxford Seminar at the University of Oxford, as well as The Pursuit of Beauty and A New Path for Beauty conferences at the University of Cambridge. He has aided in the international expansion of the RSLF by helping to build and maintain connections between students and participants of RSLF programmes.

Mitchell’s academic interests are philosophy of religion, theology, and political philosophy. He has a BA in Theology and Religion from the University of Exeter, where his third-year dissertation on G.W.F. Hegel’s influence on Fr. Sergius Bulgakov earned him the 2021 E.H. Boundy Prize. In 2022, Mitchell was awarded the Divinity School Scholarship by the University of Edinburgh, where he earned his MTh (By Research) in Theology and Religion with Distinction. His dissertation was on the use of aesthetics in the animal ethics of Sir Roger Scruton and Christopher Southgate. He is currently studying for his PhD in Theology at St. Edmund’s College, University of Cambridge, his thesis being on the topic of Alexander Schmemann and the development of “anti-Western” Eastern Orthodox identities. Mitchell has spoken and given papers at various events and conferences, including the coveted Scrutopia Summer School and Scrutopia Alumni event. He has also been published in The European Conservative, Conservative Home, and Law & Liberty. 

In his work at the RSLF and beyond, Mitchell is primarily concerned with increasing public engagement with philosophical ideas. By building connections between academics, students, and the public, Mitchell has helped to build an environment of friendly and engaging discourse between people with a broad range of backgrounds and interests.