Some of the audio we distribute has been provided by partnering organizations. These Bonus Features include lectures and “audio reprints” — readings from magazines, journals, and blog posts.
Ideas made incarnate
In this lecture, Karen Swallow Prior examines the power of great literature to shape lives, nourish imaginations, and develop a vision of the good life. (43 minutes)
Ethical issues in neurobiological interventions
William Hurlbut explores current neurobiological advancements and the ethics and dangers of biotechnology interventions that go beyond therapy. (62 minutes)
How social media truncates relationships
In this lecture, Felicia Wu Song explains how social media industrializes and monetizes our relationships, forming us in modes of relationships and identity that are detrimental to ourselves and to society. (41 minutes)
From culture war to culture care
In this 2016 lecture, artist Makoto Fujimura asks what would it look like for Christians to be stewards of beauty and human flourishing in all areas of life and culture. (48 minutes)
Etiquette and ethics
In this essay, Judith Martin (a.k.a. Miss Manners) argues that etiquette is “civilization’s first necessity” and an indispensable societal virtue. (21 minutes)
An embedded life
Following a move from one state to another, Gilbert Meilaender explores the tension between being simultaneously a sojourner and a body located in place and time. (30 minutes)
Gratitude, vitalism, and the timid rationalist
In this lecture, Matthew Crawford draws a distinction between an orientation toward receiving life as gift and a timid and cramped rationalism that views man as an object to be synthetically remade. (52 minutes)
The fraught marriage of liberty and equality
In this essay, Patrick Deneen examines Alexis de Tocqueville’s complex and insightful portrait of “democratic man” living in the context of perpetual societal tension between the excesses of liberty and equality. (39 minutes)
“A sign of contradiction”
In this lecture, Daniel Gibbons compares and contrasts understandings of sacramental poetics proposed by Augustine, Aquinas, and Sydney. (36 minutes)
Education that counters alienation
In this lecture, Jeanne Schindler explores how digital technologies warp not only education but our experience of being human. (30 minutes)
Education vs. conditioning
Education necessarily involves metaphysical and theological preconditions, and Michael Hanby argues that our current education crisis is a result of society rejecting these preconditions. (41 minutes)
Knowing by heart
D. C. Schindler reflects on Plato’s idea of “conversion” in education, assuming the symbol of the heart as the center of man. (39 minutes)
Laity as the “muscle” behind world-building
Andrew Willard Jones calls for the renewal of a robust understanding of the role of the laity in actively shaping the world. (39 minutes)
Education as a pilgrimage and a mystery
In this lecture, James Matthew Wilson gives a compelling argument for understanding the role of a literary or poetic education as an immersion of the whole being in truth and beauty. (43 minutes)
Nature’s intelligibility
In this lecture, Christopher Blum argues that scientists need to regain a full appreciation of nature’s intelligibility, as they are apt to lose sight of reality due to the reductionism produced by their theories. (31 minutes)
Submission to mathematical truth
In this lecture, Carlo Lancellotti argues that integration of the moral, cognitive, and aesthetic aspects of mathematics is needed in a robust liberal arts mathematics curriculum. (25 minutes)
