Conversations

Elvin Lim talks about the decline of the content of presidential rhetoric and its consequences to democracy. (49 minutes)

John McWhorter examines the reasons behind the decline in articulate speech and writing in the late 20th century, and the implications of this change across many areas of culture. (55 minutes)

Daniel E. Ritchie discusses the life and work of poet William Cowper (1731–1800), comparing his commitment to understanding reality through personal knowledge, intuition, and rigorous contemplation with the thought of Michael Polanyi. (43 minutes)

Roger Lundin discusses the themes, breadth, and depth of poet Czeslaw Milosz‘s work, explaining how Milosz incarnated in his life and work a sense of exile and alienation so common to modern man. (43 minutes)

Fr. Damian Ference explores the depths to which Flannery O’Connor was steeped in Thomistic philosophy, as evidenced by her reading habits, letters, prayer journal, and, of course, essays and fiction. (48 minutes)

Dermot Quinn discusses historian Christopher Dawson’s meta-historical perspective and his wisdom about what makes cultures healthy or unhealthy. (54 minutes)

Biographer John H. Timmerman discusses the life and work of poet Jane Kenyon (1947–1995). (53 minutes)

Drawing from St. Augustine and figures such as Aelred of Rievaulx, Oliver O’Donovan describes how the Church, communication, community, and friendship all significantly contribute to how we understand the role of love in both ethical and political reflection. (52 minutes)

Moral philosopher Oliver O’Donovan discusses the first two volumes of his three-volume set, Ethics as Theology. Among other topics, he reflects on the significance of the thinking moral subject as well as what form of moral inadequacy the “life of the flesh” suggests. (58 minutes)

Robert Pogue Harrison argues that Western culture is on the cusp of a new mode of civilization that can either result in a rejuvenation of the legacies of the past or in their juvenilization, the latter of which would lead to a loss of cultural memory and the infantilization of desires. (47 minutes)

Theologian John Betz discusses the eighteenth-century philosopher and translator, Johann Georg Hamann, critic and contemporary of Immanuel Kant and other prominent figures of the German Enlightenment. (54 minutes)

Thomas de Zengotita describes how communication media contribute to the widespread sense of entitlement and of identity as an autonomous chooser. The postmodern self is what Zengotita calls “the flattered self,” increasingly believing itself to be the center of the universe. (59 minutes)

David I. Smith argues that more attention needs to be given to the meaning conveyed in teaching methods and assumptions about teaching.(63 minutes)

Poet and priest Malcolm Guite and compose J. A. C. Redford talk about how poetry and liturgy invite repetition, and also about how music interprets a text and alters how one inhabits poetry over time. (64 minutes)

Philosopher R. J. Snell argues that the metaphysical boredom of modernity is sustained by our deeply-held convictions about freedom and contingency, which view the former as necessary and the latter as offensive. (48 minutes)

Drawing from the wisdom of the Desert Fathers, Rebecca DeYoung describes vainglory and the other “deadly sins” as capital vices from which more vices materialize. (56 minutes)

Historian Andrew Pettegree (Brand Luther: 1517, Printing, and the Making of the Reformation) describes how Luther’s facility for writing in German and his intuitive business sense spread ideas and transformed the distribution model of the printing industry. (55 minutes)

David I. Smith argues that teaching is not merely the transmission of ideas. Rather, there is a formative power in classroom practices and in the culture of schools.(56 minutes)

Alan Jacobs discusses his book, Original Sin: A Cultural History, (2008) a survey of how beliefs about sin have affected literature, politics, music, education, and other spheres of human culture. (60 minutes)

Pastor-theologian Eugene Peterson discusses the themes of his book, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology. (70 minutes)