released 4/1/1995

Leon Kass, physician, biologist, and professor of philosophy at the University of Chicago, discusses his book The Hungry Soul: Eating and the Perfecting of Our Nature, in which he explores how the activity of eating provides clues for understanding human nature and helps guide morality and communal life. Then Brother Peter Reinhart — author of Brother Juniper’s Bread Book: Slow Rise As Method and Metaphor — talks about the art of breadmaking as a metaphor for spiritual life.

72 minutes

PREVIEW

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In 2003, Ken Myers interviewed Leon Kass about his book, Life, Liberty, and the Defense of Dignity: The Challenge for Bioethics. Its essays addressed topics as wide-ranging as the sale of human organs, human cloning, and the role of technology in liberal democracies. But the unifying theme was always the threat of dehumanization in one form or another, and the challenge of sustaining a society and a government capable of and interested in protecting human dignity. An edited segment of that interview is presented in this Friday Feature.

Related reading and listening

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  • Beer brewing and monasticism — Fr. Andrew Bushell talks about why and how he became a brewer and about the intertwined history of brewing and monasticism. (28 minutes)
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