These programs include new and archive interviews, readings from important journal and magazine articles, lectures by important scholars, and the occasional illustrated essay about seasonal music. The ten most recent Features are available to all from our app, and the most recent one is available on our home page. Members have access to hundreds of past Features and may download them to the app for later listening.
In defense of “society”
Dr. Russell Hittinger discusses the development in 19th-century Catholic social thought of the idea of society as a spiritual and cultural reality. (60 minutes)
The troubled marriage of art and democracy
Historian David Smith explains the idealistic (and naïve) political motivations behind the establishing of the National Endowment for the Arts, founded in 1965. (52 minutes)
The moral complicity of movie audiences
Film critic David Thomson explains why Alfred Hitchcock’s film Psycho achieves a kind of unique synergy with American culture, raising unsettling questions about alienation and identity. (33 minutes)
The hatred of logos
D. C. Schindler draws on Plato to argue that in its very form, social media evidences a general contempt for logos — reason and language — which defines man. (26 minutes)
The St. Matthew Passion: A Listener’s Guide
In this lecture, Paul Munson guides listeners into a deeper theological and musical appreciation of J. S. Bach’s St. Matthew Passion. (1 hour 48 minutes)
Joy & sorrow, destitution & abundance
In this poetry reading and talk, poet Christian Wiman discusses his own faith journey and how his struggles worked themselves into his poems. (40 minutes)
Seneca’s moral courage
Dana Gioia explains how Seneca’s family was interwoven with the Roman governing class, ultimately leading to the philospher’s death at the hands of Emperor Nero. (27 minutes)
Flannery at 100
In honor of Flannery O’Connor’s 100th birthday, we have gathered here an aural feast of interviews with O’Connor scholars and aficionados discussing her life, work, and faith. (3 hours, 28 minutes)
The personal element in all knowing
Mark Mitchell connects key aspects of Michael Polanyi’s conception of knowledge with Matthew Crawford’s insistence that real knowing involves more than technique. (34 minutes)
Insights from St. Thomas’s biblical exegesis
Jason Paone explains how St. Thomas’s commentaries reveal the saint’s personality, his rhetorical flair, and the Christocentric vision that underlie all his work. (24 minutes)
Cultures of chance, cultures of control
Historian Jackson Lears explains how gambling springs from a longing for an experience of “unbidden beneficence,” a repudiation of the idea of control that marks modernity. (49 minutes)
The need to recollect ourselves as whole persons
In this 2016 lecture, John F. Crosby explores key personalist insights found in the thinking of John Henry Newman and Romano Guardini. (60 minutes)
Impact of “infotainment” on community
Neil Gabler and C. John Sommerville discuss how the mentalities conveyed by our experience with communications media work against the nurturing of community. (36 minutes)
Humans as biological hardware
In this essay, Brad Littlejohn and Clare Morell decry how modern technology tends to hack the human person in pursuit of profit. (55 minutes)
Choices about the uses of technology
This Feature presents interviews with David Nye and Brian Brock related to how we evaluate adoption of new technology and how technology influences our thinking. (31 minutes)
Tech bros and public power
Paulina Borsook discusses the “bizarrely narcissistic” and ultra-libertarian culture of Silicon Valley. (22 minutes)
