Spelunking With Plato

What is political theory and how does its study fit into liberal education? Does a change in music prefigure a change in political regimes? These and other questions are taken up in this conversation with Prof. Chris Wolfe. In hindsight, who would have thought that both Plato and “The Plastic People of the Universe would come up in the same podcast? Links of Potential Interest: Plato’s Republic Ar...

In this conversation, Prof. Andrew Hayes accomplishes two tasks. First, he introduces us to the sources that have animated his leadership of the renewal of a university's core curriculum—including St. Ephrem the Syrian, St. Basil the Great, Thomas Aquinas, Cardinal Newman, Josef Pieper, and Alasdair Macintyre. Second, he gives a detailed account of the principal elements and purposes that give for...

In this episode, Dr. Andrew Hayes, a theologian who also serves as the Dean of the Division of Liberal Studies, introduces us to the principles and process guiding the university’s renewal of its core curriculum. He takes up the nature of the human person, the role of wonder in liberal learning, and the purpose of a core oriented to human flourishing in this life and the next. Affirming that there...

In this conversation, Chris Evans, the VPAA of the University of Saint Thomas, introduces us to the world and thought of Hugh of St. Victor (c. 1096--1141). Focusing on the “map” of study proposed in his " Didascalicon," we discover the integration of the theoretical and practical disciplines with mechanical skills, and the weaving together of the seven liberal arts both with ethical and political...

“I don’t know what nursing or business will look like in five hundred years, but I know that we will still be reading Plato and Aristotle.” In this conversation, Chris Evans introduces listeners to the history of the esteemed Core of the University of St. Thomas and the Basilian charism of forming the whole person. He considers how the rise of professional majors and other cultural dynamics have c...

“What was life like before you read Dante?” For many of us, this is almost the same as asking, “What was life like before you began the journey of liberal education?” In this conversation with Prof. Dominic Aquila, we consider the Poet and his work, taking up the merits of various translations, various ways to read the poem, the scholarly tradition of commentary, and the potential fruitfulness of...

Where does history fit into the liberal learning? How can a historical sensibility be integrated into liberal education without relativizing and historicizing the truth claims made by other disciplines.  How do we prevent “Becoming” from overwhelming our access to “Being.” In this conversation with Prof. Dominic Aquila, we take up these questions and many more. (This discussion is preceded by...

In this conversation with Prof. Tom Harmon, a scholar of St. Augustine, we consider whether rhetoric should be considered the chief of the liberal arts (at least among the trivium), its status during Augustine’s time, and its relation to the other liberal arts.  In light of Augustine’s criticism of rhetoric—“telling lies to people who know you are lying, and who praise you for it”—we consider...

Are the liberal arts necessary for the Christian? How did St. Augustine simultaneously embody and critique liberal learning? In this conversation, Prof. Tom Harmon, a scholar of St. Augustine, takes up the Bishop of Hippo’s vision of liberal education from a variety of perspectives. If Augustine were rewriting the “Allegory of the Cave,” how would his account be different? Along the way he also co...

A thought experiment: Imagine that both John Paul II and Thomas Aquinas are alive today. They have been commissioned to establish independent universities in different cities according to their respective visions of education. How would the universities differ? How would they be similar? Is it possible that they establish identical universities? In this conversation, Dr. John Hittinger takes up th...

In this engaging conversation, Dr. Clint Brand introduces us to Scott Newstok’s book, How to Think like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education, which serves as a door to a larger discussion of the nature of liberal learning and its inherent paradoxes. Dr. Brand considers with Newstok “a few touchstones derived from the Tudor play of mind and some habits of Renaissance education that app...

In what ways is the classroom devoted to liberal learning also a sacramental place? In this conversation, Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski, O.P. (herself a scholar of St. Albert’s sacramental theology), discusses parallels between the classical understanding of the sacraments and the experience of a classroom animated by liberal education. Along the way she also introduces us to texts by Josef Pieper, A...

What was Albert the Great’s vision of higher learning? In this conversation, Sr. Albert Marie Surmanski outlines Albert’s vision with wit and insight, suggesting that he was not as dispassionate as his more famous pupil and had he been alive today, might have become a public intellectual who engaged contemporary controversies on social media. Not content to be an armchair scientist, he insisted on...

In this conversation, Dr. John Hittinger explores the sources of John Paul II’s vision of education, taking up his historically rooted and deeply cultural, Thomistic Personalism as the foundation of that vision. Ranging over a wide variety of works—including music and poetry—Prof. Hittinger considers the relation between faith and reason, a relation in which the former acts as a “force multiplier”...

“For me, reason is the natural organ of truth; but imagination is the organ of meaning.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity In this lively conversation, Dr. Clint Brand takes up Newman’s understanding of the role of the imagination within liberal education. Dr. Brand draws upon the full scope of Newman’s writings, his own experiences as a scholar and teacher, and the insights of Dante and C.S. Lewis....