The Hauenstein Center Collection

Today, we hear from Scott St. Louis not so much about the Common Ground Initiative itself, or about the Hauenstein Center. Instead, we hear from Scott about his decision, at least right now it’s his decision, not to work exclusively down the traditional career path of a tenure-track professor in the humanities--more specifically, down the path of a professor of history. It’s a significant decision...

This week, we’re bringing you the first installment of a new series for the podcast. We’ll offer some clips taken from lectures given as part of the Hauenstein Center’s Wheelhouse Talk Series. In that series, Gleaves Whitney, along with the program manager of the Cook Leadership Academy, Chadd Dowding, invite leaders from the community—sometimes professors at Grand Valley, or folks in politics or...

From the archive! A conversation between Cornel West and Robert George. When they came to the Hauenstein Center in 2014, West and George were both professors of philosophy at Princeton. Beyond that, the two shared, and still share, quite little in common. West was and is a progressive political philosopher, race theorist, and democratic socialist. George is a conservative Catholic philosopher of j...

From the archive! The Hauenstein Center hosted a debate in 2008 between Christopher and Peter Hitchens. Gleaves Whitney, director of the Hauenstein, did his best to moderate the brothers as they exchanged their quite distinct views about the Iraq War and the existence of God. The event was held in a large Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the crowd sometimes got involved.

This week, we hear from Kate Medina, Executive Vice President, Associate Publisher, and Executive Editorial Director at Random House. Kate describes her career at Random House, where she’s worked with such writers as EL Doctorow, John Irving, Anna Quindlen, John Meacham, Nancy Reagan, and many others. She tells us what it takes to work in publishing: an entrepreneurial spirit, for one, plus a comm...

Here's the second half of our conversation with Sam Anderson, critic at large at the New York Times Magazine. Last episode, we heard about how Sam became interested in magazine writing and criticism, and how he tends to approach texts and subjects. In this episode, we hear about Sam’s gradual shift from doctoral work at NYU to writing from time to time for Slate and then full time at New York Maga...

For this week: the first half of our convesation with Sam Anderson, critic at large at the New York Times Magazine. We talk about Sam’s time as an undergraduate at Oregon State and LSU, how he became a sort of auto-didact. We talk, as well, about his early admiration for old New Yorker writers like James Thurber and E.B. White. Sam describes life as a PhD student in English at NYU, where he starte...

In this episode, we hear from Teresa Mathew, a journalist and writing fellow at The Atlantic’s City Lab, who writes a good deal about religion and race, particularly about the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, in India as well as America. We discuss some of the cultural differences between faiths in India, as well as between the same faith, Catholicism, in India and America. Teresa considers what it m...

In our last episode, you heard three writers and editors on the left debate and discuss with three writers and editors on the Right. In this episode, you’ll hear the second part of that panel conversation. We begin with the left’s response to the right’s remarks about the possibility of fusion, or of coalition building—both within the ranks of one’s political movement, and outside those ranks. In...

On May 5th, right in the middle of the Hauenstein Center’s Conservative / Progressive summit, three writers and thinkers on the right met with three on the left to discuss the significance of election 2016. What did the victory of Donald Trump, as well as the rise of Bernie Sanders on the left, mean for American politics? Was the center being pulled apart, and could that, in their view, be a good...

In this episode, we hear from Keisha Blain, a professor of History at the University of Pittsburgh, senior blog editor at the African American Intellectual History Society, and editor of the Global Black History section of "Public Books." Keisha Blain has, as much as any scholar, redefined what it means to be a publically engaged academic in the 21st century. She’s senior blog editor at the Africa...

In this special episode, guest interviewer Winston Elliott talks with Christopher Nelson, president of St. John's College, about his work at St John’s, and about the unique kind of liberal arts education offered there.

Today we hear from Peter Kalkavage, a tutor at St John’s College and author of The Logic of Desire: An Introduction to Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. Peter and I discuss his writing about philosophy and music. Reading Peter’s writing, you can tell that one of his aims isn’t just to think about music as a fine art, but to think about music as itself a way of thinking. His approach allows him to w...

Today we hear from Jon Lauck, a Midwestern historian and the author, most recently, of "From Warm Center to Ragged Edge: The Erosion of Midwestern Literary and Historical Regionalism." The book get its title from a line in the first chapter of "The Great Gatsby." Nick Carraway, the narrator, is a Midwesterner who’s decided to go East to New York to learn the Bond business. He’s just returned to Am...

In this episode, we hear from Chadd Dowding, program manager of the Cook Leadership Academy at the Hauenstein Center. I ask Chadd how he goes about identifying emergent leaders in their early 20s and how he helps them develop their projects and initiatives. I also ask Chadd how the students he works with, especially those involved in politics, have responded to election 2016. We also hear from Mic...

This week, we hear from Jess Row, a Pushcart Prize and PEN/O’Henry award winning author who Granta named a "Best Young American Novelist" in 2007. Row's novel "Your Face in Mine" imagines a world in which racial reassignment surgery is a possibility, even a commonplace. In The New York Times, Dwight Garner writes that "Your Face in Mine" "puts [Row] on another level as an artist. He doesn’t shy aw...

In this episode, we hear from David Sehat, an intellectual and cultural historian of the United States at Georgia State University. I ask Sehat about one of his main skills as an historian: that is, his ability to identify certain myths about American history circulated—one might even say peddled—by politicians in order to prop up certain ideological or political agendas in the present. We also di...

In this episode, we hear from Clifford Siskin, the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Professor of English and American Literature at NYU, as well as Director of the Re:Enlightenment Project. Siskin discusses his recent book "System: The Shaping of Modern Knowledge."

In this episode, we hear from Daniel Drezner, a professor of international politics at Tufts University, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and contributor to the Washington Post. Daniel identifies some key differences between the kind of thinker we might consider a “public intellectual,” and the one now commonly referred to as a “thought leader.” In our conversation, Daniel explores the...

Today we hear from Scott St. Louis, program manager of the Common Ground Initiative at the Hauenstein Center for Presidential Studies at Grand Valley State University. Scott explores what it would mean for the left and right to find, or even pursue, “common ground” in a time of political hyper-polarization, such as ours.

In today's episode, we hear from Martha Nussbaum, Ernst Freud Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, on the promises and perils of anger in civic life.

Today, we hear from John Waters, Professor of Irish Studies at New York University, about the Easter Rising--that is, the 1916 rebellion of Irish nationalists and republicans against British rule in Ireland. John discusses the Rising and its aftermath; he also explores the role of Irish literary and cultural leaders, such as WB Yeats, in developing a certain kind of Irish nationalism that fueled r...

This week, we hear from Katie Gordon, Program Manager of the Kaufman Interfaith Institute as well as Interfaith Services Coordinator with the Division of Inclusion and Equity at Grand Valley State University. In this episode, Katie discusses the current state of religious relations in America, and what it means to promote interfaith understanding.

In this episode, we hear from David Parsons, a social and cultural historian of 20th century America at New York University and host of The Nostalgia Trap. David discusses some of the historians and critics he’s had on The Nostalgia Trap. He also describes why he moved from being a fan of Rush Limbaugh as a kid to being a committed leftist at UC Santa Barbara, a shift he has not reversed. Finally,...

In this special episode of the podcast, we post for you an event hosted at the Hauenstein Center, in partnership with Grand Valley State University’s Division of Inclusion and Equity, that commemorated the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. On January 17th, 2017, two prominent writers and commentators, Nikole Hannah Jones of the New York Times, and Jason Riley of The Wall Street Journa...