Nathan Gilmour leads Michial Farmer and David Grubbs in a discussion of the 1986 non-classic Top Gun.
Tag: Homer
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #155.1: Banned Books
Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour talk about banned books and the history of censorship.
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #152: What Is Enlightenment?
Nathan Gilmour leads a discussion with Michial Farmer and Danny Anderson about Immanuel Kant’s 1784 essay “What Is Enlightenment?”
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #144: Allegory
David Grubbs holds forth with Nathan Gilmour and Michial Farmer about allegory, both as a mode of reading and as a literary genre. The debate hinges on what terms mean in which contexts: is a literary text defective because it’s an allegory, or are there good or bad allegories? Explore that and other questions with…
Agamemnon, Evangelist?
I sometimes wonder whether I or Emmanuel College‘s New Testament professors teach more lines of Greek writing in a given semester, but in semesters like this one, I have to think I’ve got the edge. As course schedules have fallen, I’m teaching no fewer than seven of Plato’s dialogues (including Republic and Symposium, two of the longer ones), four tragedies, two…
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #125: The Great American Novel
General Introduction – Keeping the seat warm – Danny gets it right! – Listener feedback – Christian Humanist University Personal Definitions – Exemplifying American-ness – The changing representation of Huckleberry Finn – Shakespeare as American author – Subverting the American spirit – Great Novels from other countries The Nationalist Epic – Ex post facto epics…
Christian Humanist Profiles, Episode #3: Martial Arts, Positive Psychology, and Virtue Ethics
When human beings want to tell stories, we often speak tales of the warrior. Whether one reads about Saul and David, the holy warlords of ancient Israel, or about Diomedes and Ajax and Achilles of the Achaians and Hector of Troy, or the Samurai or the Shao-Lin or the Zulu or the Berserkers, what surfaces…
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #114: Meno
General Introduction – Listener feedback – Episodes on Borges and Postman? Arête – Excellence and/or virtue – Warriors and excellences – Plato’s expansion of arête – Confucian virtue – Arête and social station – Excellence in tragedy – Meno’s definition – Answering the question carefully Why Ask the Question? – The urge to categorize –…
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #106: Witches
General Introduction – The end of the season – On doctoral regalia – Summer courses – Slightly less minor internet celebrities – Ongoing projects Witches in the Bible – Saul and the non-witch of Endor – Necromancy – Countercultural power – Not suffering chanters – Other Ancient Near Eastern prohibitions – State-sponsored sorcery Greco-Roman Witches…
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #98: Ode on a Grecian Urn
General Introduction – We read the poem – Happy snow—happy, happy snow! – No listener feedback The Great Odes of 1819 – What do they have in common? – Experimentation with sonnets – The lyric tradition – Meditations on inner states – What is an ode, anyway? “Grecian Urn” and British Romanticism – The production…
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #95: Plato's Aesthetics
General Introduction – Dry, bleeding Kansas – Hardcore listener feedback Ancient Greek Art – Our access to it – Black and red, figure and background – The Parthenon – Classical tragedy and comedy – Other poetry – Music – What did the statues look like? The Republic and Art – The educational argument – Plato’s…
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #93.1: Answers to Your Questions
General Introduction – A month of decimals – What’s David teaching? John Donne and Death – Does he appeal to the bodily resurrection? – Quippiness, chipperness – Taking death seriously – Dimunutions and chipping away – An episode on suicide? – An episode on Donne? Christian Fiction, Revisited – Michial argues with Coyle Neal –…
The Christian Humanist Podcast, Episode #82: The Ocean
General Introduction – Whose campus smells worst? – Nathan pokes another hornet’s nest – A beer for your stomach Etymologies – Marine is boring – Okeanos – Are marines soldiers or sailors? – The North(ern) Sea – Plural waters – Does size matter? The Ocean in Ancient Cosmologies – The Babylonian sea dragon – The…
The Christian Humanist, Episode #75: Ante-Dante
General Introduction – Disappointing David Grubbs – Listener feedback – Stroking and broking the ego – (Yeah, my math is off) – A correction – Theologico et Ratio Translations – Old Lady Sayers – End notes, not footnotes – Reproducing rhyme and meter – Ciardi’s middle ground – Musa, king of Dante – Wikipedia as…
Project Link-Way
Chris Gehrz asks when Micah 6:8 became the rallying call for activist Christianity Saint Benedict, Occupy Wall Street, and… Saint Benedict and WHAT? The American organizations which won’t abide U.S. citizens on presidential hit lists More translations of the Iliad? Really? The late great planet bookstore Cue Adam Sandler: Leon Trotsky? Kind of a Jew!…