If a liberal education liberates, one of the constraints from which the student is liberated is the professor. That this occurs from a method exercised by the professor is one of the great powers of Socratic dialectic in the classroom, and one of the paradoxes, perhaps mysteries, of our privileged vocation in the university. Why, [...]
As you set out on the adventure of reading Milton’s "Paradise Lost," note the difficulties, overcome them and enter that Miltonic range and reach of mind that is one of the greatest poetic spaces of the English tradition. Even if you do not agree with Milton that that space is a space of damnation or [...]
The liberal arts allow us the freedom to become more fully human by sharing as fully as possible in that which makes us distinct, and the freedom to flourish through the reality of our nature, our humanity, and, yes, perhaps even our divinity. Why My Favorite Nun Was Right: The Recovery and Renewal of the Liberal [...]
A truly Socratic response to revelation—passive surprise, perplexed skepticism, clarifying refutation, heroic confirmation, relative exceptionalism, creative revision, and persistent service—offers us, perhaps, a way out of the cultural impasse we are in. The parties of reason and revelation seldom treat one another well: Those fond of reason all too often do not believe in revelation [...]