Winged Words: Reading & Discussing Great Books

By |2021-06-01T09:36:29-05:00June 1st, 2021|Categories: Aristotle, Dante, Essential, Featured, Great Books, Homer, Humanities, Imagination, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Peter Kalkavage, Plato, St. John's College, Timeless Essays|

Great books introduce us to ideas and to ways of looking at the world that are new to us. They provide a refreshing distance from the trends, fashions, tastes, opinions, and political correctness of our current culture. Great books invite us to put aside for a while our way of looking at the world and [...]

The Legacy of John Senior

By |2021-03-12T10:02:49-06:00March 11th, 2021|Categories: Catholicism, Education, Humanities, John Senior, Joseph Pearce, Liberal Learning, Senior Contributors|

At the heart of John Senior’s vision for the humanities was a Thomistic understanding of the path of true perception. St. Thomas taught that humility opens the eyes of wonder, and that it is wonder that leads to contemplation and to the dilation of the mind and soul into the fullness of the presence of [...]

Odin on Classical Education

By |2020-06-02T02:35:09-05:00June 3rd, 2020|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Culture, Education, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Myth, Virtue|

Schools now attempt to produce students who will contribute to the workforce and, really, nothing more. Students are now frequently viewed as tools for the end of GDP; this demeaning use of a person shows that a pragmatic notion of education entirely misses the mark. Birth to school. School to college. College to job. Job [...]

A Childish Fear of Western Civilization

By |2020-04-26T12:00:25-05:00April 26th, 2020|Categories: Classical Education, Culture, Education, Humanities, Western Civilization, Western Tradition|

The dissolution of Western Civilization has left a vacuum in the college curriculum. Western Civ was once used to tie other disciplines together, to supply a forum for discussion of the Big Questions, and to provide students with a sense of purpose. By joining that great debate, students become part of an ongoing conversation about [...]

In Defense of Elitism

By |2020-09-24T00:28:29-05:00March 4th, 2020|Categories: Culture, Humanities, Roger Scruton, Timeless Essays|

People don’t like hierarchies and privileges, and there is a natural disposition to say that they’re not deserved. When anybody claims some kind of hierarchical position, the question is raised, “Who is he? Who does he think he is? And by what right does he claim this superiority over me?” There is a very famous [...]

Can We Save Our Dying English Departments?

By |2020-01-17T15:07:00-06:00January 16th, 2020|Categories: David Deavel, Education, Humanities, Literature, Senior Contributors|

We’ve been dumping Shakespeare, Milton, and Eliot in favor of the latest, trendy lesbian poet or controversial rapper. And then we wonder why fewer and fewer college students are majoring in English. What can be done to renew and revive our English departments in this age of political correctness? Q. What’s the difference between a [...]

In Defense of the Humanities

By |2019-07-14T21:32:01-05:00July 14th, 2019|Categories: Culture, Great Books, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Paul Krause, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

Any talk of saving culture, or restoring culture, begins with a defense of the humanities. Any hope of cultural revival equally begins with a re-emergence of the humanities. Any hope to truly celebrate—though not uncritically—the human person rests with being drenched in the dewfall of the humanities. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords [...]

Fit for the World

By |2021-05-19T07:45:07-05:00May 5th, 2019|Categories: Antigone, Apology, Christopher B. Nelson, Essential, Great Books, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Plato, Socrates, St. John's College|

The mysteries of the human heart, and of the soul within you, are every bit as wondrous as the mysteries of the political and the natural worlds. And so you have asked questions of the world, in part because it is your nature to wish to know, in part because you wish to know your [...]

Killing Socrates: The Death of a Great Books Program

By |2019-03-09T09:22:14-06:00March 8th, 2019|Categories: Classical Education, Classical Learning, Classics, Culture, Education, Great Books, Humanities, John Senior, Liberal Arts, Liberal Learning, Wyoming Catholic College|

Few people know that in the early 1970s a “great books” program, founded by John Senior and two other professors, flourished at a large state university in the midwest. Even fewer know of its slow demise. Editor’s Note: Robert Carlson was a student and friend of John Senior, one of three founders of the former [...]

Why Read Old (Pagan) Books?

By |2018-12-30T11:08:24-06:00December 30th, 2018|Categories: Christianity, Classics, Great Books, Humanities, Liberal Learning, Timeless Essays, Wyoming Catholic College|

Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords our readers the opportunity to join Jason Baxter, as he considers why Christians should read the works of the pagans. —W. Winston Elliott III, Publisher At the end of each semester, I inevitably have one or two well-meaning students who are still unsure why they were asked [...]

Poetry? What Is It Good For?

By |2020-03-06T02:04:55-06:00December 20th, 2018|Categories: Beauty, Culture, Humanities, Liberal Arts, Literature, Poetry|

Poetry is a paradox. It is the most complex and inimitable expression of thought and consciousness, but it is also the most natural and ancient. Although a form of oral and written tradition that has persisted throughout the years, poetry is dismissed as unnecessary and impractical in literary education… A decline in English majors at universities demonstrates [...]

Myth, Satire, and Lucian’s “True History”

By |2020-03-31T11:53:07-05:00December 12th, 2018|Categories: Books, Education, Great Books, History, Humanities, Literature, Myth, Truth|

For the ancient myth-maker, there is something at the heart of all of human events that is worth preserving, something marvelous and worthy of renown, even if the account is not entirely true to life… The second-century satirist, Lucian of Samosata, makes the following inflammatory statement in his True History: [Historical accounts] are intended to have [...]

Classical Education and the Future of Civilization

By |2018-11-23T23:19:54-06:00November 23rd, 2018|Categories: Education, Great Books, Humanities, Joseph Pearce, Liberal Learning, Wilfred McClay|

We live in a pathetically dumbed-down culture. Levels of literacy and numeracy plummet and levels of ignorance rise. Knowledge of the past disappears, its lessons unlearned, as the present shows its contempt for the wisdom of the ages and its sages. In short and in sum, and to put the matter bluntly, we live in [...]

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