Music assures us that we are not alone: that there is something out there in the world that knows our hearts and may even teach us to know them better. Thanks to music, we experience what it means to be connected to the whole of all things. “Music, too, is nature.” —Victor Zuckerkandl, Sound and [...]
"The classical understanding of liberal arts as aimed at educating the free human being is displaced by emphasis upon the arts of the private person," writes Patrick Deneen. "An education fitting for a 'res publica' is replaced with an education suited for a 'res idiotica'—in the Greek, a 'private' and isolated person." Dear TIC Reader: [...]
What kind of education is necessary to preserve our liberal democracy? How should we educate our citizens to be fit for the freedom they ought to enjoy in our democratic republic? I confess to having approached Mr. Charles Murray’s book with a little ambivalence. I imagined that I might be one of those educational romantics he [...]
Richard Wagner’s Tristan and Isolde should prompt us to search for an antidote to the lovers’ death wish—to pursue a love that preserves rather than destroys, celebrates rather than abolishes individuality, and seeks life rather than death. “They who were two and divided now became one and united.” —Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolde I come [...]
What are the things that could be common to friends? What things can truly be held in common without having to be shared or meted out among friends? Welcome to the Class of 2013 and to your families.* To the rest of our college community, welcome back. Welcome, friends all! I came to a rather [...]
One of the most pressing tasks for contemporary Christians is the recovery and cultivation of the inextricable link between the Christian faith and the intellectual life. In order to engage in such reflection, we should explore the relationship of Christianity and the liberal arts, and in particular seek to draw from Augustine as we reflect [...]
There is nothing in the natural world, or in the inner and outer life of man, that does not find its counterpart in the all-embracing realm of tones. Music as symbol is the whole of all things. “They who were two and divided now became one and united.” —Gottfried von Strassburg, Tristan and Isolde I [...]
The demise of imitation has been devastating for personal growth. It used to be a commonplace that successful people need to have extraordinary “heroes” whom they admire and try to emulate. But the historical disciplines in the twentieth century waged something of a war against the very idea of the hero. Imitation, like so many [...]
Music, as a living presence that comes to us, offers itself to us, assures us that we are not alone: that there is something out there in the world that knows our hearts and may even teach us to know them better. Music, too, is nature. —Victor Zuckerkandl, Sound and Symbol. This essay explores the [...]
John Dewey is such a big name in the educational world that it can seem like there is no way to push back against his work. But Dorothy L. Sayers offers a way for the Liberal Arts not only to push back on Dewey but also to steal his thunder. As we look back at [...]
God is a person, not just an idea. When he raises up saints, he does so not to have an ideologue to debate the doubters, but in order to have someone to carry on the work of Christ, who not only preached, but was a living example of what he preached. God raised up Saint [...]
Dante’s globalism, his vision of the whole, is not confined to the earth but extends to the entire universe. This includes the invisible, spiritual world as well as the visible, corporeal one. It embraces the human and the divine, the natural and the supernatural… it celebrates the victory of hope over despair. “The things of [...]
Perhaps prison was the very best place to read the "Inferno." Gustave Doré’s engravings on the overhead embellished my lectures, and I immediately noticed my jump-suited students raptly attentive to his vivid representations of Hell’s punishments. “What happens if you’re guilty of more than one of these?” one sheepishly asked. No one laughed. The department [...]
The “Iliad” has a kind of immediacy you will find nowhere else. It has irresistible momentum. It grabs you in the middle, somewhere in the vicinity of the chest or the heart, and it demands the attention of your sensibility. One of the many things I love about this college is that everyone must begin [...]