Eva Brann

What is a Book?

What is a Book? It is a special kind of body made to be inhabited by a curious kind of frozen but fusible soul, a body fit to mediate its own peculiar life… It is our tradition that the...

Liberal Learning, Great Books & Paideia

This is what the study of Great Books does for us: First it makes us into what we were meant to be, then it maintains us in the life so achieved... First, I want to say how honored I...

Odysseus: Patron Hero of the Liberal Arts

Odysseus has the art we need. I think he came by it through a rare combination of acutely honed cleverness and deep-souled imagination; we can acquire it by education. This art, the art of discovering significance, is the art of interpretation...

Liberal Learning, the Human Person, and Plato’s “Meno”

“First attend to the adjustment of your own soul, particularly the regulative liberal learning of your intellect, then project your internal economy on the world as social and political justice. The other way around is headless.”  – Eva...

Eva Brann, National Treasure

In a moment when the forces of ideology seem to threaten to overwhelm the voice of sanity and civility, Eva Brann’s imaginative conservatism offers another way—a way rooted in, as she has put it, “talking, reading, writing, listening”...

On Being Eva

Eva Brann seems to have a refreshing effect on all who meet her. This must have something to do with her openness to the world in all its manifestations, her spritely and generous spirit, her mischievous love of play, and her gift of friendship. Today, she still...

Ode to an Insightingale

No collection of great books, nor even the most wisely designed curriculum, which is but a recipe, can equal or even approach the importance of the faculty, whose members bring the program to life year after year. Eva Brann knows all this, and preaches it eloquently...

Humanity Dehumanized: Hegel’s Reflections on the Enlightenment & the French Revolution

The Enlightenment, that is modern reason, failed us in part, Hegel shows, both for the history it left behind and the legacy it bequeathed us. Indeed it brought us and spirit to the point of self-destruction... Editor's Note: This essay is part...

Self Addressed Speech: The Soul Speaking to Itself

Ask anyone what speech “is for” and the answer will be, “Speech is for communication.” To be sure. But not primarily! Speech is first for self-address... My first title for this little musing was “Silent...

With Gratitude to a Sentinel of Classical Learning

From time to time, there is the need for sentinels of classical learning, individuals who, if one is fortunate to be around them, beckon the meandering intellect back to the pursuit of the truth, the discovery of the good, and the conservation of the beautiful. In the...

Liberal Education and the “Much-Enduring” Odysseus

The epithet “much-enduring” is often associated with moments when we see the interplay between Odysseus’ self-knowledge and his ability to use his experience to judge and adapt himself to circumstances; between his enduring self and purpose, and the many-ness of his schemes and courses of action...

A Writer’s Life

Distinguished scholar Eva Brann, of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, shares her thoughts, discusses how St. John’s is truly unique among American colleges, why students should read Homer first, how Aristotle speaks to us today, and why Yogi Berra is one of her favorite philosophers. The first...

What, Then, Is Time?

When our dean asked me to lecture this September it was because I’ve just completed a book on time, and I’m happy to have the opportunity to talk about it. There seemed to be three possible kinds of...

Storytelling and Modernity

The storytelling of a tribe gives each member a common remote past, communal heroes to emulate, shared social rules, and an answer to “Who am I?”  Editor's Note: This essay is part...