Jan 11, 2023
Matt Dinan is a professor at St. Thomas University in New Brunswick and director of its Great Books program. In a recent essay, he recounted what happened, for his students and for himself, when he chose to spend a semester reading a single book—Plato’s Republic. He joins Brendan Boyle to reflect on that experience....
Oct 18, 2022
The “Great Conversation” of the Western intellectual tradition is sometimes thought to be exclusive or exclusionary, representing a small set of voices and serving the interests of a narrow group of people. But, argues our guest, “diverse strands” have always been present in it. In the American context, some of...
Sep 28, 2022
Many students go to college with career ambitions in mind, or perhaps because it seems like the next thing they’re “supposed to” do. But when questions of “why” arise—why pursue this or that job, one way of life or another—they are often perplexed. What does a good life look like? How should I live my...
May 24, 2022
What happens when a person reads literature? An observer, seeing little more than eye movement, might conclude that the answer is: nothing. But literature is a form of travel, says our guest, and encountering it a potentially shattering experience. “Literature,” he says, “allows us to imagine a future that we...
Mar 14, 2022
The contemporary university, especially in the United States, is a place for free and open inquiry unencumbered by censorious forces, a place where “professors should be leading undergraduates on voyages of intellectual self-discovery.” Or is it? Professor James Hankins of Harvard University joins the podcast to...