Alexander Schmid Podcast

In this conversation with Ms. Sarah Miller and Mr. Wes Schantz, we talked about chapters 13-18 in "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix". Specifically, we consider (1) Dolores Umbridge and her particular brand of "educating" and disciplining; (2) the contrasts and parallels between Percy, Umbridge, and Sirius Black, and (3) how power and wisdom interrelate (or contrast) in an educational setting! And much more!

In this conversation, Mr. Wes Schantz and I are joined by Dr. Jason Hawreliak, PhD, Assistant Professor of Game Studies at Brock University in their Centre for Digital Humanities. Dr. Hawreliak, Wes, and I consider (1) ideology, death-anxiety, and the relationship between "shooters", game-play mechanics, and the relationship between shooting games and times of war; (2) we consider video games as a vessel for narrative compared to literature and film, and (3) we consider to what extent a hero is a cultural construction, and how the image of a hero evolves over time and across media.

Below are a few sites which Dr. Hawreliak has helped start or been a part of and a link to one of his books:

https://brocku.academia.edu/JasonHawreliak

http://www.firstpersonscholar.com/johan-huizinga-in-the-shadow-of-tomorrow/

https://brocku.ca/humanities/digital-humanities/faculty-and-staff/

https://www.routledge.com/Multimodal-Semiotics-and-Rhetoric-in-Videogames/Hawreliak/p/book/9781138065734

http://twinery.org/

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KarenSchrier/20180124/313566/Using_Games_to_Inspire_Empathy__Pros_and_Cons.php

https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us

https://www.amazon.com/Playing-War-Military-Video-Games/dp/147980522X

https://gonehome.game/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17euo2DzBZI (the infamous Virtual Boy)

In this lecture, we discuss (1) Odysseus waking up in Ithaka and plotting the destruction of the suitors with Athene, (2) Odysseus, now disguised as a beggar, meeting and lying about his identity to Eumaios, and (3) Telemachos being summoned from Sparta by Athene and finally making it to Eumaios' house.

In this lecture, we (1) consider the "Golden Ladder" of contemplation, (2) come to understand the "ineffability" of predestination in relation to free-will, and (3) learn that (perhaps ironically today) St. Benedict fled the city and its corruption for the contemplative life.

In this lecture, we discuss (a) Odysseus' journey home in a Phaiakian ship, (b) the denouement of the Phaiakian disobedience to Poseidon (but obedience to Zeus), and (c) what returning "home" is.

In this episode of Night School, Mr. Wes Schantz and I consider "Mending Walls" by Robert Frost. Specifically, (1) we consider the haphazard meter/rollicking and disjointed language of the poem; (2) the necessity and beauty of walls, and how they relate to institutions, like the American political edifice; and how (3) relevant the lines, "Oh, just another kind of out-door game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:" might be to America today.

In this episode, Mr. Wesley Schantz and I consider (a) making it to the third disc and how beginnings and ends affect our judgments of any communicative effort; (2) what Hojo and Aeris and Sephiroth mean as ideals, and (3) how the Final Fantasy series as a whole mimics the epic tradition through its serial growth, what the epic tradition is attempting to produce, and we begin to answer whether Final Fantasy VII is itself worthy of the moniker "great" or "epic".

(Unfortunately, some of our best stuff was left unrecorded (due to operator error--me), and thus was lost to time like tear drops in the rain.)

In this lecture, we (1) review the passing of the Sirens and Skylla and Charybdis (the Rovers/Roving Rocks); (2) we again witness the "brilliance" of Eurylochos, and (3) witness the catastrophe that befalls Odysseus' men when he again falls asleep and is not there to guide their judgment.

In this lecture, we discuss (a) can humans understand divine justice? (b)  What about people who existed before Christianity or outside its physical range (those born along the Indus)? And (c) how can Trajan and Ripheus (noble pagans) be in heaven, but not Virgil?

In this conversation, Ms. Sarah Miller, Mr. Wes Schantz, and I consider (a) Harry's Hearing and the corruption at the Ministry of the Magic; (2) we consider Mr. Weasley and the introduction of Dolores Umbridge and Luna Lovegood, and (c) consider the source of Harry's new increasing humanity, quick temper, and his evolving relationship with his friends and the heroic ideal.