BiblioFiles: A CenterForLit Podcast about Great Books, Great Ideas, and the Great Conversation

Witches, wizards, and wands--oh my! Fantasy literature can be some pretty murky waters for teachers and parents, but who better to help us navigate these seas than Andrew Pudewa, the head of the Institute for Excellence in Writing and the godfather of CenterForLit? Andrew is not only a very dear friend of ours, but is pretty much the reason we exist in the first place. We had such a wonderful time talking to him about this sticky but also fascinating subject, and as usual he left us with plenty of things to think about.

Referenced Materials:

–Institute for Excellence in Writing (iew.com)

–"The Ethics of Elfland" in Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton

–The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

–Animal Farm: A Fairy Story by George Orwell

–The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

–The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis

–Ben Hur: A Tale of the Christ by Lew Wallace

–Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan

–The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

–Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

–"The World is Too Much With Us" by William Wordsworth

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation. 

Historical Fiction: is it more historical or fictional? So many of our favorites fall into this genre, but how do we stay honest about the line between fact and fabrication in our reading of these works? There may just be some cautions we need to take when we approach historical fiction in order to hear the author clearly. For example, how can we make sure the story doesn't incorrectly influence our understanding of history, or that our understanding of history doesn't incorrectly influence our reading of the story? This hot topic is next in line for episode 16 of BiblioFiles!

Referenced Works:

–John De Gree of The Classical Historian

– Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes

–Macbeth, Richard III, and Henry V by William Shakespeare

–The Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland by Raphael Holinshed

–Ink on his Fingers by Louise A. Vernon

–The Cat of Bubastes and The Dragon and the Ravon by G.A. Henty

–A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

–Les Miserables by Victor Hugo

– "Paul Revere's Ride" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

–The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

–Titanic directed by James Cameron

–The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

–The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

–The Mouse of Amherst by Elizabeth Spires

–Ben and Me by Robert Lawson

–The Black Arrow by Robert Louis Stevenson

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation. 

Andrew and the Andrews: a match made in heaven. Who better to sit at the BiblioFiles table than the beloved mover-and-shaker of the classical education world and our dear friend, Andrew Kern? We couldn't think of anyone better to help us tackle the bedrock of the Great Conversation. And boy, we were right. This time we're talking Homer, and this is a must-hear episode! The length of the podcast might have gotten a leeeee-tle out of hand--but what did you expect?? We sure weren't going to cut any of it out.

Referenced Works:

–The Illiad and The Odyssey of Homer

–An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis

–The Children's Homer by Padraic Colum

–Black Ships Before Troy by Rosemary Sutcliff

–www.circeinstitute.org

             CiRCE Blog

             Lost Tools of Writing

            2017 Regional Conference        

We're pretty much all softies around here at CenterForLit. We just can't resist a good love story! But what is it that makes a good love story? And even more tricky: how is it possible that a happy fairy tale and the depressing Anna Karenina are equally important in developing our imagination of love? And what about marriage? Which authors do a good job of honestly conversing with us about what happens after Prince Charming sweeps Cinderella off her feet? What is love? Baby don't hurt us by missing this fun episode of BiblioFiles!

Referenced Works:

–Emma by Jane Austen

–Middlemarch by George Eliot

–Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

–War and Peace and Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

–The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

–Paper Towns by John Green

–'Til We Have Faces and That Hideous Strength by C.S.Lewis

–Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation. 

You might know us as the lit tribe, but if there's one thing besides books that all Andrews love, it's a good movie. So when you combine our two passions, books and movies, you get....a lot of opinions. This time on BiblioFiles, we decided to have a little fun with some lite conversation about movie adaptations. What must a director do or not do in order to pass muster? When does a director do violence to a book? Is that possible? You'll want to grab some popcorn for this one!

Referenced Works:

-Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, directed by Simon Langton (1995), directed by Joe Wright (2005)

-The Last of the Mochicans by James Fenimore Cooper, directed by Michael Mann (1992)

-"Babette's Feast" by Isak Dinesen, directed by Gabriel Axel (1987)

-The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, directed by Mark Osbourne (2015)

-The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo, directed by Sam Fell and Robert Stevenhagen (2008)

-Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

-Noah, directed by Darren Aronofsky (2014)

-Paradise Lost John Milton

-The Hobbit and The Lord of the RIngs by J.R.R. Tolkien, directed by Peter Jackson (2012-2014, 2001-2003)

-Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens, adapted by Andrew Davis (2008)

-The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, directed by Baz Luhrmann (2013)

-Macbeth by William Shakespeare, directed by Justin Kurzel (2015)

-Gustave Dore, The Divine Comedy illustrations

-To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, directed by Robert Mulligan (1962)

-Anne of Green Gables by Lucy Laud Montgomery, directed by Kevin Sullivan (1985)

-The Hollow Crown, directed by Thea Sharrock (2012-2016)

-Eragon by Christopher Paolini, directed by Stefan Fangmeier (2006)

-Grantchester, directed by Harry Bradbeer (2014-), based on The Grantchester Mysteries by James Runcie

We love hearing your questions and comments! You can contact us by emailing [email protected], or you can visit our website www.centerforlit.com to find even more ways to participate in the conversation.