Magnus Podcast: Conversations from the Catacombs of Liberal Education

In this fast paced world full of echo chambers and outrage machines, we are fooled into believing a misguided view of justice and rhetoric. Dr. Joshua Phillips joins us to talk about how we can properly understand the connection between justice and humility and the distinction between thinking wonderfully and thinking critically.

Joshua Phillips received a Ph.D. in Speech Communication from Southern Illinois University in 2014. His academic focus is rhetoric and intercultural communication with particular interests in civil rights, free speech, media, and poverty. As a Ph.D. student, Dr. Phillips published 15 academic manuscripts, received 4 top paper awards from academic conferences, and presented over 50 keynotes at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. His book, Homeless: Narratives from the Streets derives from his dissertation research and was published by McFarland in 2016. 

You can follow him on twitter @Joshphillipsphd

AMI exists because we, like so many, see a problem with the current university system. What is the modern university providing to its students in comparison to what it ought to be providing?  What is the purpose of a university?

We just completed an 8 week summer course on John Henry Newman's, "The Idea of a University," to grapple with these questions and come to understand what a university ought to look like. 

As promised, here is a sneak peek into the first of 8 classes from this course. 

Become a fellow and learn how you can access the entire course and attend more for free!

"What is the best way of life for a human being?" The Republic is the most complete attempt by Plato to articulate and answer this question. It is characteristic of Plato that, in the Republic, questions about human happiness ultimately cannot be separated from questions of education, of the nature of the city, of the various forms of government, of the structure of the human soul, and of the character of the gods and being itself.

Become a fellow and learn how you can watch the rest of the course and attend more for free!

Musician and composer, Greg Wilbur of New College Franklin contemplates music within the quadrivium; he explains why music ought to be ordered rightly in education and how it rests in harmony with the other Liberal Arts. He even discusses a little bit of conspiracy theories. 

Gregory Wilbur is President and Dean of the College, permanent Trustee, and Senior Fellow at New College Franklin. Over the past years at New College, he has taught courses or sections of Music, Geometry, Cosmology, Moral Philosophy, Poetics, and numerous preceptorials such as The Art of Film, 20th-Century Literature, Hospitality and Cooking, and the Quadrivium. Mr. Wilbur has composed award-winning works for choir, orchestra, film, and corporate worship as well as various commissions. He recently released his fifth CD of congregational hymns called Praise Your Maker.

“Take courage daughter, the world is not as strong as it seems.”  From the diary of Maria Faustina

Brian Fink has returned to the Magnus Podcast to discuss what it means to see reality as it is: to see oneself in order to better understand the enemy, to see the hope in the midst of losing, to see the truth in a poisoned culture, and, ultimately, how to actualize a vision for oneself that is more clear than the illusions of the world.

Find Brian on Twitter @b_fink

This conversation with Dr. Gary Hartenburg looks at education from a bird’s-eye view before zooming into talk about virtue, specifically the virtue of prudence, according to Aristotle, and ends with little bit of theology. 

Dr. Gary Hartenburg is the Director of the Honors College and an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Houston Christian University. His primary research interests are in ancient philosophy, especially Plato and his student, Aristotle. He enjoys thinking about the history and philosophy of education and recently completed a book on Aristotle’s philosophy of education, Aristotle: Education for Virtue and Leisure. 

Check out the Honor's College at Houston Christian University. 

Earlier this spring, we hosted a lovely webinar on one of the most playful of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, The Nun's Priest's Tale of Chanticleer and the Fox. Now we're releasing it as a podcast so you too can enjoy it!

Listen as Dr. Shannon Valenzuela of UD guides us through this delightful introduction to the poet's quirky (and sometimes shocking) combination of the modes of "ernest and game." Combining barnyard antics with a serious exploration of the purpose of storytelling and approaches to reading, this animal fable is a perfect springtime medley of high spirits and seriousness.

Shannon K. Valenzuela, Ph.D., is an Affiliate Assistant Professor of Humanities and English at the University of Dallas. She received her B.A. in English and Classics from the University of Dallas, and her Ph.D. in literature from the University of Notre Dame, where she specialized in the medieval period. She is also an award-winning screenwriter and a novelist, and she is the writer, director, and narrator of the limited television series The Quest, which is produced by the University of Dallas and distributed by EWTN. 

How does man know? What are the roles of signs in knowing? What does “meaning” mean? What does man want to know? What are the objects to knowing?

In this episode, Dr. Brian Kemple of the Lyceum Institute discusses these questions and opens the door to many, many more. Come join us down this rabbit hole of discovery.

Dr. Brian Kemple holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of St. Thomas, in Houston TX.  He has written two scholarly books (Ens Primum Cognitum in Thomas Aquinas and the Tradition and The Intersection of Semiotics and Phenomenology: Peirce and Heidegger in Dialogue), two public-oriented books (an Introduction to Philosophical Principles and Linguistic Signification: A Classical and Semiotic Course in Grammar & Composition), a number of scholarly articles and a few public-oriented ones, as well.

Check out the Lyceum Institute. 

Join the Fellowship today!

“We can’t teach the humanities unless the students have been humanized."

In this episode, Dr. Jared Staudt discusses the text, Newman’s Idea of A University, and begs the question, ”What does it mean to explore reality?” He challenges educators and teachers to not become complacent, classical educators, but to seek the beautiful alongside their students and provide them with an education that grounds them in both tradition and reality. 

Dr. Jared Staudt is teaching a course in the Magnus Fellowship this summer on Newman's Idea of a University, the book that is the fruit of Newman's difficult venture as an Englishman creating a University in Ireland. Learn more, join the Fellowship, and register for the free 8 week course. 

Check out his recently published book.

Across the sea, Charles III has just been coronated King of England and much ado was made in his and his country’s honor. 

On our homeland, America is, as always, in the throes of her own democratic controversies. 

Now on the podcast, we asked Dr’s Pavlos Papadopoulos and Joseph Pearce to discuss this question: Democracy or Monarchy: Is one the better form of government? You will want to listen to this conversation. 

Just announced: Dr. Papadopoulos will be teaching a course for us this summer on Plato’s Republic! Learn more!

More from Dr. Pearce here.

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