New Humanists

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Should teachers teach their pupils what to think? Or how to think? The great English philosopher Michael Oakeshott says it’s not so simple. Students certainly must learn how to think, but can only do so by learning about things in particular - in other words, by learning what to think. Jonathan and Ryan are joined to discuss this excellent Oakeshott lecture on learning and education by Dale Stenberg.

The Davenant Institute: https://davenantinstitute.org/

Pilgrim Faith Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/pilgrim-faith-podcast/id1494222569

Pietas Classical Christian: https://pietasclassical.com/

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781935191568

Carl Trueman’s Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781433556333

Alastair Roberts’ blog: https://alastairadversaria.com/

Donald Phillip Verene’s The Art of Humane Education: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780801440397

C.S. Lewis’s An Experiment in Criticism: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781107604728

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

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Long before the New Humanists podcast was born, Irving Babbitt helped found the movement now known as New Humanism. University of Maryland Professor of Classics Dr. Eric Adler, along with his former student (and current ALI Fellow) Katherine Bradshaw, join the podcast to discuss the original New Humanist and what we might stand to gain from him in our debates about education, the humanities, and the canon.

Irving Babbitt’s “What Is Humanism?”: http://www.nhinet.org/lac1.htm

Irving Babbitt’s “What I Believe: Rousseau and Religion” from Spanish Character and Other Essays: https://amzn.to/34ZP9RH

Dr. Eric Adler’s The Battle of the Classics: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780197518786

Dr. Eric Adler’s Classics, the Culture Wars, and Beyond: https://amzn.to/36a7V9H

Dr. Eric Adler’s Valorizing the Barbarians: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780292744035

C.S. Lewis’ Abolition of Man: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652944

Alan Jacobs’ The Year of Our Lord 1943: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780190864651

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s First Discourse: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780312694401

George MacDonald’s The Princess and Curdie: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781952410475

Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060935467

Robert E. Proctor’s Defining the Humanities: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780253212191

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

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It is tempting to dismiss T.S. Eliot’s musings on class, society, and education as the complaints of a cranky reactionary. But the great Anglo-American poet is worth reckoning with - if for no other reason than how profoundly he challenges the democratic norms that in the 21st century we simply assume as first principles. Jonathan and Ryan take a look at Eliot’s chapter on education from his book Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, and they try to square Eliot with the egalitarian promises of the American Dream.

T.S. Eliot’s Notes Towards the Definition of Culture: https://amzn.to/3fkKCLJ

Alan Jacobs’ The Year of Our Lord 1943: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780190864651

New Humanists episode on Jacobs’ book (Part I): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/transhumanism-in-the-year-of-our-lord-2021-pt-1-episode-ii/id1570296135?i=1000525644529

New Humanists episode on Jacobs’ book (Part II): https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/transhumanism-in-the-year-of-our-lord-pt-2-episode-iii/id1570296135?i=1000527530441

Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781935191568

Scott Newman’s The Liar’s Club: Looking Back on Princeton: https://quillette.com/2021/12/09/ivy-league-liars-club/

Peter Hitchens’ A Church That Was: https://www.firstthings.com/article/2016/05/a-church-that-was

Thomas Gray’s Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44299/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard

Anthony Esolen’s The Boy Genius: https://www.touchstonemag.com/touchstone-conference/2018/the-boy-genius-esolen.php

Kurt Vonnegut’s Welcome to the Monkey House (contains the Harrison Bergeron story): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780385333504

T.S. Eliot’s Usk: https://www.poetrynook.com/poem/usk

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

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Athanasius the Great, Athanasius contra mundum, the Hammer of the Arians. The great defender of orthodox Christology is no mere rigorist or martinet; he possesses a “classical simplicity” in his writing and a subtle theological mind. ALI Latin Fellow Calvin Goligher joins to discuss the great church father and his book On the Incarnation.

Athanasius’ On the Incarnation with C.S. Lewis’ preface (Greek-English): https://amzn.to/3zagHyR

Athanasius’ Life of Anthony: https://amzn.to/3mQqrcU

Athanasius’ Orations Against the Arians (Greek): https://amzn.to/3zoHVSD

Athanasius’ Orations Against the Arians (free in English): https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/2816.htm

Charles Kingsley’s Hypatia (free): https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6308/6308-h/6308-h.htm

Charles Kingsley’s Hypatia (hard copy): https://amzn.to/3zkr57q

Lecture on the Insufficiency of Creedal Hermeneutics: https://calvinistinternational.com/2014/11/18/the-insufficiency-of-creedal-hermeneutics/

Learn to read Xenophon and Athanasius in Greek with the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/attic-greek/

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

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At the same time that he was delivering the Mere Christianity radio addresses to a war-torn England, C.S. Lewis penned a now-famous preface to an edition of On the Incarnation by Saint Athanasius. In this short preface, Lewis makes a memorable defense of reading old books, while also revealing some of his thoughts behind the concept of “mere Christianity.”

C.S. Lewis’ “On the Reading of Old Books” (free): https://learning.hccs.edu/faculty/christina.hemati/phil1301/readings/lewis-on-the-reading-of-old-books/view

Athanasius’ On the Incarnation with C.S. Lewis’ preface (Greek-English): https://amzn.to/3zagHyR

C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652920

Michael Ward’s After Humanity: https://amzn.to/3pMzsFP

Plato’s The Last Days of Socrates: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140449280

A.E. Housman’s A Shropshire Lad XL: https://poets.org/poem/shropshire-lad-xl

C.S. Lewis’ The Pilgrim’s Regress: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780802872173

Alan Jacobs’ The Year of Our Lord 1943: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780190864651

Learn to read Xenophon and Athanasius in Greek with the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/attic-greek/

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Rather than trying to pull the mask off the Hebrew Bible to reveal something (a monster?) hidden underneath, what if you attended to the actual narrative of the Bible? What would you learn? Robert Alter’s groundbreaking The Art of Biblical Narrative attempts to do just that. Dr. Dru Johnson of The King’s College in NYC and ALI’s own Greek and Hebrew Fellow Tyler Foster join Jonathan and Ryan as we discuss how to read the Bible, Alter-style.

Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780465022557

Robert Alter’s The Five Books of Moses: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780393333930

Dru Johnson’s Biblical Philosophy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781108932691

The Center for Hebraic Thought: https://hebraicthought.org/

The Biblical Mind: https://thebiblicalmind.org/

Learn Biblical Hebrew with Tyler and the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/biblical-hebrew/

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

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In I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, René Girard argues that the Bible definitively refutes the lies of pagan mythology. The pagan myths conceal the mimetic cycle and founding murder that are at the heart of human politics. The Bible, on the other hand, exposes myth and politics as satanic, and offers the Crucifixion and Resurrection as the medicine to heal human society of this curse. Dr. Patrick Downey, of St. Mary’s College of California, joins Jonathan and Ryan to discuss Girard, paganism vs. Christianity, the Inklings, and the modern concern for victims.

René Girard’s I See Satan Fall Like Lightning: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781570753190

Patrick Downey’s Serious Comedy: https://davenant.kindful.com/?campaign=1156789&fbclid=IwAR0wgsKvwgchD0MT6jKWhDO0d89qVW6cuyHpkeG-jUlGeo_Zq4EKrxcBwug

Patrick Downey’s Desperately Wicked: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780830828944

Albertus Magnus Institute: https://magnusinstitute.org/

Sophocles’ Theban Plays: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140440034

Philostratus’ Life of Apollonius of Tyana: https://amzn.to/3mcUqf1

Robert Alter’s The Art of Biblical Narrative: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780465022557

Plato’s Republic: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780465094080

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

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This is the lecture that sparked worldwide outcry - for all the wrong reasons. In reality, the Regensburg Address is a sparkling meditation on theology, philosophy, and education. Pope Benedict XVI is able to compress profound reflections on the Bible and Greek philosophy into what is a short and accessible lecture. After castigating the media for their bad reporting on the address, Jonathan and Ryan take it apart to reveal its beauty and complexity, covering varied topics including Socrates, the Burning Bush, German philosophy, the Scholastic-Humanist quarrel, Catholicism vs. Protestantism, and the structure of the university.

Pope Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Lecture (“Faith, Reason and the University: Memories and Reflections”): https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/speeches/2006/september/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060912_university-regensburg.html

Siren Çelik’s Manuel II Palaiologos: https://bookshop.org/books/manuel-ii-palaiologos-1350-1425-a-byzantine-emperor-in-a-time-of-tumult/9781108836593

Pope Benedict XVI’s Truth and Tolerance: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781586170356

Erika Rummel’s The Humanist-Scholastic Debate in the Renaissance and the Reformation: https://amzn.to/3kBFyWw

Erasmus’ In Praise of Folly: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140446081

Sir Anthony Kenny’s Immanuel Kant: A Very Brief History: https://amzn.to/30x7lAr

Sir Roger Scruton’s Kant: A Very Short Introduction: https://amzn.to/3kG5vE7

Beginner Latin 1: Middle School: https://ancientlanguage.com/beginner-latin-middle-school/

Beginner Latin 1: High School: https://ancientlanguage.com/beginner-latin-high-school/

Honors Latin 1 (for students who’ve studied Latin before): https://ancientlanguage.com/honors-latin/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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At the end of his academic career at Oxford University, J.R.R. Tolkien gave his “Valedictory Address,” an analysis of the decline of humane letters, the specious distinction between “lang” and “lit” that has grown up in the academy, and a stirring expression of hope in the future of philological study even amidst unfavorable conditions. Colin Chan Redemer, a professor at Saint Mary’s College of California and Vice President of the Davenant Institute, joins Jonathan and Ryan to discuss Tolkien’s vision for the liberal arts and what proponents of Great Books education have to learn from him.

Tolkien’s Valedictory Address (free): http://faculty.smu.edu/bwheeler/tolkien/online_reader/oxfordaddress.pdf

Tolkien’s Valedictory Address in essay collection The Monsters and the Critics: https://amzn.to/3pAg8vs

Ad Fontes podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ad-fontes-podcast/id1557560666

Davenant Hall: https://davenantinstitute.org/davenant-hall

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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Shakespeare’s Roman trilogy reaches a climax in The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra, a love- and wine-drenched account of Octavius Caesar’s defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and his consolidation of power over the nascent Roman Empire. The play is punctuated by bountiful allusions to Virgil's Aeneid. But besides the haunting downfall of the play’s title characters, in the background of the action arises the specter of a new religious creed, Christianity. Katherine Bradshaw joins Jonathan and Ryan again, to take the measure of Shakespeare’s Roman trilogy.

Jan Blits’s edition of The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra: https://amzn.to/3DolBcK

Virgil’s Aeneid, trans. Robert Fagles: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780143105138

Virgil’s Aeneid, Latin-English: https://amzn.to/3BAWOS7

Niccolo Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy (free): https://oll.libertyfund.org/title/detmold-the-historical-political-and-diplomatic-writings-vol-2#lf0076-02_label_026

Niccolo Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy, trans. Harvey Mansfield https://amzn.to/3DBfVMk

Dante’s Divine Comedy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780142437544

René Girard’s I See Satan Fall Like Lightning: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781570753190

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.

Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

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