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The hothouse of prewar Vienna played host to an unprecedented concentration of genius which eventually gave birth to modernism. Present on the scene was a young Eric Voegelin. Late in his career Voegelin wrote an essay “On Classical Studies,” in which he explained what the discipline of Classics is, the difference between classical and modern accounts of reality, and how to keep the flame of classical wisdom alive in the modern academy. With Voegelin as their guide, Jonathan and Ryan ponder Classics, modernity, and higher education.

Eric Voegelin’s On Classical Studies: https://theimaginativeconservative.org/2012/02/on-classical-studies-by-eric-voegelin.html

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

On Vienna in 1913: https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-21859771

Karl Schorske’s Fin-De-Siecle Vienna: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780394744780

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

Friedrich August Wolf’s Prolegomena Ad Homerum: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781108066037

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger’s Truth and Tolerance: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781586170356

John Heath’s and Victor Davis Hanson’s Who Killed Homer?: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781893554269

Come learn Greek with Ryan! https://ancientlanguage.com/beginner-ancient-greek/

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ALI Fellow Katherine Bradshaw returns to New Humanists, in installment number two of our discussion of Shakespeare's Roman plays. This week, we talk about The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. What happened to the nascent republic of Coriolanus? Why does a dictator now rule Rome? And how does his murder give birth to a new regime?

Jan Blits's edition of Julius Caesar: https://amzn.to/3lune16

Blits's monograph, Rome and the Spirit of Caesar: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781498525268

René Girard's Theater of Envy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781587318603

Plutarch's Life of Caesar (free): https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/e/roman/texts/plutarch/lives/caesar*.html

Plutarch's Life of Caesar (Greek-English): https://amzn.to/3CkGTHD

Suetonius' The Twelve Caesars (English): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140455168

Suetonius's The Twelve Caesars Vol. I (English-Latin): https://amzn.to/3zgkBoe

Julius Caesar, 1953 film: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0045943/

Julius Caesar, 2017 Royal Shakespeare Company production: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6848180/

Latin courses at ALI: https://ancientlanguage.com/register-latin/
Greek courses at ALI: https://ancientlanguage.com/register-greek/
Hebrew courses at ALI: https://ancientlanguage.com/register-hebrew/

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Did Shakespeare actually know anything about Ancient Rome? Or was he just writing Classical Fan-Fiction? ALI Greek & Latin Fellow Katherine Bradshaw, a scholar of both Shakespeare and the Classical world, joins Jonathan and Ryan for a discussion of The Tragedy of Coriolanus, one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote: an examination of the Roman Republic in its infancy, and what happens when Roman pietas goes horribly awry.

Jan Blits’s edition of Coriolanus: https://amzn.to/3C1TEaK

The New Thinkery, Ep. 28 on Coriolanus feat. Jan Blits: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/interview-professor-jan-blits-on-shakespeares-coriolanus/id1524739522?i=1000507558606

Plutarch’s Life of Coriolanus (free): https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Plutarch/Lives/Coriolanus*.html

Plutarch’s Life of Coriolanus (Greek-English):

https://amzn.to/2WB0hk9

Katherine’s favorite Coriolanus adaptation: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1372686/

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Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is an unlikely candidate for “humanist,” especially because of his denunciation of humanism in his infamous Harvard Address. Does the great Russian dissident have something to teach aspiring humanists? Jonathan and Ryan take a look at two famous exhortations from Solzhenitsyn, “Live Not By Lies,” an essay from 1974, and “A World Split Apart,” the commencement address he delivered at Harvard in 1978 - as well as the subsequent backlash Solzhenitsyn faced for his criticism of American liberalism.

Solzhenitsyn’s “Live Not By Lies”: https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies

Solzhenitsyn’s “A World Split Apart” (Harvard Address), text and video: https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/a-world-split-apart

The EPPC’s Solzhenitsyn at Harvard: https://amzn.to/3kk9kzB

Colin Redemer’s “Live Not By Dreher Alone”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vl61h3DKaNw

Rod Dreher’s Live Not By Lies: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780593087398

Vaclav Havel’s “The Power of the Powerless”: https://web.archive.org/web/20120107141633/http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/showtrans.php?cat=clanky&val=72_aj_clanky.html&typ=HTML

Harold Berman’s Law and Revolution: https://amzn.to/3eJg9ab

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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What is humane education? Are there techniques you can use to get students to appreciate the great books? Jonathan and Ryan discuss Donald Phillip Verene’s The Art of Humane Education, a powerful series of short letters about teaching, eloquence, the western canon, science and technology. And memes - don’t forget about the memes.

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

Jonathan Gregg’s How to Escape the Hyperclassical Trap: https://ancientlanguage.com/how-to-escape-hyperclassical-trap/

S.A. Dance’s The Idea of a Classical School: https://ancientlanguage.com/the-idea-of-a-classical-school/

Augustine’s Confessions: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780199537822


Peter Brown’s Augustine of Hippo: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780520280410

The New Thinkery podcast: https://thenewthinkery.com/

Friedrich Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781940177359

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you 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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Jonathan and Ryan continue their discussion of Alan Jacobs’s book The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis. This book stars C.S. Lewis, Simone Weil, W.H. Auden, Jacques Maritain, and T.S. Eliot, and on this episode of New Humanists, your hosts continue to tease out the implications for our current transhumanist moment, hitting on technology, education, the family, and power. This is the second part of a two-part look into the Jacobs book.

Alan Jacobs’s The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780190864651

Cicero’s Pro Archia Poeta: https://amzn.to/3phQwS1

Free in Latin: https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Pro_A._Licinio_Archia_poeta

Free in English: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0019%3Atext%3DArch.

The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity in Latin: https://archive.org/details/MN5140ucmf_2/page/n71/mode/2up

The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity in English: https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0324.htm

Simone Weil’s The Iliad or the Poem of Force: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780820463612

Free in French: https://teuwissen.ch/imlift/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Weil-L_Iliade_ou_le_poeme_de_la_force.pdf

Free in English: http://www.holoka.com/pdf-files/weil.pdf

Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you 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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Jonathan and Ryan dive into Alan Jacobs’s book The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis. This book stars C.S. Lewis, Simone Weil, W.H. Auden, Jacques Maritain, and T.S. Eliot, and on this episode of New Humanists, your hosts tease out the implications for our current transhumanist moment, hitting on technology, education, the family, and power. This is the first part of a two-part look into the Jacobs book.

Alan Jacobs’s The Year of Our Lord 1943: Christian Humanism in an Age of Crisis: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780190864651

Cicero’s Pro Archia Poeta: https://amzn.to/3phQwS1

Free in Latin: https://la.wikisource.org/wiki/Pro_A._Licinio_Archia_poeta

Free in English: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.02.0019%3Atext%3DArch.

W.H. Auden’s “Under Which Lyre: A Reactionary Tract for the Times” recited: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZE_bhSUgG8

W.H. Auden’s “Under Which Lyre: A Reactionary Tract for the Times” text: https://archive.harpers.org/1947/06/pdf/HarpersMagazine-1947-06-0032956.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJUM7PFZHQ4PMJ4LA&Expires=1553827144&Signature=Dsmaq0Xss%2BBFcR24N4Kx%2FnpjYng%3D

C.S. Lewis’s “Learning in War-Time”: https://bradleyggreen.com/attachments/Lewis.Learning%20in%20War-Time.pdf

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

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This is the inaugural episode of New Humanists, the podcast of the Ancient Language Institute, found at ancientlanguage.com. ALI founders Jonathan Roberts and Ryan Hammill dive into what ALI is all about, how and why to learn Latin, what’s wrong with classical education, and ask the question, “Who are the new humanists?”

Jonathan’s essay on classical education: https://ancientlanguage.com/classical-schools-not-classical/

Plato’s Symposium (Greek with facing-page English translation): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674991842

C.S. Lewis’s Surprised by Joy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780062565433

ALI’s Latin program: https://ancientlanguage.com/learn-latin/

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

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