Joshua Katz, Costen Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Classics at Princeton. Katz’s uncontroversial intellectual pursuits and his warm and fair-minded demeanor make the story of his attempted cancellation at Princeton all the more surprising. Katz reflects on his experience and discusses potential threats to the truth-seeking mission of higher education. 

Jeff Black is a professor at St. John’s College, a unique great books college with campuses in Annapolis, Maryland and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Black explores what the so-called “great books” are, how reading them can provide a liberal education, and why they’re more relevant than ever in today’s political and cultural landscape.

Patty Limerick, professor of history, founding director of the CU Boulder Center of the American West, and author of The Legacy of Conquest. We explore her challenge to, and affection for, the myth of the West, the continuing relevance of applied history, and the role humor should play in public and academic discourse.

Lucas Morel, the John K. Boardman, Jr. Professor of Politics and head of the Politics Department at Washington and Lee University. In this episode Morel discusses Frederick Douglass: the political lessons of his autobiographies; his thoughts on freedom, religion, and the Constitution; and how his reflections on slavery and race enrich contemporary civil rights discussions. 

Glenn Loury, the Merton P. Stoltz Professor of Economics at Brown, is not only an acclaimed economic theorist, he’s also among the leading critics writing on racial inequality in America from a heterodox point of view.

Wayne Ambler, associate professor emeritus at CU Boulder and former dean and director of the Rome Program at the University of Dallas’ Rome Campus, explores the city’s historical development, its influence on Western Liberalism and the American Founding, the lessons it can teach today’s students, and its place in the broader history of political philosophy.

In monthly episodes, my guests and I will explore topics in Western philosophy, politics, literature, and history; and we’ll do so with adventurous disregard for intellectual trends and the academic fashions of the moment.