The Ralston College Podcast

Ralston College presents a talk by Christopher Snook, Lecturer in the Department of Classics at Dalhousie University, on the influence of Dante’s Purgatorio on two of T.S. Eliot’s most important works: The Waste Land and Four Quartets. Mr Snook attends, in particular, to how Eliot’s treatment of fragments represents at once both a departure from and a return to medieval understandings of the whole. This medieval understanding is evidenced in the “manifold articulation” of particulars within the architecture of the Gothic cathedral, the literary shape of the Divine Comedy, and the logical structure of the Summa Theologicae. Mr Snook’s lecture was given in the final term of the 2023-24 year of Ralston College’s MA in Humanities program, which focused on the concept of the Whole. 

Applications are now open for the upcoming year of the MA in the Humanities program, which will focus on the theme of Fellowship. Apply now. 

Authors, Artists, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: 

• Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologicae

• René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy

• Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

• Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life” 

• T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”

• T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men”

• T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land

• T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

• Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot

• Dante, The Divine Comedy 

• T. S. Eliot, The Family Reunion

• Ezra Pound

• William Shakespeare, Macbeth

• John Donne, “No Man is an Island” 

• Charles Baudelaire, “À une passante”

• William Shakespeare, The Tempest 

• George Herbert 

• Nicene Creed 

• Augustine, Confessions 

• Charles Williams

• Filippo Tommaso Marinetti 

• Franz Kafka, “Before the Law” (from The Trial) 

• Freidrich Schlegel 

• Pascal, Pensées 

• Michel de Montaigne 

• Plato, Republic 

Ralston College presents a talk by Christopher Snook, Lecturer in the Department of Classics at Dalhousie University, on T.S. Eliot’s modernist masterpiece The Waste Land.

The lecture explores the personal, historical, and literary contexts of Eliot’s poem. Through an engagement with the Western tradition that is simultaneously rich and fragmented, The Waste Land confronts cultural and personal crises that have atrophied both memory and desire. Snook finds in Eliot’s work a mournful modernism that serves as a serious and searching rejoinder to the more frivolous and enervated responses present in some modernist schools, most notably Dadaism.

This lecture was delivered on April 15th, 2024 at Ralston College’s Savannah campus, during the final term of the second year of the MA in the Humanities Program. Applications are now open for next year’s MA program.

Full scholarships are available. https://www.ralston.ac/apply

Mentioned in this episdoe: 

T. S. Eliot “The Waste Land”The DialKathleen RaineVirgil, AeneidEliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”Eliot, “Tradition and Individual Talent”Eliot, The Family Reunion Henri BergsonBertrand Russell Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s RoomLeonard WoolfEzra PoundJames Joyce, Ulysses Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Oswald Spengler, Decline and Fall of the West Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past Claude McCay, Harlem Shadows August Strindberg Neo-impressionism Cubism Dadaism Surrealism Futurism Taxi Driver (film) Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, War, the World’s Only Hygiene Hugo Ball, Dada Manifesto “That Shakespearian Rag” William Shakespeare, Hamlet World War I Henry James F. H. Varley Punic Wars Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy The Tempest Modernism Collage Pablo Picasso Georges BraqueMarcel Duchamp, Nude Descending Staircase; Fountain Montage F. H. BradleyHegel, Phenomenology of Spirit Plato The Matter of Britain Jessie Weston James Frazer Richard Wagner, Parsifal Augustine, Confessions Charles Dickens, Hard Times Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness Eliot, “The Hollow Men” Tower of Babel Petronius, The Satyricon Michelangelo, frescoes of Sistine Chapel Virgil, Eclogues Ovid, Metamorphoses Franz Kafka Chaucer, Canterbury Tales Thomas Middleton, Women Beware Women; A Game at Chess Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra Charles Baudelaire, “Au Lecteur” Fredrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

A conversation between Dr Jay Parini, a prolific author and the D.E. Axinn Professor of English and Creative Writing at Middlebury College, and Dr Stephen Blackwood, the founding president of Ralston College, recorded on the occasion of the release of a Ralston College short course, “Robert Frost: The American Voice,” taught by Dr Parini. Dr Parini discusses the film adaptation of his most recent book Borges and Me (2020), shares stories of his friendships with literary figures including Jorge Luis Borges, W. H. Auden, and Iris Murdoch, explains why poetry matters, and shares the fruits of a life “lived in literature.”

Applications are now open for next year’s MA program. Full scholarships are available. https://www.ralston.ac/apply

Authors, Artists, and Works Mentioned in this Episode:

Jay Parini, Borges and Me Alan Cumming Jorge Luis BorgesBeowulf Robert Burns Isaiah Berlin Homer Aeschylus Dante Michel de Montaigne William Wordsworth W. B. Yeats Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa Robert Burns, “A Red, Red Rose” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Iris Murdoch, The Bell W.H. Auden Boethius Jay Parini, Robert Frost: A Life Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice” Jay Parini, Robert Frost: 16 Poems to Learn by Heart Robert Frost, “The Road Less Traveled” Robert Frost, “After Apple-Picking” Robert Frost, “Birches” Robert Frost, “Directive” Robert Frost, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” Gerard Manley Hopkins Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Ralston College Humanities MA

Dr Paul Epstein is a distinguished classicist and Professor Emeritus of Classics at Oklahoma State University, renowned for his extensive knowledge of Greek and Latin literature. 

In this lecture and discussion—delivered in Savannah during the x term of the inaugural year of Ralston College’s MA in the Humanities program—classicist Dr Paul Epstein considers how Sophocles’s tragedy Women of Trachis and Aristophanes’s comedy Frogs arise from—and reflect upon—the polis-centered polytheism of ancient Greece as it appeared during the Athenian flourishing of the fifth century BC. Professor Epstein explores how these Greek dramas articulate the relationship between human beings, the gods, and the community. Tragedy, in Professor Epstein’s account, is about the overall structure of the community, while comedy starts with the individual’s exploration of that community. Yet both forms ultimately reveal an understanding of the individual that is inseparable from the polis in which he or she lives. Professor Epstein argues that our contemporary notion of the self as an entity fundamentally separate from context would be entirely alien to the ancient Greeks. Grasping this ancient understanding of the individual is vitally necessary if we are to correctly interpret the literary and philosophical texts of Hellenic antiquity. *In this lecture and discussion, classicist Dr. Paul Epstein considers how Sophocles’s tragedy Women of Trachis and Aristophanes’s comedy Frogs arise from—and reflect upon—the polis-centered polytheism of ancient Greece during the Athenian flourishing of the fifth century BC. Professor Epstein explores how these Greek dramas articulate the relationship between human beings, the gods, and the community. Tragedy, in Professor Epstein’s account, is about the overall structure of the community, while comedy starts with the individual’s exploration of that community. Yet both forms ultimately reveal an understanding of the individual that is inseparable from the polis in which he or she lives. Professor Epstein argues that our contemporary notion of the self as an entity fundamentally separate from context would be entirely alien to the ancient Greeks. Grasping this ancient understanding of the individual is vitally necessary if we are to correctly interpret the literary and philosophical texts of Hellenic antiquity.

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0:00 Introduction of Professor Epstein by President Blackwood

6:25 The Polytheistic World of the Polis

01:09:35 Dialogue with Students on Polytheism and the Polis

01:22:40 Sophocles’s Women of Trachis

01:44:10 Dialogue with Students About Women of Trachis

01:56:10 Introduction to Aristophanes' Frogs

02:24:40 Dialogue with Students About Frogs 

02:49:45 Closing Remarks for Professor Epstein's Lecture

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Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in This Episode: 

Athenian flourishing of the fifth century BC 

Sophocles, Women of Trachis 

Aristophanes, Frogs

William Shakespeare

Plato, Symposium

Aristophanes, Lysistrata

Homer, Odyssey 

Aristotle, Poetics

Peloponnesian War  

Plato, Apology

nomizó (νομίζω)—translated in the talk as “acknowledge”

nous (νοῦς)

binein (Βινέω) 

Johann Joachim Winkelman 

Nicene Creed 

Titanic v. Olympian gods 

Hesiod 

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility 

Sigmund Freud 

Existentialism 

techne (τέχνη)

logos (λόγος)

eros (Ἔρως) 

hubris (ὕβρις)

Philip Larkin, “Annus Mirabilis” 

Athansian Creed

psuche (ψυχή)—translated in the talk as “soul”

thelo (θέλω)—translated in the talk as “wishes” 

Aristophanes, Clouds

mimesis (μίμησις) 

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Additional Resources 

Dr Stephen Blackwood 

Ralston College (including newsletter)

Support a New Beginning 

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Thank you for listening!

Ralston College Humanities MA

Dr John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist and philosopher who explores the intersections of Neoplatonism, cognitive science, and the meaning crisis, focusing on wisdom practices, relevance realization, and personal transformation.

Ralston College presents a lecture titled “Levels of Intelligibility, Levels of the Self: Realizing the Dialectic,” delivered by Dr John Vervaeke, an award-winning associate professor of cognitive science at the University of Toronto and creator of the acclaimed 50-episode “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” series. In this lecture, Dr Vervaeke identifies our cultural moment as one of profound disconnection and resulting meaninglessness. Drawing on his own cutting-edge research as a cognitive scientist and philosopher, Vervaeke presents a way out of the meaning crisis through what he terms “third-wave Neoplatonism.” He reveals how this Neoplatonic framework, drawn in part from Plato’s conception of the tripartite human soul, corresponds to the modern understanding of human cognition and, ultimately, to the levels of reality itself. He argues that a synoptic integration across these levels is not only possible but imperative.  

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00:00 Levels of Intelligibility: Integrating Neoplatonism and Cognitive Science

12:50 Stage One: Neoplatonic Psycho-ontology and the Path to Spirituality

41:02 Aristotelian Science: Knowing as Conformity and Transformation

46:36 Stoic Tradition: Agency, Identity, and the Flow of Nature

01:00:10 Stage Two: Cognitive Science and the Integration of Self and Reality

01:04:45 The Frame Problem and Relevance Realization 

01:08:45 Relevance Realization and the Power of Human Cognition 01:20:15 Transjective Reality: Affordances and Participatory Fittedness

01:23:55 The Role of Relevance Realization: Self-Organizing Processes

01:31:30 Predictive Processing and Adaptivity

01:44:35 Critiquing Kant: The Case for Participatory Realism

01:53:35 Stage Three: Neoplatonism and the Meaning Crisis 

02:00:15 Q&A Session

02:01:45 Q: What is the Ecology of Practices for Cultivating Wisdom?

02:11:50 Q: How Has the Cultural Curriculum Evolved Over Time?

02:26:30 Q: Does the World Have Infinite Intelligibility?

02:33:50 Q: Most Meaningful Visual Art?

02:34:15 Q: Social Media's Impact on Mental Health and Information?

02:39:45 Q: What is Transjective Reality?

02:46:35 Q: How Can Education Address the Meaning Crisis?

02:51:50 Q: Advice for Building a College Community?

02:55:30 Closing Remarks

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Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: 

Antisthenes

Aristotle

Brett Anderson

Byung-Chul Han

Charles Darwin

Daniel Dennett

D. C. Schindler

Friedrich Nietzsche

Galileo Galilei

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Heraclitus

Henry Corbin

Immanuel Kant

Iris Murdoch

Isaac Newton

Igor Grossmann

Johannes Kepler

John Locke

John Searle

John Spencer

Karl Friston

Karl Marx

Mark Miller 

Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Nelson Goodman

Paul Ricoeur

Pierre Hadot

Plato

Pythagoras

Rainer Maria Rilke

René Descartes

Sigmund Freud

W. Norris Clarke

anagoge (ἀναγωγή)

Distributed cognition

eidos (εἶδος)

eros (ἔρως)

Evan Thompson’s deep continuity hypothesis

Generative grammar

logos (λόγος)

Sensorimotor loop

Stoicism

thymos (θυμός)

Bayes' theorem

Wason Selection Task

The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber

The Ennead by Plotinus

Explorations in Metaphysics by W. Norris Clarke

Religion and Nothingness by Keiji Nishitani

The Eternal Law: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Modern Physics, and Ultimate Reality by John Spencer

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Additional Resources 

John Vervaeke

https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke 

Dr Stephen Blackwood 

Ralston College (including newsletter)

Support a New Beginning 

—

Thank you for listening!

Ralston College Humanities MA

Dr David Novak is a distinguished professor at the University of Toronto, renowned theologian, and esteemed rabbi. He has authored numerous books, delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures, and bridges ancient philosophical traditions with modern ethical issues.

Recorded live at Ralston College in Savannah, GA in November of 2022. Dr David Novak—Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto—offers a lecture on the Book of Job followed by an extended question and answer session with students enrolled in Ralston College’s Master’s in the Humanities Program. In his lecture, Dr Novak explores the complex position of Job in the canon of Jewish scriptures, surveys diverse scholarly accounts of the concluding passages of the book, and offers his own interpretation of Job’s “face-to-face” interaction with God, one that emphasizes direct knowledge over abstract understanding and finds in the book’s conclusion a vision of the resurrection of the body. 

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00:00 Introduction

08:20 Dr. David Novak’s Lecture on the Book of Job 

53:25:00 Question and Answer Session with Ralston College Students and Dr. Novak 

54:45 Question: Does Job’s Vision Occur Before or After Death?

59:40 Question: Why are Job’s Friends Punished for Their Conceptual Understanding?

01:03:00 Question: How Does This Align With the Belief That No One Can See God and Live?

01:09:05 Question: What is the Purpose of the Dialogues Between Job and His Friends?

01:13:05 Question: Did Job’s Friends Hear God’s Voice During the Appearance?

01:14:55 Question: What is the Significance of God Doubling Job’s Possessions?

01:15:30 Question: Is There a Visual Aspect to God’s Response to Job, or Is It Only Auditory?

01:15:30 Question: What Does it Mean for God to Make a Bet with the Adversary?

01:19:10 Question: Is Job’s Refusal to Curse God a Prerequisite for His Later Vision?

01:25:15 Question: What Do You Make of the Relationship Between Satan and God?

01:29:05 Did God Use Job to Prove a Point to Satan, Knowing the Outcome?

01:31:20 Question: Can Man Question God and Express Grievances?

01:35:40 Question: Does Elihu Suggest People Perceive God Through Suffering and Visions?

1:41:30 Question: How Has Your Belief in Providence Impacted Your Life?

01:44:45 Closing Remarks

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Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: 

The Book of Job

The Book of Ezekiel

The Book of Leviticus 

The Book of Esther

The Book of Ecclesiastes

Robert Gordis, The Book of God and Man: A Study of Job 

mashal (משל)—Hebrew, “parable”

Katagoros (Hebrew—קָטִיגור; Greek—κατήγορος)—”accuser” 

Fredrich Nietzsche

Johann von Rist, “O Traurigkeit, o Herzeleid” 

G.W.F. Hegel

Richard Rorty

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man 

Leo Strauss 

Plato, Republic 

Yehuda Haleri 

Aristotle

Thomas Aquinas

The Book of Isaiah 

via negativa 

John Rawls

Eric Gregory 

Chaim ibn Attar

Tzimtzum (צמצום) 

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Additional Resources 

David Novak 

Dr Stephen Blackwood 

Ralston College (including newsletter)

Support a New Beginning 

—

Thank you for listening!

Ralston College Humanities MA

Dr Stephen Wolfram is a renowned computer scientist, physicist, and entrepreneur who earned his PhD in particle physics at 20 and became the youngest MacArthur Fellow at 21. As the founder of Wolfram Research, he has developed groundbreaking technologies widely used by university researchers in engineering, physics, mathematics, and computing.

How can computational thinking and philosophy together unlock the mysteries of human consciousness and the universe?

In this Q&A session, conducted in February 2024 with students enrolled in Ralston College’s MA in the Humanities program, the renowned physicist and computer scientist, Dr Stephen Wolfram, explains his own intellectual trajectory and explores the intersection of computational and philosophical inquiry, particularly in the age of AI. In the course of this wide-ranging conversation, Dr Wolfram discusses computational irreducibility, the nature of mind, the ethics of AI governance, and the growing value of a liberal arts education. 

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00:00 Introduction: Dr. Stephen Wolfram's Genius and AI's Impact on Humanities

01:30 Welcoming Dr. Steven Wolfram

02:15 Steven Wolfram's Early Life and Achievements

05:10 The Power of Computational Thinking

07:20 The Ruliad, Philosophy, and Computational Language

15:15 Q: Exploring Computational Irreducibility and Emergence

21:25 The Ruliad and the Nature of Reality

32:30 Q: The Role of Computational Thinking in Education

41:05 AI Governance and Ethics

46:35 Q: Bridging STEM and Humanities for Better AI Ethics

48:40 Building Wolfram Alpha

50:35 Q: Plato and Balancing Innovation in AI

01:05:25 Q: Probability and Unpredictability: Insights from Nassim Taleb

01:09:35 Q: Human Consciousness and the Computational Soul

01:22:35 Conclusion: Reflections on Learning, Philosophy, and the Future of Education

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Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: 

The ruliad 

Gestalt entities 

Computational irreducibility 

Computational equivalence 

The second law of thermodynamics

Plato, Republic 

AI Governance 

Utilitarianism

Arrival (film)

ChatGPT

Nassem Talib, The Black Swan

Colin Maclaurin

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Additional Resources 

Dr Stephen Blackwood 

Ralston College (including newsletter)

Support a New Beginning 

Ralston College Humanities MA

Join the conversation and stay updated on our latest content by subscribing to the Ralston College YouTube channel.

—

Thank you for listening!

David Butterfield is a renowned classicist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge. His work centres on the critical study and teaching of classical texts.

How did the Renaissance revival of Greek language study transform Western Europe's intellectual landscape and shape our modern understanding of the Classics?

In this talk, delivered on the island of Samos in Greece in August 2023 as part of Ralston College’s Master’s in the Humanities program, Dr. David Butterfield—Senior Lecturer in Classics at the University of Cambridge—charts how Western Europe came to appreciate the language and culture of ancient Greece as an integral part of its own civilizational inheritance. Dr. Butterfield explains that large-scale technological and cultural changes in late antiquity led to a gradual loss of Greek language proficiency—and a waning interest in the pagan world—among Western European intellectuals during the Early Middle Ages. While the Scholasticism of the High Middle Ages was invigorated by the rediscovery of the Greek philosophical tradition, this encounter was mediated almost entirely through Latin translations. It was only in the Renaissance—when a renewed appreciation of the Hellenic world on its own terms led to a revitalization of Greek language study—that our contemporary conception of Classics was fully established. 

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00:00 Introduction: A Journey through Classical Literature with Dr. Butterfield

04:05 Preservation and Valuation of Greek Culture

06:55 The Evolution of Writing Systems

14:50 Greek Influence on Roman Culture

20:25 The Rise of Christianity and Advances in Book Technology

27:40 Preservation and Transmission of Classical Texts in the Middle Ages

32:50 Arabic Scholars: Preserving Greek Knowledge and Shaping Western Thought

36:00 The Renaissance and Rediscovery of Greek Texts

43:10 Conclusion: The Printing Press and the Spread of Classical Knowledge

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Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: 

Homer

Magna Graecia 

Pythagoras

Odyssey

Cato the Elder 

Third Macedonian War

Great Library of Alexandria

Great Library of Pergamum

Horace, Epistles  

Emperor Augustus 

Codex Sinaiticus

Constantine 

Neoplatonism 

Plato

Charlemagne 

Carolingian Renaissance

Virgil

Ovid

Abbasid Caliphate 

Avveroës 

Avicenna 

Thomas Aquinas

Petrarch

Ottoman Conquest

Epicurus 

Lucretius 

Aristotle 

Gutenberg 

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Additional Resources 

Dr Stephen Blackwood 

Ralston College (including newsletter)

Support a New Beginning 

Ralston College Humanities MA

Antigone - Explore Ancient Greece and Rome with Modern Insights

Join the conversation and stay updated on our latest content by subscribing to the Ralston College YouTube channel.

Stephen Blackwood is the founding President of Ralston College, with advanced degrees in Classics and Religion and visiting positions at Harvard, Toronto, and Cambridge.

David Butterfield is a renowned classicist and Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge. His work centres on the critical study and teaching of classical texts.

John Vervaeke, PhD, is an award-winning professor of psychology, cognitive science, and Buddhist psychology at the University of Toronto.

What are the fundamental principles required to cultivate an educational environment free from ideological bias? 

In this episode, Stephen Blackwood, David Butterfield, and John Vervaeke explore the current landscape of higher education and its pervasive ideological influences. They discuss the importance of fostering genuine freedom of inquiry, intellectual diversity, and non-coercive teaching practices. Through personal anecdotes and reflections on academic experiences, the conversation examines the conditions that make real dialogue and meaningful education possible. This episode challenges listeners to reconsider the essence of true education and its role in developing critical, independent thinkers.

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00:00 Introduction and Exploring Education Without Indoctrination

02:20 Defining Indoctrination in Education

05:25 Current State of Higher Education

09:05 Neo-Marxism and Power Dynamics in Education

16:30 Teaching and Parenting: Fostering Realization and Free Agency

26:05 John Vervaeke:Exploring Logos, Love, and the Meaning Crisis

35:35 The Dual Aspects of Free Speech: Good Faith and Inquiry

38:30 Audience Q&A: Handling Classroom Dynamics and Approaches

53:45 Conclusion: University Traditions and Political Orientations

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Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode

Friedrich Nietzsche

Thomas Jefferson

Martha Argerich

Descartes

Jordan Peterson

Education without Indoctrination

Freedom of Speech

The New Criterion

Meaning Crisis

Dialectic into Dialogos

The Vervaeke Foundation

Re-Humanising Education By Stephen Blackwood and Bernadette Guthrie — ARC Research

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Additional Resources 

Dr Stephen Blackwood 

Ralston College (including newsletter)

Support a New Beginning 

Ralston College Humanities MA

Join the conversation and stay updated on our latest content by subscribing to the Ralston College YouTube channel.

Gregg Hurwitz, the New York Times bestselling author of the Orphan X series and a storyteller whose work spans many mediums and genres, in conversation with Stephen Blackwood, the founding president of Ralston College, and with students enrolled in the inaugural year of the College’s MA in the Humanities program. In this live event—recorded on [date] at Ralston College—Hurwitz discusses the concrete details of his own writing practice and explains how his training in literature and psychology have informed his craft. He reflects on how storytelling helps us to understand the self and on the real-world value of learning to speak with honesty and authenticity. 

Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: 

Sigmund Freud

Carl Jung

Joseph Campbell 

Gregg Hurwitz, You’re Next

The Sixth Sense (film) 

Romanticism 

William Wordsworth, “Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood”

William Blake, Songs of Innocence and of Experience

Transcendentalism 

Kurt Vonnegut

James Joyce, “The Dead”; Ulyssess 

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night

William Faulkner, Light in August; As I Lay Dying; The Sound and the Fury

Raymond Chandler

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment 

Edgar Allan Poe,  “The Tell-Tale Heart” 

Albert Camus, The Stranger 

James M. Cain, The Postman Always Rings Twice

Carl Rogers 

Lord Byron 

Batman (comic series)

Punisher (comic series) 

Richard Wagner, Der Ring des Nibelungen

Pablo Picasso 

Joan Didion 

The Book of Henry (film) 

Alan Moore