Recording of a lecture delivered by Sarah Ruden, author, poet, and visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania, on January 17, 2020, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Dr. Ruden describes her lecture topic as: “talking about the great book as a means for both readers and writers to regain some sense of the individual self in a modern society--that is, one in which power has become distant, inexorable, and incomprehensible. Vergil and Augustine were creatures of early modernity, and their struggles for self-expression and communication have interesting and inspiring commonalities.”