Beatrice Institute Podcast: Recent Episodes
Ryan McDermott
We’re wandering between two worlds. Modernity as we knew it is passing away, and the next world is yet to be born. Like Dante, we are in a dark wood, struggling to know how to think and how to live. Virgil guided Dante with the light of natural reason, then Beatrice illuminated the path to Paradise with Christian revelation.
Welcome to the Beatrice Institute Podcast, where Christian faith and reason illuminate the best of academic thinking and research. How should we think and live in this time between worlds? At Beatrice Institute, we take our bearings from the Good, the True, and the Beautiful.
This podcast reflects BI’s research and public engagement initiatives. As director of BI’s Genealogies of Modernity initiative, co-host Ryan McDermott asks guests, “What does it mean to be modern, where did we come from, and what comes next?” As director of BI’s Personalism and Public Policy initiative, Grant Martsolf asks, “How should we organize our common life to promote the flourishing of the person, made in the image of God?” And for our initiative on Being Human in an Age of Artificial Intelligence, Gretchen Huizinga asks, "What makes humans special and what does it mean to flourish on the frontier of a technological future?"
Increasingly, technology is dominating our lives. How do we stay human in the midst of digital upheaval? What lessons can we glean from dystopian literature? Is there a heuristic we can adopt that helps us to discern which technology to use and which to reject? Can only a deistic story compete with the Machine story or are there secular alternatives? Peco and Ruth Gaskovski have been exploring these timely questions from a hopeful, practical perspective on their Substacks Pilgrims in the Machine and School of the Unconformed.
Join Grant, Peco, and Ruth as they explore these and more questions to encourage us to live unconformed lives in a digital age.
Liberalism is often taken to be essentially about the promotion of radical individual autonomy, but might this understanding of liberalism be only one kind of liberalism? And, if so, why does that matter?
In this episode, Weston and Fred discuss the meaning of "off-liberalism," an understanding of liberalism that highlights how disparate historical, cultural, and philosophical sources contribute to what is often labeled as "liberal" today, complicating the idea that liberalism is essentially about maximizing personal autonomy.
Weston and Fred discuss the practical stakes of thinking about liberalism this way, the intersection of theology and political theory, and how these ideas can inform contemporary governance at a time of growing dissatisfaction with liberalism.
Tune in for an enriching dialogue that blends philosophy, theology, and practical politics, offering fresh insights into the nature of liberal practices.
Read Fred's original article here: https://genealogiesofmodernity.org/journal/2021/9/23/diverse-roots-and-routes-of-liberty.
Does it take a trained expert to read books in our own language? The heart of English departments around the world is the love of amateurs, yet that heart seems to be gradually shrinking, replaced more and more with cold technical literary analysis. Kathryn Mogk Wagner identifies this as the reason English Departments themselves are shrinking too.
Literary analysis is shutting out truth and reading for edification, turning instead to niche readings and unique techniques. Can a culture raised on suspicion re-learn how to read the great texts for truth not tetrameter? Is there a balance between reading holiness and historicity in a text? Can ivory tower English professors read a book for edification instead of interpretation? In this episode, Mogk Wagner teaches us to return to the roots of reading – to relearn how to read.
You are marveling at a beautiful sunset, standing in awe before an Italian masterpiece, or gazing lovingly into the face of your beloved. These moments of beauty, however brief, impact our hearts, minds, and souls in a profound way. What exactly is occurring in these moments?
John Paul Heil offers insight through a reading and discussion of his essay “Ekstasis and the Chicken Truck,” in which he offers insight into the nature of these experiences we all share, which are yet so individual to each of us. Heil explains the importance of attentiveness, boldly criticizes Petrarch, and recounts how a truck full of frozen chicken led to a moment of transcendence.
What has become of the trades within our country? Where did the blue-collar workers go and what is the reason behind their disappearance? Is there anything we can do to rebuild and re-vitalize this crucial section of today’s society? A co-founder of the College of St. Joseph, the Worker, Jacob Imam helps to answer our questions.
Join Grant and Jacob as they discuss the root of America’s trade epidemic and discuss the new college of St. Joseph, the Worker. This new school based in Steubenville, Ohio is quickly becoming the paradigm of trade education, combining a traditional liberal arts education with power tools. The best part of all? No debt. Tune in now to hear how they do it!
As a bioethicist and Catholic deacon-in-training, Dr. Michael Deem has spent years in the medical trenches as well as in theological and philosophical research. Michael Deem joins Grant in this episode to answer questions such as, “Do bioethicists actually change minds?” “Does healthcare flourish under a provider-of-services model?” and “Are bioethical principles self-evident?” Their discussion covers territory from contraception to logic to the style of recent Catholic popes.
How can we help locally, but in a way that works economically? This is the challenge that thwarts many solidaristic startups. Luckily, Sara Horowitz has picked up the gauntlet. Sara Horowitz has been both the chair of the board of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the founder of the Freelancers Union and the Freelancers Insurance Company and talks eloquently on mutualism.
Join Grant and Sara’s discussion on mutualism, in which they expound on friendly societies and the history of mutual aid societies and ask the questions: What should be the current strategy of protecting laborers? Why do local movements seem invisible to the public eye? And, what is necessary to make mutualism successful?
How is mathematics a liberal art? How can being good at math translate into virtue?
Dr. Francis Su, the Benediktsson-Karwa Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College, is well aware of mathematics’ place in human flourishing. In this episode, he and Grant converse over these questions. They also discuss the reverence evoked by math and the transcendence found in it, the effectiveness of mathematical assessments, and popular mathematical literature.
Modernity strives to break with the past, especially genealogy. However, is it possible for a society to break a genealogical thread?
In this episode, we explore the meaning and value of genealogy, a way of thinking that will shape the rest of this series. We ask how different forms of genealogical thinking can reconnect us to the past without limiting our future to the past. We see how critical genealogy does the important work of challenging both of those kinds of modernity claim that purport to leave the past behind, and noble origin stories which claim a purely virtuous inheritance from the past. But we also see how recovering the past can offer possibilities for flourishing in the future. In Chinese ancestor rituals, medieval family trees, and modern reconciliation ceremonies, we see how communities use creative genealogy to open up new connections and new beginnings.
For the full season, complete show notes, and resources, visit Genealogies of Modernity.
We often think of modernity as a time period in history. But people have been claiming to be modern since at least c. 550 AD, when the Roman writer Cassiodorus used the term modernus to mark off everything that had happened since the fall of the Roman Empire. Harvard scholar Michael Puett takes us back much further, to the third century BC in ancient China, when a series of emperors claimed modernity to consolidate their rule. Puett argues that modernity is best understood as a claim to freedom from the past. By recognizing two forms of modernity claim—one that tries to erase the past and another that tries to master it—we can better understand what is at stake in our own invocations of “modernity."
For the past three years, Ryan has been working with an interdisciplinary group of scholars to produce a narrative podcast about Genealogies of Modernity. Today’s episode is a sneak preview of the first episode of that series, which will be released in its own feed starting the first week of November. In the thread of the Beatrice Institute podcast, Ryan has focused on interviewing scholars who are interested in the complex relationship between the past and the present. This narrative podcast doubles down on those interests with focused inquiries into the nature of modernity, the genealogical imagination, and the ways the past continues to be present and available to us today. Each episode tells a story, or set of stories, that echo but also challenge a particular standard narrative of what it means to be modern and how a particular modern phenomenon came about.
We’ll be releasing the first three episodes in the Beatrice Institute stream so that you, our core audience, can have early access. And we’re also hoping that you will share the series with your friends. That would be a huge help. For now, enjoy episode one, “Mountain Modernity.”
This episode is brought to us by SpirituallyIncorrect:
We all love a good story. We watch movies, listen to friends talk about their last vacation, or listen to podcasts (this one included) just to hear an entertaining and provocative tale. But one story trumps them all: the story of how we have arrived at our modern world.
With technology evolving every year, drugs lessening the effects of illness, and possibilities undreamt of just a few decades ago, it's easy to imagine that the story of how we got here is one of triumph. We've conquered the stone age, overcome every obstacle, and now the march of progress of inevitable.
Yet with lessening resources, dying environments, and threats of war and crises flavoring every news broadcast, it's time to ask, is the story we tell ourselves real? Or have we been lying to ourselves the whole time? Are we really progressing?
Here to help us through this tricky issue is Dr. Ryan McDermott, who runs the Genealogies of Modernity project. If you've ever felt not at home in the modern world, this is the episode for you.
Anthony Bradley is a professor of religious studies and director of the Center for the Study of Human Flourishing at the King’s College in New York City. He gives a personalist analysis of the criminal justice system (touching on everything from architecture to food) and the Black Lives Matter movement. In this rerun episode, Anthony and Ryan discuss the relationship between Afro-pessimism, hope, and Eastern Christianity, and how Black experience informs trinitarian theology. They also touch on the dangers of missional narcissism and the invention of whiteness.
If happiness is to be had, it must be studied. Tal Ben-Shahar acted on this belief when he created the Master’s of Arts in Happiness Studies in partnership with Centenary University, through which students of eighty-five nationalities learn how to achieve well-being and how to impact others’ flourishing.
In this episode, Tal joins Grant to discuss the study of happiness in an academic setting. They ask: How successful are the liberal arts in teaching students how to be happy? What does religion have to offer in the conversation on happiness? What is the ideal profile for the teacher - or student - of a happiness course? And, is happiness the missing key to uniting the University?
Can faith leaders, steeped in tradition, contribute anything to the conversation of ever-new artificial intelligence? What if the questions they are asking are the same? When David Brenner realized the metaphysical overlap between the spiritual questions and the questions of AI ethicists, he decided to institute AI and Faith, which engages the fundamental values of the world’s major religions in modern ethical technological debates.
David joins Gretchen in this podcast and asks: Why is AI so attractive? Can generative AI create real art? Why does the current population distance itself from the spiritual yet become enamored with the virtual? And, how can disparate faiths find commonality in order to further the development of AI ethics?
If chickens can’t act as chickens and humans can’t act as humans, Western civilization is not making progress. So observes Mary Harrington, contributing editor for Unherd and most recently, author of Feminism Against Progress. While society champions the defying of limits, our natures - as humans, as men, as women - always reemerge.
In this episode, Mary and Ryan discuss the apocalypse, gender, and eros, asking: What if our idea of the traditional family isn’t traditional enough? Can technology suppress human nature? And, what will it take to garner enough enthusiasm to bring new people into this life?
Although the intersection of faith and artificial intelligence is a modern topic, it can be seen as a new version of an old question famously posed by Tertullian: what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Today’s podcast guest, Derek Schuurman—computer scientist, author, and professor at Calvin University—rephrases that question for those living in the age of AI: what does Silicon Valley have to do with Jerusalem?
In order to answer this question, Derek posits that it is vital to have an ethical imagination that is formed by story, viewing ourselves as participants in the narrative of Creation, the Fall, and Redemption. When our daily actions are suffused and shaped by this narrative, technology—along with the rest of our daily lives—is taken up into that story.
Derek and Gretchen play out what this story-shaped ethics looks like in relation to technological questions. Are computer bugs the result of original sin? What does open source software have to do with Genesis? What’s the difference between predestination and technological determinism, and what do both mean for our freedom? Listen to their conversation as they ponder how we might sanctify technology for the glory of God’s kingdom.
Where has a manifest God gone? In his recent book, The Bulwarks of Unbelief: Atheism and Divine Absence in a Secular Age, Joseph Minich explores this question. A teaching fellow at the Davenant Institute, Joseph helps provide resources for retrieving an intellectual heritage to build up the contemporary Church.
Join Joseph and Ryan in their discussion as they ask these questions of modernity: Why has the existence of God become unobvious in modern times? What does it mean to believe in orthodoxy in an age in which it’s not the norm? How has technological artifice affected our understanding of reality? Does it matter that we understand ourselves to live in the modern age?
What is the person, and why does it matter in psychiatric care? Brent Robbins, professor of psychology at Point Park University and director of the Psy.D. Clinical Psychology Program, has decided to put this question at the forefront of his research and teaching.
Grant and Brent join in conversation to discuss scapegoating, stigma, and reductionism, asking: how do we find personal meaning in and through mental illness?
As technology develops at an ever more rapid pace, it can seem that ethics struggles to keep up with it. While science and technology advance by building on discoveries of the past, virtue and moral knowledge must be cultivated afresh in every individual and each generation.
This is where Brian Green comes in. As director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, his areas of research are many, ranging from transhumanism and artificial intelligence, to catastrophic risk and the ethics of outer space. This diverse array of interests all pivot on the intersection between technology and humanity.
In this rerun episode, Brian and Gretchen dive into many areas of tech ethics that both impact our present lives and promise to shape our future. From immediate ethical dilemmas like self-driving car crashes and responsible tech development, to long-view issues like the establishment of extra-terrestrial colonies and the achievement of artificial general intelligence, they reflect on a large range of themes that can affect human lives for both good and ill. Listen in as they discuss old and forgotten tools for answering ethical questions, the Christian commission to work miracles, which human qualities can’t be programmed into machines, and more. Together they ask, should our predictions about technology and ethics be dire, or hopeful? What choices are we making now that will shape coming generations?
“Language and values and concepts come packaged together, don't they?” asks Peter Ramey, recent translator of The Word-Hoard Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Indeed, his opus reflects just this and resolves the distance between culture and language in a uniquely faithful yet readable translation.
Join Peter and Ryan as they delve into Beowulf, asking: What is the value of a word? Who was Beowulf? Is Beowulf pre-Christian, Christian by overlay, Christian by accident, or Christian in essence?
The modern debate on gender elucidates some apparent contradictions: Is gender essential, something we know within us? Or is gender a social construct? Is sex real or not? Does Christianity affirm or deny the body? Abigail Favale, Professor of the Practice at Notre Dame’s McGrath Institute for Church Life, has traced the evolutions of sex, gender, and feminism from Genesis to Tumblr.
Join in this episode to hear Grant and Abigail discuss the gender paradigm, capitalism, fertility, and the question “What is a woman, essentially?”
AI gives us information. It furnishes facts. It prompts us with news headlines. But could AI also answer our religious questions?
When Shanen Boettcher paused his tech career and completed a master's degree in world religions, he began to ask himself this question. Recently, he conducted a study to put it to the test. In this episode, Shanen and Gretchen discuss his findings and explore the previously widely-ignored intersection of technology and faith. They ask: Do people feel they have more privacy speaking about spirituality with AI? What kind of authority do AI-generated answers evoke? How will the religious realm, a realm of mystery and prayer, be incorporated into the factual, statistical world of technology?
Health care workers are essential yet underappreciated. Janette Dill, Associate Professor in the Division of Health Policy & Management at the University of Minnesota, is researching why. Her work studies racial and gender disparities, the rewards for professional certification, and the realities of unionization in the health care workforce.
Join Janette and Grant as they ask: Why is social mobility difficult in direct care positions? What unique challenges do men, women, and minorities face in this field? How have the constitution and appreciation of working-class jobs changed since the 1970s? How do we achieve justice in the health care sector?
How do we differentiate between Christian action and the action of the Church? Anne Carpenter and the Genealogy and Tradition Reading Group delve into the relationship of the Church and its people in Part Two of their interview with Anne Carpenter, author of “Nothing Gained is Eternal.” Anne offers a Catholic theology of tradition that is critical yet hopeful.
Continue the conversation with Anne, Ryan and the Reading Group as they discuss the Catholic imagination, poetry and questions such as: How do we adopt tradition without being duped by misinterpretation? How do we be Church for the present world?
“What is history?” is the opening query of Anne Carpenter’s new book, Nothing Gained is Eternal: A Theology of Tradition. Anne’s answer: history is what humans do. The following chapters consider the consequences of this definition: that tradition must be renewed, not just preserved, and sins, from racism to colonialism, must be dealt with.
In this episode, the Genealogy and Tradition reading group join in conversation with Anne to discuss her recent work. In this question-and-answer session, the group asks Anne: How would you rebuild Notre Dame Cathedral? Are we justified in putting humans at the center of history? and, most importantly, How can we best love tradition, and can we love it too much?
Plato said that craft, or techne, “answers to a genuine human need and solves it.” Does our abstract, postindustrial work fulfill this criteria? Dr. Jeffrey Hanson, Anglican priest and senior philosopher at Harvard’s Human Flourishing Program, has dealt with these questions in his most recent book, Philosophies of Work in the Platonic Tradition: A History of Labor in Human Flourishing.
In this episode, Jeffrey and Grant weigh the Platonic and postmodern ideas of work, asking: How do we find meaning in “meaningless” work? What is the proper place of work among the other values in our life? And, is work directed toward changing reality, or changing ourselves?
What enables a being to create? Generative AI appears to approach human capabilities; is it only a matter of time until it surpasses them? Joanna Ng, formerly the head of research and the director of the Center for Advanced Studies at IBM Canada, knows these questions from the inside.
Joanna is not only a patented inventor and author, but a leader in the integration of Christianity and technology. In this episode, she and Gretchen ask: Why is it important to distinguish between AI and ASI? What does being a Christian 2.0 mean? What is Church? And, who is caring for the Christians in tech?
The Genealogies of Modernity project is organizing a reading group around Thomas Pfau’s new book, Incomprehensible Certainty: Metaphysics and Hermeneutics of the Image. By way of advertisement, we are re-running this episode with art historian and theorist Matthew Milliner, where he talks about the book and the wider context of image theory. Milliner also recently published a review of Incomprehensible Certainty in “The Hedgehog Review.” His new book on Our Lady of Perpetual Help, discussed in the episode, is now available.
If this episode and that review entice you, join the reading group! It will begin meeting Thursday, February 23, 7-8:30 pm, in person in Pittsburgh as well as on Zoom, and it will run through much of the summer. If you are interested, send an email to admin@beatriceinstitute.org and we’ll put you in touch with the group organizers and get you on the mailing list.
For now, please enjoy Matthew and Ryan’s discussion on how the past can erupt into the present; why cultivating these temporal possibilities must be an ecumenical project; the way images reveal timeless truths that underlie our visible surroundings; and how the ideas of thinkers like Chesterton can converse with, and be informed by, ancient Indigenous mythology.
Do men need equal opportunity? Dr. Richard Reeves answers with an emphatic “yes.” His work as senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative has encouraged him to author the book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It.
In this conversation, Grant and Dr. Reeves respond to the fact that men are underrepresented in higher education and struggling in the professional world, asking: What does affirmative action for men look like? How does child education harm or empower boys, and is the academic world donning a feminine identity? Should we celebrate “toxic” masculinity?
Modernity calls for a new contract between men and women. What is the fate of the post-industrial man?
The liberal tradition frames the story of modernity as the gradual victory of freedom against state hegemony. Liberty, the consent of the people to be governed, and individual rights are the mainstay of western society. But are we really more free than before? What if freedom isn’t what we think?
For some, Ireland is the archetype of Christianity’s decline in the wake of modern secularization. But is it possible that there is a resurgence of theological and philosophical fervor in this traditionally Catholic country?
Gaven Kerr, a lecturer in philosophy at St. Patrick's Pontifical University in Maynooth, Ireland, recently hosted a conference called "The Future of Christian Thinking." Gaven has a surprisingly optimistic, up-to-date, on-the-ground evaluation of Christianity's prospects in Ireland. In this episode, he and Ryan ask: What caused the loss of Irish Catholic identity? What role does Irish superstition and folklore play in the country’s Christian faith? In the world of head and heart, modernity and tradition, what is the future of Christian thought?
While we may think of phones and laptops when we hear the word “technology,” it can also be thought of as a way of viewing the world: the belief that knowledge of reality means the ability to predict, experiment, and transform it, and that nature is completely open to that process. But while this approach to the world and how we understand it makes us very good at solving problems, it also blinds us to an entire realm of thought. Science and technology can neither ask nor answer the “big” questions: what is a human being? What is a good life? Michael Hanby—professor, writer, and postliberal thinker—joins Grant to dig into some of those questions. Does technology as ontology serve human persons as a tool, or act upon them as objects? Can a Christian political order coexist with this worldview? In a time when technology has made it possible to change our very bodies in ways that would have been unimaginable to previous generations, are we less human than before?
Of the many hopes that society hangs on artificial intelligence, one is its potential to clean up the results of human messiness. Whether on a large scale (solving climate change, reducing war crimes through use of autonomous weapons) or on an individual one (sex robots for isolated people), AI promises to sidestep the problems caused by human limitations.
But in making computers to solve ethical dilemmas and robots to enter relationships, are we creating something in our own image? Is it possible to separate intelligence or emotion from the body? Would the result live up to its promise, or simply be monstrous?
Noreen Herzfeld, who teaches both computer science and theology, has spent a lot of time reflecting on these issues. She and Gretchen discuss the many questions that arise from that contemplation. Why is it so important to us to seek other forms of sentience—whether robots, pets, or even alien life? If AI fulfills the role of other persons in our life, can it become our “neighbor?” How does the way we treat and think about AI impact our relationships with other humans, for better or for worse?
One of modernity’s many attributes is its ingratitude towards the past. Both through forgetfulness of pre-modern thought and ways of being (whether intentional or accidental), and also by reconfiguring pre-modern narratives to make them palatable to modern minds, a rupture is created between past and present. But what if these reconfigured or “misremembered” discourses in fact embody thoughts and ideas long dead and forgotten?
This is one of many intriguing ideas presented by Cyril O’Regan, theologian at Notre Dame University. By revealing the ways that Hegel, Blake, and others have adapted and distorted Christian doctrine through Gnostic lenses, he works to unveil “doppleganger” forms of Christianity that leave modern minds too comfortable, forcing us to the intellectual honesty of confronting ourselves as sinners in a world created by a God who is benevolent, but far beyond our comprehension.
Using the metaphors of anatomy, haunting, and genealogical battles, Cyril and Ryan engage in a conversation ranging from poetry to ancestry to children’s literature, helping to illumine some of the places obscured by the shadow of abandoned heresies and forgetfulness.
Anne Carpenter joins Ryan to discuss the intersection of history, tradition, art, and theology. What is the difference between ressourcement and genealogy? Are art and theology the same thing? What can video games teach us about theology? How can everyday Christians contribute to renewing the theological tradition? Anne is associate professor of theology at St. Mary's College of California and has recently published Nothing Gained Is Eternal: A Theology of Tradition with Fortress Press.
Innovation is often seen as key to modern society. Whether in pursuit of economic growth, more convenience in daily life, or simply greater well-being, the pursuit of the new and better ideas and technology is always underway. But what if the key to human flourishing doesn’t lie in the search for the new, but rather in maintenance of what we already have? Could the endless pursuit of innovation as a goal in itself is actually causing us harm?
Lee Vinsel, co-author of The Innovation Delusion and founder of the Maintainers, explains the costs of this pursuit and the hold that innovation-speak has exacted on our society.From climate change to crumbling infrastructure, he and Grant discuss how maintenance rather than novelty might be the key to a more sustainable life, and how understanding and prioritizing the needs and well-being of human persons can lead to a more functional, beautiful world.
In this episode, Ryan sits down with Madhavi Nevader and T.J. Lang, both biblical scholars at St. Andrew’s School of Divinity in Scotland. In a conversation that roams from the Tower of Babel to journey of the apostle Paul to the third heaven, they discuss how the understanding of God’s identity—as Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, as Jesus the divine man, as multiple Persons who are yet one—has unfolded in time.
From unpacking the many conceptions of God in the Old Testament, to the scandal of Jesus’s claims to oneness with the Father, to the fruitful give-and-take between Greek philosophy and early Christian metaphysics, they contemplate the nature of tradition and the way that historical and geographical forces shape it. Modern scholarship, archaeological science, and the ambiguities of translation all become tools to gain a deeper understanding of the revelation of who God is and His relationship to His people.
In this episode, Ryan sits down with Madhavi Nevader and T.J. Lang, both biblical scholars at St. Andrew’s School of Divinity in Scotland. In a conversation that roams from the Tower of Babel to journey of the apostle Paul to the third heaven, they discuss how the understanding of God’s identity—as Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible, as Jesus the divine man, as multiple Persons who are yet one—has unfolded in time.
From unpacking the many conceptions of God in the Old Testament, to the scandal of Jesus’s claims to oneness with the Father, to the fruitful give-and-take between Greek philosophy and early Christian metaphysics, they contemplate the nature of tradition and the way that historical and geographical forces shape it. Modern scholarship, archaeological science, and the ambiguities of translation all become tools to gain a deeper understanding of the revelation of who God is and His relationship to His people.
For much of middle class America, 401ks are seen as good stewardship, and wise investing in the stock market as a way of attaining financial goods for oneself and the economy at large. But do these things we take for granted contribute to the overall good of the human person and society?
Jacob Imam, economist and executive director of New Polity, argues that not only are these things not necessary to a healthy economy, but that we should question whether stock ownership has any role to play in Christian life. Beginning with the example of medieval economic relationships, he and Grant discuss the difference between investment and speculation; the relationship between work and ownership; and how investment, properly understood, might dignify the labor of our neighbors rather than simply profiting from the work of others.
How would the way we invest have to change to bring us closer together and build the Kingdom God? Is retirement part of God’s plan for the human person? Listen in as Jacob and Grant discuss these and other challenging questions.
For much of middle class America, 401ks are seen as good stewardship, and wise investing in the stock market as a way of attaining financial goods for oneself and the economy at large. But do these things we take for granted contribute to the overall good of the human person and society?
Jacob Imam, economist and executive director of New Polity, argues that not only are these things not necessary to a healthy economy, but that we should question whether stock ownership has any role to play in Christian life. Beginning with the example of medieval economic relationships, he and Grant discuss the difference between investment and speculation; the relationship between work and ownership; and how investment, properly understood, might dignify the labor of our neighbors rather than simply profiting from the work of others.
How would the way we invest have to change to bring us closer together and build the Kingdom God? Is retirement part of God’s plan for the human person? Listen in as Jacob and Grant discuss these and other challenging questions.
The prophet Isaiah speaks of the foolishness of those who bow down to the work of their own hands, idols made of wood that cannot speak and have no power of their own. And yet the irony of idolatry is that idols come to have a strange power over us and our actions.
John Wyatt of the Faraday Institute sees this biblical image of the idol as a powerful lens for assessing the spiritual, ethical, and philosophical repercussions of AI. Although AI is developed with the goal of helping mankind shape a better future, in many ways it is us who are changed by the technology we’ve created. From children forming relationships with analogous persons like Siri and Alexa, to engineers who believe that programs can become sentient, to people who prefer interacting with chatbots over human relationships—in these and many other ways, we are only beginning to feel the impact of AI on the human person.
John and Gretchen discuss these issues and more, and bring up important questions that Christians must ask in the age of AI. If we are image bearers created in the likeness of God, is mankind then making AI in its own image? How do we respond to the desire to “upgrade” humanity in light of the Incarnation and Resurrection?
Ryan, Grant, and Gretchen ask each other all their burning questions, probing more deeply into past interviews and breaking new territory. Together they ponder how Jesus might run a tech company, the desire to live forever and its impact on procreation, and what it means to be stewards of reality.
The liberal tradition frames the story of modernity as the gradual victory of freedom against state hegemony. Liberty, the consent of the people to be governed, and individual rights are the mainstay of western society. But are we really more free than before? What if freedom isn’t what we think?
Historian and theologian Andrew Willard Jones talks with Grant about the ways that liberalism contradicts the Christian idea of the human person, how liberalism ultimately tends towards tyranny, and what a post-liberal world might look like. What is the role of government if self-gift and peace are seen as the foundation of human society? How ought the Church and state relate to one another? Most importantly, how can we work here and now to build a just post-liberal society in a culture shaped profoundly by individualism?
The modern conception of how time unfolds leaves us trapped in a chronological sequence with no return to the past; but is it true that “you can’t go back”? In the second part of their conversation, Matthew and Ryan discuss how the past can erupt into the present; why cultivating these temporal possibilities must be an ecumenical project; the way images reveal timeless truths that underlie our visible surroundings; and how the ideas of thinkers like Chesterton can converse with, and be informed by, ancient Indigenous mythology.
We often think of the time before the birth of Jesus Christ in terms of the Old Testament. But what about the humans in other parts of the world, long before the history of Israel begins? Art historian Matthew Milliner joins Ryan to discuss how "the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world" might have been present in cultures tens of thousands of years ago. The first of two parts.
Although the intersection of faith and artificial intelligence is a modern topic, it can be seen as a new version of an old question famously posed by Tertullian: what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Today’s podcast guest, Derek Schuurman—computer scientist, author, and professor at Calvin University—rephrases that question for those living in the age of AI: what does Silicon Valley have to do with Jerusalem?
In order to answer this question, Derek posits that it is vital to have an ethical imagination that is formed by story, viewing ourselves as participants in the narrative of Creation, the Fall, and Redemption. When our daily actions are suffused and shaped by this narrative, technology—along with the rest of our daily lives—is taken up into that story.
Derek and Gretchen play out what this story-shaped ethics looks like in relation to technological questions. Are computer bugs the result of original sin? What does open source software have to do with Genesis? What’s the difference between predestination and technological determinism, and what do both mean for our freedom? Listen to their conversation as they ponder how we might sanctify technology for the glory of God’s kingdom.
Healthcare workers have been lauded as heroes during the pandemic; but even as nurses and other medical employees have been praised for their service, COVID-19 has exposed many of them to long hours, dangerous working conditions, and lack of resources. Although COVID may have magnified these problems in an unprecedented way, they are hardly new challenges for laborers in the healthcare industry. Is living with these conditions expected of heroes, or are nurses allowed to ask for something better? Does a desire to serve entail vulnerability to exploitation?
This coexistence of care and exploitation is a familiar theme for historian Gabriel Winant. In his book The Next Shift: The Fall of Industry and the Rise of Health Care in Rust Belt America, he uses Pittsburgh as an example of the economic shift from industry to services (including healthcare), and the impact that shift has on the working class.As a Marxist, the lens Gabe turns on these issues is different than Grant’s Catholic personalism; but together they tackle the health care industry, the current state of working class jobs, and many other issues.From the political power of nurses tothe meaning of women’s work, they ask what care might look like in a society where it is not work to be marketed or exploited, but an act of freedom that finds value in others.
In this episode, Ryan interviews historian Brad Gregory, Henkels Family College Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. In his book The Unintended Reformation: How a Religious Revolution Secularized Society, Brad connects the Reformation in surprising and sometimes controversial ways to the making of the modern world, from secularization and the privatization of religion to the battle between faith and science.
Brad argues that the naturalism proper to the natural sciences can’t provide a full understanding of human life; as temporal beings who live in a present that has been shaped by events of the past, history is a vital component to meaningfully understanding the world around us. In this packed conversation, he and Ryan discuss how historical knowledge impacts our understanding of such diverse fields as economics, theology, and eschatology.
Among the many questions they ask, some pose painful challenges to the modern Christian. What if Christianity in the Western world holds responsibility for such things as the climate crisis and the sin of slavery? If pre-history was characterized not by scarcity, but abundance, what justifies the avarice so characteristic of our times? Can we hope for goodness here on earth, or is the virtue of hope only fulfilled in heaven?
As technology develops at an ever more rapid pace, it can seem that ethics struggles to keep up with it. While science and technology advance by building on discoveries of the past, virtue and moral knowledge must be cultivated afresh in every individual and each generation.
This is where Brian Green comes in. As director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, his areas of research are many, ranging from transhumanism and artificial intelligence, to catastrophic risk and the ethics of outer space. This diverse array of interests all pivot on the intersection between technology and humanity.
In this episode, Brian and Gretchen dive into many areas of tech ethics that both impact our present lives and promise to shape our future. From immediate ethical dilemmas like self-driving car crashes and responsible tech development, to long-view issues like the establishment of extra-terrestrial colonies and the achievement of artificial general intelligence, they reflect on a large range of themes that can affect human lives for both good and ill. Listen in as they discuss old and forgotten tools for answering ethical questions, the Christian commission to work miracles, which human qualities can’t be programmed into machines, and more. Together they ask, should our predictions about technology and ethics be dire, or hopeful? What choices are we making now that will shape coming generations?
On this episode of the podcast, Grant interviews Ted Castronova, Professor of Media at Indiana University and author Life is a Game: What Game Design Says about the Human Condition.
Mathematical game theory defines a game as anything that has players making strategic choices to achieve an outcome that matters to them. From this, Ted argues that life itself is a game, and as Christians we can view God as a game designer who has given us free will to make choices within His design.
But if life is a game that we are playing, why do so many people find themselves frustrated and bored by it? And why is the allure of virtual worlds—from the hype around the Metaverse, to the vibrant culture around online gaming—so strong? Many futuristic movies and novels (such as The Matrix, Ready Player One, and Snow Crash) portray virtual reality as having a fundamental role in a dystopian world, often as a distraction from a real world that is somehow broken. Is virtual reality attractive because we’ve forgotten how to “play” the game of life? Or can the games of the real and virtual worlds coexist in a balanced way? Which game are we all really playing, and how do we actually win it? What can games—whether tabletop or VR—teach us about living?
Listen as Ted and Grant discuss these and other questions about games, reality, and the many places where the two meet.
In her book The Permeable Self, Barbara Newman—John Evans Professor of Latin, as well as English, Classics, and History at Northwestern University—explores the importance of coinherence in the medieval view of personhood. This is the concept that persons are profoundly interconnected, existing not in isolation but “in” each other. One illustration of this is the trope of exchanging hearts, whether between lovers or between female mystics and Christ.
The concept of our selves having such porous boundaries is perhaps an alien one to the contemporary American mind. But in this episode, Barbara discusses stories of heart transplant patients who—without knowing anything about the donors of their new hearts—began to take on personality traits of the donors. In a society where we often define personhood by its individuality and separateness, what do we make of instances such as these, which seem to bear out a medieval understanding of what it means to be human?
Barbara and Ryan discuss this and other aspects relating to how people in the Middle Ages conceived of personhood. They delve into saintly telepathy, the relationship between virginity and fertility, the social life of trees, and the tension between the public, performative persona and a private, interior sense of self. Together they ponder the different ways that people can be seen as existing coherently with each other, both in the present and across the boundaries of time through genealogy.
In April of 2019, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) of the Southern Baptist Convention published a document called “Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles.” Armed with the belief that God has created humans with both the ability to invent new technologies and the wisdom to answer new dilemmas those technologies raise, the document outlined basic principles to guide a Christian ethical approach to advances in AI. In a cultural moment when many Christian voices express anxiety over the effects of the digital world on faith, community, and identity, the tone of this document was one of hope, acknowledging the dangers of advances in technology while professing that “nothing we create will be able to thwart [God’s] redemptive plan for creation.” In this episode, Jason Thacker, lead drafter of the document and director of the Research Institute for the ERLC, further explores the intersection of theology and digital technology with Gretchen. Together they consider the meaning of discipleship in the 21st century, the ways that our identity is (and isn’t) formed by technological advances, and the “big” questions that underlie ethical issues relating to data privacy, digital surveillance, and more. Jason seeks to help root the Church’s approach to AI in a posture of wakefulness and hope, alert to the impact of timeless questions on current issues and equipped to engage with them as members of a digital age.
In the United States, deaths of despair—from alcoholism, drug abuse, and suicide—have risen sharply in the past decades. Many countries have recognized levels of social disconnection so high that they have become a public health crisis; both Japan and the U.K. have appointed Ministers of Loneliness in the hopes of answering this need for community and connection. But awareness of this growing crisis in human well-being does not easily translate into knowing how to fix it—or if we can fix it at all.
Theologian Brendan Case sits down with Grant to discuss the various ways that society can foster—or hinder—the well-being and flourishing of its members. Case is Associate Director for Research with the Harvard Human Flourishing Program, where he helps foster dialogue between the humanities’ long and rich tradition of contemplating human happiness with the evidence-based research of the empirical and social sciences. He brings this unique expertise to the conversation as he and Grant discuss some of the many strands in our social weave that may contribute to or hinder the living of meaningful lives.
Educational methods, religious participation, cancel culture, and the desire for knowledge all come into play as they ask—what is missing in our current understanding of human happiness? Can we have all we hope for, or can some goods only be possessed at the cost of others?
Join Ryan and Gretchen as they interview each other and explore a variety of topics together: from digital wisdom and genealogy, memory and wonder at the mystery of creation, incorrupt bodies and corrupt code, and the Impossible Burger.
The birth rate in the United States is the lowest it’s ever been. Between rising costs of living and anxiety about humanity’s impact on the environment, people are having fewer children than ever. And yet surveys indicate that we still want babies, and want them in larger numbers than they’re being born.
Demographer and pro-natalist Lyman Stone joins Grant to discuss why this desire doesn’t translate into a higher birth rate, why that matters, and what we should do about it.
From weaponized drones to dancing robots, artificial intelligence has become the locus of many hopes and anxieties about humanity’s future. In the face of rapid technological development, finding the golden mean between utopian daydreams and dystopian forecasts can seem an impossible project.
Robert J. Marks—professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University, and Director of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence—sits down with Gretchen to dive into this question. He walks through the history of both the development of AI, and the evolution of how we think and talk about it. He reminds us that it is the very human qualities that AI can’t replicate which bring it into being and give it purpose— our natural intelligence, creativity, and common sense. While any new technology comes with its own dangers, he contends that it is up to those who use it to make ethical choices, and that Christians specifically are called to make sure that those choices are based on the rock of God’s law rather than the shifting sands of community standards.
Join Robert and Gretchen as they discuss AI, what it can and can’t do, and our relationship to it.
Micah Redding, a computer programmer by training, a follower of Christ, and now the executive director of the Christian Transhumanist Association, joins Gretchen to discuss the history and future of transhumanism, the impact of artificial intelligence, and the role of Christians in this technological age. Together they ask, “Can Christians embrace transhumanism on their own terms?”
Amy Adamczyk joins Grant to discuss some of the most contentious topics in American culture. Why are Catholics, mainline Protestants, and Jews so bad at transmitting their faith to their children? Why have attitudes on abortion not liberalized over time the way views on homosexuality and marijuana use have? What can we learn from comparing Chinese and American attitudes toward abortion? Amy is a professor of sociology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and the Programs of Doctoral Study in Sociology and Criminal Justice at City University of New York. In addition to her award-winning Cross-National Public Opinion about Homosexuality and her co-authored Handing Down the Faith, Amy is currently completing a book that examines cross-national opinions on abortion.
Anne Carpenter joins Ryan to discuss the intersection of history, tradition, art, and theology. What is the difference between ressourcement and genealogy? Are art and theology the same thing? What can video games teach us about theology? How can everyday Christians contribute to renewing the theological tradition? Anne is associate professor of theology at St. Mary's College of California and has recently completed Nothing Gained Is Eternal: A Theology of Tradition, forthcoming from Fortress Press.
Dr. Dan Hall is a surgeon and an Episcopal priest who, in addition to teaching at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the Center for Bioethics and Health Law, performs surgeries and conducts research at the VA health system. Dan joins Grant for a provocative exploration of the intersections of physical and spiritual health, the advantages and limitations of incorporating artificial intelligence into medicine, and the phenomenon of excluding clergy from hospitals during the recent pandemic. Together, they ask, “If doctors are modern-day priests, what is their obligation to the religious well-being of their patients?”
Get to know the Beatrice Institute podcast hosts, Ryan McDermott and Grant Martsolf, as they take turns interviewing each other. In this wide-ranging conversation, Ryan and Grant explore utilitarian tendencies in higher education, what religious institutes can offer a university community, and the relationship between immortality and incorruptibility. Ryan plays “would you rather” with Grant, and they meditate on two differing apocalyptic views of history
Dr. Karina Schumann is an assistant professor and the social program chair in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research focuses on identifying factors that help people successfully manage their conflicts and respond to challenging social interactions in prosocial ways. She leads the Conflict Resolution (CORE) Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. Karina joins Grant for an in-depth exploration of apologies, forgiveness, and intellectual humility. Together they discuss why public apologies seem fake, what elements are necessary for an effective apology, and why women apologize more than men.
Kerilyn Harkaway-Krieger is assistant professor of English and the director of The Great Conversation program at Gordon College. Corey Sparks is assistant professor of English at California State University at Chico, where he teaches courses on medieval literature, literary theory, poetry, and the digital humanities. Kerilyn and Corey join Elise to reflect upon their decade-long friendship, which took root amid the shared anxieties of graduate studies and has flourished despite their physical separation. Drawing upon ancient, medieval, and modern texts, the three friends meditate on tenderness, vulnerability, and viewing oneself through the eyes of one’s friends.
Philipp Rosemann is chair of philosophy at Maynooth University in Ireland and the editor of the Dallas Medieval Texts and Translations series. A native of Germany who studied in Ireland and Belgium, Philipp joins Ryan for a frank discussion of the spiritual wasteland of contemporary Irish culture. Drawing upon themes from Philipp’s latest book, the two cover a variety of topics from Foucault, to the desert of west Texas, to Catholic utopian literature.
Ben Miller is the chief strategy officer for Well Being Trust, a national foundation advancing the mental, social, and spiritual health of the nation. Ben joins Grant to discuss the importance of an holistic approach to health and the challenges facing those with mental health issues as they navigate the tangled health delivery system.
In this episode, Elise talks with Noah Toly, professor of Urban Studies and Politics & International Relations at Wheaton College. They discuss the urban and built environment’s capability of shaping our desires and relationships, the role that the tragic plays in global environmental governance, and the ways we might rethink vocation in an increasingly consumerist and product-driven world.
An interview with Bruderhof member Clare Stober, who produced the Bruderhof's centenary photo book, Another Life is Possible.
Jessica Hooten Wilson is an author and speaker dedicated to the questions: What are the great stories and how do we pass them on? She is the Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence and a professor of Humanities and Classical Education at the University of Dallas. She is the 2019 recipient of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities. Jessica joins Grant to discuss the impact of Walker Percy on questions of evil and the modern human. They talk about Percy’s role as the great diagnostician, why Lost in the Cosmos is the last self-help book you’ll ever need, and how to develop your own Walker Percy Reading Plan. Topics include:
- Great books
- The existence of evil and the phenomenon of despair
- The spiritual urgency of Dostoevsky
- The quest for the tertium quid
- What a 21st-century Walker Percy protagonist looks like
- The profane as a conduit for grace and the sacred
- How to tend your garden
- A sacramental cosmology
- The contribution of Christian authors to Walker Percy's legacy
- Seeing the signs and know what they signify
Links:
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
Reading Walker Percy’s Novels by Jessica Hooten Wilson
Walker Percy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, and the Search for Influence by Jessica Hooten Wilson
The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Kierkegaard on despair
Tertium quidLost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
Prayer in the Night by Tish Harrison Warren
The Last Gentleman by Walker Percy
The Thanatos Syndrome by Walker Percy
Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy
Utopia by Thomas More
Lancelot by Walker Percy
Candide by Voltaire
Giving the Devil His Due by Jessica Hooten Wilson
Flannery O’Connor
Virgil Wander by Leif Inger
The Reason for Crows by Diane Glancy
Father Elijah by Michael O’Brien
Exiles by Ron Hansen
The Second Coming by Walker Percy
Michael Sacasas is an independent scholar focusing on technology and culture. Michael joins Elise to talk about the way technology shapes our society. They discuss the role media can have in disintegrating a sense of the common good and why technology tends to reflect ourselves back to us. Together they ask: Is online “real life”? What constitutes reality in digital spaces? And what’s at stake when we refer to the digital as “space”?
- Digital and media environment
- Online identity formation
- Mediation
- Spatial metaphors for digital life
- Digitized relationships
- Philosophy of technology
- Temporal lag and immediacy
- Weaponization of digital memory
- Social media interfaces as “common things”
- The algorithmically mediated nature of social media
- Apathy and numbness
- Hyperreality and spectacle
- Acedia and doomscrolling
- Limits that we ought to embrace
- Making sense of the insurrection
- Narrative structure and databases
- National Mourning and public language
- Ordering our remembrances
Michael Sacasas’ newsletter, The Convivial Society
“The Insurrection Will Be Livestreamed” by Michael Sacasas
“The Analog City and the Digital City” by Michael Sacasas
“Structurally Induced Acedia” by Michael Sacasas
Nathan Jurgenson on “digital dualism”
Postphenomenology
Evan Selinger
Don Ihde
Peter-Paul Verbeek
Marshall McLuhan
Ivan Illich
“The Scourge of ‘Relatability’” by Rebecca Mead
Liquid Modernity by Zygmunt Bauman
Lysistrata by Aristophanes
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
Digital humanist Corey Sparks
Vladimir Nabokov
Michel de Certeau
Alasdair MacIntyre
Commemoration of COVID-19 victims
The Need for Roots by Simone Weil
Ryan McDermott announces our newest cohost, and Christian Studies Fellow Kirsten Barron plays an original song.
Samuel Hazo is a lifelong Pittsburgher, a finalist for the National Book Award, and Pennsylvania’s first Poet Laureate. In this episode, Samuel describes his earliest memories of Pittsburgh, what it was like growing up in Squirrel Hill and East Liberty (where he was a Cub Scout), and attending Notre Dame in the 1940s. He also shares his memories of running the International Poetry Forum and tells Elise about the people he brought to Pittsburgh for poetry readings, including Grace Kelly and Gregory Peck.
His introduction to “cosmopolitan Catholicism”
Poetry as a part of public life
His time in the marines
The importance of memory
His work at the International Poetry Forum
His memories of Grace Kelly
Love and risk
How to bring poetry to the public
Samuel Hazo’s website
Piers Plowman
The Divine Comedy
Chaucer
Christopher Dawson
Francois Mauriac
“The Poem” by W.S. Merwin
“One-Liners or Less” by Samuel Hazo
International Poetry Forum
W.H. Auden
Anne Sexton
Gwendolyn Brooks
Seamus Heaney
Billy Collins
Octavio Paz
Naomi Shihab Nye
W.S. Merwin
Joyce Carol Oates
Derek Walcott
Eugene McCarthy
Grace Kelly (Princess Grace of Monaco)
Richard Pasco
Archibald MacLeish
John Donne
Gregory Peck
William Butler Yeats
Sally Wiggin
Jason Baxter is an associate professor of fine arts and humanities at Wyoming Catholic College and a prolific writer. He has published or completed five books since 2018, including A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy and The Infinite Beauty of the World: Dante’s Encyclopedia and the Names of God. Jason joins Ryan to discuss all things Divine Comedy. Jason talks about the best way to read Dante and explains why some people struggle through the Paradiso. He and Ryan also play a game of “Would You Rather” where Jason tells us about his love of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.
Modernity and Medievalism
Microcosm and macrocosm
Why the Inferno is so popular
Vision in Dante
Is there a narrative in the Divine Comedy?
Dante and the invention of purgatory
What will heaven actually be like?
Beatitude in community
Cowboy Platonist
Links:
Black Elk
Petrarch’s ascent
Jacob Burkhardt
A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy by Jason Baxter
Falling Inward: Humanities in the Age of Technology by Jason Baxter
The Infinite Beauty of the World: Dante’s Encyclopedia and the Names of God by Jason Baxter
An Introduction to Christian Mysticism: Recovering the Wildness of Spiritual Life by Jason Baxter
Hugh of Saint Victor
Divine Comedy
Anthony Esolen translation
Gianfranco Contini
Umberto Eco
Jorge Borges
The Birth of Purgatory by Jacques Le Goff
Paul Griffiths
The Great Divorce by CS Lewis
Blessed John Duns Scotus
Gerard Manley Hopkins
“Death, Be Not Proud” by John Donne
“For Once, Then, Something” by Robert Frost
“Supernatural Love” by Gjertrud Schnackenberg
Marilyn McEntyre is a steward of words. She has taught courses on English and medical humanities, and she has written or edited over twenty books, including Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. Marilyn joins Elise to discuss the meaning of four words: dwelling, compassion, truth, and awe. Marilyn discusses why she loves participles and how “Christianese” can constrict the meaning of a word. She also reads three of her own poems and explains the background and inspiration of each.
Words as building materials
How space shapes us
Particularity and universality
A productive relationship between loneliness and dwelling
Touch deprivation
The strength and resilience of compassion
Christianese
Our relationship to Industrial food system
A broader examination of conscience
Truth as embodied and relational
The act of translation
Convicted civility
Why do we lie?
Relationship between death and awe
Accompanying the dying
Links:
Dwelling in the Text by Marilyn McEntyre
Word Tastings: An Essay Anthology by Marilyn McEntyre
Teaching Literature and Medicine by Marilyn McEntyre
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies by Marilyn McEntyre
The Overstory by Richard Powers
The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben
Should Trees Have Standing?: Law, Morality, and the Environment by Christopher D. Stone
I MARRY YOU: A Sheaf of Love Poems by John Ciardi
Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict by Marilyn McEntyre
Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Cohosts Ryan McDermott and Elise Lonich Ryan have a conversation about the art that has accompanied them through 2020. They discuss the mysterious ending of Pulitzer-nominated Heroes of the Fourth Turning, a play that explores the political beliefs of four conservative Catholics and has had multiple runs on Zoom. Ryan and Elise share a love of Marilynne Robinson and critiques of Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life. Ryan explains how the Norwegian show Beforeigners ties into his project Genealogies of Modernity, and Elise recommends the best nature writing.
Reading the signs of the times
The relationship between affect and reason
Can you make sense of the present?
How sci-fi and dystopia help us find meaning in times of anxiety
Affective responses and structures of feeling
Franz Jäggerstätter and the intellectual life
American transcendentalism and sentimentalism
Wilma Theater production of Heroes of the Fourth Turning
The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu
“Unpacking My Library” by Walter Benjamin
Tenet
Inception
Flourishing in the Wake of COVID-19
Marilynne Robinson on The Ezra Klein Show
Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
Jack by Marilynne Robinson
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Home by Marilynne Robinson
“A beginners guide to The Ezra Klein Show”
Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery
A Hidden Life
The Thin Red Line
Andrei Tarkovsky
Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson
Beforeigners
Genealogies of Modernity
Andrew DeCort is founder of the neighbor-love movement and author of the book Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning: Ethics after Devastation. Andrew tells John about how witnessing state violence changed his view of vocation and inspired him to start the neighbor-love movement. He discusses how his vocation as an ethicist is to live with and for others, how diversity is a result of being made in God’s image, and why neighbor-love is more than a feeling.
Witnessing state violence
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Radical humility
New beginnings
Connection between unity and diversity
Christianity over nationalism
Biblical understanding of diversity
Links:
Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning: Ethics after Devastation by Andrew DeCort
Neighbor-love movement website
Interpreting Ethiopia Don Levine
Jean Elshtain
William Schweiker
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
“Unity and Diversity are Neighbors, and So Are We,” by Andrew DeCort
Joint Declaration for Human Value and Nonviolence in Ethiopia
Neighbor-love course
Neighbor-love covenant
30-day neighbor-love mindfulness exercise
Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr.
Charles Taylor
Creating Capabilities by Martha Nussbaum
Jessica Mesman is founder of the blog Sick Pilgrim and coauthor of Love and Salt: A Spiritual Friendship in Letters. Her essays have been published in US Catholic, Lit Hub, Elle, Vox, America, and Christianity Today. Jessica joins Elise to discuss writing as a form of accompaniment and how the experience of mourning shaped her, both as a Christian and as a writer. They talk about the Catholic practice of memento mori, the unique way horror movies can convey truth, and how to live a Christian life when you can’t let go of grief.
How place shapes you
The unique religiosity of New Orleans
Horror movies and haunting
A Christian look at grief
Memento mori
Why remembering the dead is a work of mercy
Wrestling with the darkness of the human experience as an Easter people
St. Therese of Lisieux
What makes a good friendship
Writing as accompaniment
Links:
Jessica's website
Laudato si
The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology by Douglas Christie
The Exorcist
The Babadook
Poltergeist
Awakened by Death by Christiana Peterson
Rusty Reno is author of several books and editor of First Things, an ecumenical journal of religion and public life. His conversation with Ryan covers his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism, the scholars and books that have most influenced him, and why he thinks fear is an enemy to solidarity. They also discuss Rusty’s legendary climbing fall, his climbing escapades in Yosemite in the early 80s, and how he went from being a “climbing bum” to a Yale PhD student.
Biblical studies and modern theology
Why rock climbing is good for scholars
Vulnerability as a threat to freedom
Captivity to the resume
The danger of fear
Anti-globalization based on love of homeland
Fear as an enemy to solidarity and love
Links:
In the Ruins of the Church by Rusty Reno
Ephraim Radner
“Theology in the Ruins of the Church” by Rusty Reno
Sanctified Vision: An introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible by John O’Keefe
Readings in St. John’s Gospel by William Temple
Austin Farrer
The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper
The Ordinary Transformed by Rusty Reno
Surnaturel by Henri de Lubac
Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism and the Future of the West by Rusty Reno
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann
Luke Sheahan is an assistant professor of political science at Duquesne University and non-resident scholar at the program for research on religion and urban civil society at the University of Pennsylvania. He joins John to discuss his new book, Why Associations Matter: The Case for First Amendment Pluralism. Luke argues that there has been a fundamental misunderstanding of what associations are and that this has affected the Court’s ability to protect them. Luke talks about why we need to stop ignoring the assembly clause, social alienation in the modern world, and the relationship between sociology, philosophy, and political science.
Freedom of association
Membership
Expressive groups
Assembly clause versus the free speech clause
The work of John Inazu and Robert Nesbit
Freedom of association and civil rights
Textualism and dialectic
Links:
Why Associations Matter by Luke Sheahan
John Inazu
The Social Philosophers by Robert Nisbet
The Sociological Tradition by Robert Nisbet
NAACP v. Alabama
Christian Legal Society versus Martinez
Roberts v. Jaycees
Buck v. Bell
Bob Jones University v. United States
Holt v. Hobbes
Richard Garnett
Steven Smith
First Amendment Situations by Paul Horwitz
Amy Alznauer is a polymath: she is a writer, arts collaborator, and an instructor of calculus and number theory at Northwestern University. Amy and Elise’s conversation touches on all of these things. Amy tells us about why she started writing picture-book biographies and what the genius of childhood can teach grown-up readers. She and Elise dive into Flannery O’Connor’s unpublished early novel, the grief that motivated O’Connor’s writing, and the recent controversy surrounding a New Yorker piece on O’Connor and racism. They wrap up the conversation by investigating what makes infinity simultaneously compelling and terrifying and the relationship between math and love.
Publishing in a pandemic
The work of imagination in biography writing
Reinvestigating childhood books
Grief, staring, and the grotesque in the work of Flannery O’Connor
Flannery O’Connor and racism
The difference between moral vision and piety
Thinking about the infinite
Mathematics and love
Links:
Betsy Bird Blog
Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell
The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor by Amy Alznauer
The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity by Amy Alznauer
The Zhou Brothers: A Story of Revolution and Art by Amy Alznauer
Srinivasa Ramanujan
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor (includes the essay “The King of the Birds”)
“On Flannery O’Connor and Race: A Response to Paul Elie” by Amy Alznauer
“How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?” by Paul Elie
“This Lonesome Place” by Hilton Als
“A South Without Myths” by Alice Walker
Benny Andrews illustrations and afterword for “Everything That Rises Must Converge”
Benny Andrews website
"The Site of Memory," essay by Toni Morrison, anthologized in The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations
Radical Ambivalence by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell
Glenn Arbery is a novelist and president of Wyoming Catholic College. He joins Ryan to discuss Catholic literature, past and present. They cover Caroline Gordon, Jacques Maritain, Allen Tate, Flannery O’Connor, and the literary scene today. Together they explore what it means to be a Christian artist and what makes Christian art Christian.
Racism and southern literature
New Agrarianism and the popular imagination
The divided mind of the modern
Is change possible in academia?
How higher education can take the incarnation seriously
Is Wyoming Catholic College an instance of the Benedict Option?
Learning to write a novel
When is the best time to write a novel?
Links:
Wyoming Catholic College
Bearings and Distances by Glenn Arbery
Wiseblood Books, founded by Joshua Wren
Natalie Carnes is an associate professor of theology in the religion department at Baylor University and an affiliate faculty member in women's and gender studies. She and Elise discuss Natalie’s latest book, Motherhood: A Confession. They talk about Natalie’s love of Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa, how to approach art made by terrible people, and why beauty is often seen as a frivolous topic.
What is beauty?
Beauty and moral depravity
Witness as an approach to art
Gregory of Nyssa on beauty
An Augustinian take on “slacktivism”
Womanist theology
Raising white daughters
Mothering language for God
Links:
Beauty: A Theological Engagement with Gregory of Nyssa
Motherhood: A Confession
Image and Presence: A Christological Reflection on Iconoclasm and Iconophilia
The Life of Moses by Gregory of Nyssa
The Life of Macrina by Gregory of Nyssa
Carolyn Forché
“What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?” by Claire Dederer
“Ferguson Mother of God: Our Lady against all Gun Violence” by Mark Dukes
Emilie Townes
Karen Baker-Fletcher
Shawn Copeland
Amey Adkins-Jones
Kelly Brown Douglas
Creation and the Cross by Elizabeth Johnson
Mark Reiff is a scholar, lawyer, and author of five books on economics and labor. He joins John to talk about his latest book, In the Name of Liberty: The Argument for Universal Unionization. Mark discusses the libertarian argument for unions, the structure of distributive justice, and how self-ownership involves an obligation to others. He and John wrap up the conversation by examining the intersection between Aquinas and libertarianism.
The decline of unionization rates
What liberty requires
How being a lawyer influenced his scholarship
Would there be unions in a libertarian utopia?
Public and private unions
Why guilds are different institutions from unions
Economic justice
Police unions and reform
Unions and globalization
Links:
In the Name of Liberty by Mark Reiff
Lisa Herzog
Peter Dietsch
Mark Reiff's website
Shannon Gayk is Associate Professor of English and Director of the Medieval Studies Institute at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana. She joins Elise to talk about how literary forms reflect larger lived experiences. They discuss the importance of witness, the connection between experiencing art and being moved to action, and the relationship between ethics and aesthetics. They wrap up their conversation by exploring structures that can create collective flourishing.
How do we get from texts to a transformed life?
The relationship between ethics and aesthetics
Incarnational literature
Imaginative devotional practice
Margery Kempe
Lollards
Sacred performance
Apocalypse literature
Climate change and medieval environmental writing
Collective flourishing
Links:
Image Text and Religious Reform in 15th century England by Shannon Gayk
The Highest Poverty Giorgio Agamben
Kirsten Hall is a doctoral candidate at the University of Texas at Austin, a graduate fellow at the Austin Institute, and the managing editor of the Genealogies of Modernity Blog. She joins Ryan to discuss eighteenth-century literature, drama, and thought. Their conversation ranges from the historical importance of Cato, the eighteenth century’s Hamilton, to what 2001: A Space Odyssey can tell us about “the deep eighteenth century.” They also discuss the newest film adaption of Jane Austen’s Emma and the similarities between the comic novel and the movie Austenland.
Calling cards for social media
Genealogical anxiety
The quarrel of the ancients and the moderns
Jonathan Swift’s The Battle of the Books
The eighteenth century’s concern about forgeries
Joseph Addison’s Cato
Eighteenth-century drama
The splendid vices/pagan virtues
2001: A Space Odyssey and the deep eighteenth century
Period costume dramas
Slapstick and the comic novel
Links:
Genealogies of Modernity Blog
The Battle of the Books by Jonathan Swift
Cato by Joseph Addison
Autumn de Wilde’s Emma
Austenland
Jesse Straight is farmer and founder of Whiffletree Farm. The goal of Jesse’s business is “to farm in a way that is good for all parties involved: the land, the animals, our families, our customers, and our community.” Jesse explains what terms like “grass-fed” and “cage-free” really mean and how the COVID-19 pandemic is revealing the weaknesses in the industrial food system. He tells us about his relationship with the work of Wendell Berry, walks us through his decision to become a farmer, and gives his advice on vocational discernment.
Carbon sequestration and pasture-based farming
Wendell Berry
Imitating biological systems
The real meaning of “cage-free” and “grass-fed”
The benefits of interning at a farm
Why Christians should care about the industrial food system
Vocational discernment
Links
Wendell Berry’s work
Polyface Farm
Joel Salatin books and DVDs
Whiffletree Farm
Whiffletree Farm Internships
Anthony Bradley is a professor of religious studies and director of the Center for the Study of Human Flourishing at the King’s College in New York City. He gives us a personalist analysis of the criminal justice system (touching on everything from architecture to food) and the Black Lives Matter movement. We discuss the relationship between Afro-pessimism, hope, and Eastern Christianity, and how Black experience informs trinitarian theology. We also talk about the dangers of missional narcissism and the invention of whiteness.
Success and living a quiet life
American eugenics movement
The invention of whiteness
Childhood trauma and educational outcomes
Trauma-informed youth ministry
Black experience and trinitarian theology
Missional narcissism
Exhaustion, tiredness, and race battle fatigue
Personalism and the criminal justice system
Restoration and rehumanizing
Local compassion
Christianity and Afro-pessimism
Links:
Black Lives Matter website
The Redneck Manifesto by Jim Goad
Hitler’s American Model by James Whitman
The Narcissism Epidemic by Jean Twenge
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Terence Sweeney is editor-at-large of the Genealogies of Modernity Blog and is currently finishing his PhD in philosophy at Villanova. He joins us to talk about the role of the Christian genealogist and the place for wonder and curiosity in the modern university. We mix it up by playing a game of “would you rather” (Thomas Aquinas’s five ways or Pascal's wager?) and talking about Terence’s work as a sexton at his church.
Why did God create time?
The role of the Christian genealogist
Biblical genealogy
What would a modern St. Augustine look like?
Plato and prayer
Is curiosity a vice or a virtue?
The research university and knowledge production
Wonder and mystery
Being a parish sexton
Links:
Genealogies of Modernity Blog
Terence's piece on Hannah Arendt
"The Catholic Bells" by William Carlos Williams
Jonathan Anderson, associate professor of art at Biola University, is currently pursuing a PhD in theology and religious studies. He joins us to discuss contemporary art and its theological implications. The conversation ranges from Christological approaches in art to the best artists currently dealing with theological themes.
Art patronage in the past and today
Financialization of art
Epiphany and theophany
American modernism
The modern museum
Politics in vision
Secularity
Christological approach to art
Discourses of contestability
Links:
Modern Art and the Life of a Culture, co-authored by Jonathan Anderson
Modern Art and the Death of a Culture by H. R. Rookmaaker
Andrea Büttner
Matt Kleberg
Kris Martin
Tim Hawkinson
Doris Salcedo
Teresa Margolles
Francis Alÿs
Jonathan Anderson’s website
“Impasse” series by Jonathan Anderson
Katie and Brandon McGinley live with their four children in an intentional Catholic neighborhood community. Brandon is a Catholic writer, and Katie is a retired librarian and full-time homeschooler. They discuss how their community began and how they’ve grown since then. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced them to think creatively about community building, and they share the ways they’ve safely stayed in touch with and supported the people they’re close to. They also look to the future, covering what it will be like coming out of lockdown and how they hope to see Catholic communities grow as a result of the pandemic.
Community Begins with Friendship
Organization and Growth of Communities
The Spontaneity That Comes from Having a Stable Community
How Big Can a Neighborhood Community Grow?
Modeling Communities on the Present
A Quarantine Holy Week
Being Social while Respecting Social Distancing
How Quarantine Could Change Religious Communities
Links:
Brandon’s Plough Article
The Noonday Devil by Jean-Charles Nault
Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home by Elizabeth Foss
Allyson Creasman is an associate professor of history at Carnegie Mellon University, where she specializes in the German reformation. Dr. Creasman paints a thorough picture of the pandemic in Luther’s time, examining the early modern quarantine legislation and the secularization of the healthcare system. She discusses whether Luther would have a Twitter, what his thoughts on social distancing were, and what the debates over censorship in Luther’s time can teach us about today’s controversies over fake news.
Censorship and Dissemination of Information in Reformation Germany
Martin Luther’s Response to Plague
Secularization of Healthcare
Early Quarantine Legislation
Early Modern Understandings of Plague
Sociological Ramifications of the Bubonic Plague
Links:
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
Sea People: The Puzzle of Polynesia by Christina Thompson
The Mirror and the Light by Hilary Mantel
Dr. John Buchmann, executive director of Beatrice Institute, talks with Andrew Yuengert, professor of economics and social thought at Catholic University of America. Their conversation covers what economists have to learn from Aristotle, the limits of rational choice theory, and what theologians stand to gain from economists. They apply these insights to the COVID-19 crisis and discuss how we can act with prudence.
Intersection between Ethics and Economics
Fact-Value Distinction
Practical Wisdom
Technique without Reflection
How Theologians Can Learn from Economists
Unintentional Order
Economic Models for the Crisis
Prudent Action
Links:
Intelligent Virtue by Julia Annas
Aquinas and the Market by Mary Hirschfeld
Practical Wisdom: The Right Way to Do the Right Thing by Barry Schwartz and Kenneth Sharpe
The Four Cardinal Virtues by Joseph Pieper
Chris Nygren teaches history of art and architecture and serves as the Director of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Nygren joins us to discuss miracle-making images, specifically those associated with healing from plague. Dr. Nygren examines what these icons meant to people in the past and how they continue to matter to believers today. We end our discussion by talking about the images of Pope Francis giving his Urbi et Orbi in an empty St. Peter’s Square.
The images referenced in this episode can be found on our website: https://beatriceinstitute.org/miraculous-images-and-contemporary-meaning-making-images
Miraculous images
Boccaccio’s Decameron
Rituals of remembrance and the contingency of society
Making sense of survival
The intersection of Catholic devotion and public health
Icons as plague protection
Pope Francis’s Urbi et Orbi
Corporeal power in images
Contemporary meaning-making
Links:
The Decameron by Boccaccio
Boris TV series
The Historian’s Craft by Marc Bloch
Dr. Elise Ryan, scholar of early modern literature and faculty fellow at Beatrice Institute, joins us to discuss the poetry that comes out of experiences of trauma. She and Prof. McDermott take a close look at John Lydgate’s “Dance of Death,” Larry Levis’s “Anastasia and Sandman,” and Gerard Manley Hopkins’s “Carrion Comfort.” They discuss how poetry helps articulate experiences of grief, why poetry comes long after community trauma, and the link between poetry and prayer.
The images referenced in this episode can be found on our website: https://beatriceinstitute.org/art-that-comes-out-of-plague-images
Medieval poetry and the Black Death
The cultural impact of despair and grief
Ring around the rosie
Belated responses to crisis
Articulating experiences of trauma
Repetition in lieu of coherent narrative
Memory and trauma
The power found in witnessing
The link between poetry and prayer
Poetry as a lifesaver rather than escapism.
Links:
“Dance of Death” by John Lydgate
“Anastasia and Sandman” by Larry Levis
“Carrion Comfort” by Gerard Manley Hopkins
Prof. Ryan McDermott reads the full text of a letter Martin Luther wrote during an outbreak of the bubonic plague in 1527. (Check out our interview with Pastor Eric Andrae for more on this letter!) Luther gives practical and pastoral advice on how Christians should conduct themselves in a time of plague. His recommendations are strikingly relevant now, even from a public health standpoint.
Darrel Darby is President and CEO of Darco International, a medical-device company based in West Virginia but working globally. We chat with Darrel, who is currently in self-quarantine, about what his job looks like during the COVID-19 crisis. Darrel tells us about the ways he’s keeping his employees safe, how quarantine is giving him a chance to reevaluate his life, and how the Christian tradition prepared his company for these challenges.
- Challenges of running a medical-device company during a medical crisis
- How businesses can take care of employees
- How the Christian tradition prepares you for crisis
- The importance of trust
- The freedom found in living virtuously
- Social isolation as a chance to reevaluate important relationships and priorities
Links:
The Noonday Devil by Dom Jean-Charles Nault O.S.B.
The Waning of the Middle Ages by Johan Huizinga
Revolutions podcast
Pints with Aquinas podcast
Dr. Brent Robbins is a professor of psychology with a specialty in psychology of religion and spirituality. Much of Dr. Robbins’ work focuses on systems of understanding human suffering. He joins us to discuss what spirituality looks like in times of crisis and what role religion can play in coping. We cover spiritual solidarity, the relationship between religion and coping, and how to understand social isolation from a Christian perspective.
Religious forms of coping
- Redefining isolation: time to connect with God
- Rationing time on social media
- Interpreting experiences of crisis
- Religious control: self-directing and deferring approaches
- Collaborative approach: active participation with God in coping
- Surrender approach: yielding personal control in times of waiting
Links:
Bishop Robert Barron YouTube Channel
Pastor Eric Andrae is a Lutheran pastor whose pastoral work has now become virtual. As a chaplain for Lutheran Student Fellowship and International Student Ministry, he knows the spiritual struggles his students and parishioners are encountering as they practice social distancing. We chat about how he is reaching out to his congregation, what a Lutheran approach to remote worship looks like, and what Martin Luther had to say about social distancing during the bubonic plague.
- How an epidemic changes pastoral work
- Corporate worship and livestream services
- Means of grace
- Scriptural reading to grow closer in the Word
- Spiritual communion
- Forming and maintaining habits in isolation
- Communal intimacy
- God works all things ultimately for the good
- Benefits for the spiritual life: reaching out and connecting with others
- Martin Luther on social isolation during the bubonic plague
- God’s will works through people
- Compline and daily prayer
Links:
Confessions by St. Augustine
InterVarsity Best Christian Book of All Time
Life Together by Dietriech Bonhoeffer
Daily Prayer from Lutheran Student Fellowship
To Live with Christ by Bo Giertz
Rev. Paul Abernathy is an Orthodox priest who works with trauma-affected communities in Pittsburgh, PA. Right now, Rev. Abernathy is mitigating the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on his community by organizing “community health deputies,” battling food insecurity, and making medical care available to people in isolation through telemedicine. Rev. Abernathy serves as chief executive of Neighborhood Resilience Project, an organization that focuses on trauma-informed community building.
We cover what inspired the founding of his organization, how trauma affects neighborhoods, and how his faith impacts the way he sees his work and community.
- Community trauma: trauma becomes foundational for a neighborhood’s worldview
- Trauma-informed community development
- Telemedicine and caring for people in isolation
- Community health deputies: building resilience among community members
- Battling food insecurity
- An epidemiological approach to gun violence
- Trauma-affected communities and overwhelmed institutions
- Physical isolation vs. social isolation
- Micro-communities
- Good neighbor fund: communities addressing tragedy together
- Community as a reflection of the Gospel: be one as Christ and the Father are one
- Letting the good news inform your work
- Supporting Neighborhood Resilience Project
Links:
Neighborhood Resilience Project Website
Neighborhood Resilience Project volunteer application
Neighborhood Resilience Project Facebook
The Way of a Pilgrim book