Podcast appearances and mentions of mortimer adler

Ahead of her new book What's So Great About the Great Books? coming out in April, Naomi Kanakia and I talked about literature from Herodotus to Tony Tulathimutte. We touched on Chaucer, Anglo-Saxon poetry, Scott Alexander, Shakespeare, William James, Helen deWitt, Marx and Engels, Walter Scott, Les Miserables, Jhootha Sach, the Mahabharata, and more. Naomi also talked about some of her working habits and the history and future of the Great Books movement. Naomi, of course, writes Woman of Letters here on Substack.TranscriptHenry Oliver: Today, I am talking with Naomi Kanakia. Naomi is a novelist, a literary critic, and most importantly she writes a Substack called Woman of Letters, and she has a new book coming out, What's So Great About the Great Books? Naomi, welcome.Naomi Kanakia: Thanks for having me on.Oliver: How is the internet changing the way that literature gets discussed and criticized, and what is that going to mean for the future of the Great Books?Kanakia: How is the internet changing it? I can really speak to only how it has changed it for me. I started off as a writer of young adult novels and science fiction, and there's these very active online fan cultures for those two things.I was reading the Great Books all through that time. I started in 2010 through today. In the 2010s, it really felt like there was not a lot of online discussion of classic literature. Maybe that was just me and I wasn't finding it, but it didn't necessarily feel like there was that community.I think because there are so many strong, public-facing institutions that discuss classic literature, like the NYRB, London Review of Books, a lot of journals, and universities, too. But now on Substack, there are a number of blogs—yours, mine, a number of other ones—that are devoted to classic literature. All of those have these commenters, a community of commenters. I also follow bloggers who have relatively small followings who are reading Tolstoy, reading Middlemarch, reading even much more esoteric things.I know that for me, becoming involved in this online culture has given me much more of an awareness that there are many people who are reading the classics on their own. I think that was always true, but now it does feel like it's more of a community.Oliver: We are recording this the day after the Washington Post book section has been removed. You don't see some sort of relationship between the way these literary institutions are changing online and the way the Great Books are going to be conceived of in the future? Because the Great Books came out of a an old-fashioned, saving-the-institutions kind of radical approach to university education. We're now moving into a world where all those old things seem to be going.Kanakia: Yes. I agree. The Great Books began in the University of Chicago and Columbia University. If you look into the history of the movement, it really was about university education and the idea that you would have a common core and all undergraduates would read these books. The idea that the Great Books were for the ordinary person was really an afterthought, at least for Mortimer Adler and those original Great Books guys. Now, the Great Books in the university have had a resurgence that we can discuss, but I do think there's a lot more life and vitality in the kind of public-facing humanities than there has been.I talked to Irina Dumitrescu, who writes for TLS (The Times Literary Supplement), LRB (The London Review of Books), a lot of these places, and she also said the same thing—that a lot of these journals are going into podcasts, and they're noticing a huge interest in the humanities and in the classics even at the same time as big institutions are really scaling back on those things. Humanities majors are dropping, classics majors are getting cut, book coverage at major periodicals is going down. It does seem like there are signals that are conflicting. I don't really know totally what to make of it. I do think there is some relation between those two things.Ted Gioia on Substack is always talking about how culture is stagnant, basically, and one of the symptoms of that is that “back list” really outsells “front list” for books. Even in 2010, 50 percent of the books that were sold were front-list titles, books that had been released in the last 18 months. Now it's something like only 35 percent of books or something like that are front-list titles. These could be completely wrong, but there's been a trend.I think the decrease in interest in front-list books is really what drives the loss of these book-review pages because they mostly review front-list books. So, I think that does imply that there's a lot of interest in old books. That's what our stagnant culture means.Oliver: Why do you think your own blog is popular with the rationalists?Kanakia: I don't know for certain. There was a story I wrote that was a joke. There are all these pop nonfiction books that aim to prove something that seems counterintuitive, so I wrote a parody of one of those where I aim to prove that reading is bad for you. This book has many scientific studies that show the more you read, the worse it is because it makes you very rigid.Scott Alexander, who is the archrationalist, really liked that, and he added me to his blog roll. Because of that, I got a thousand rationalist subscribers. I have found that rationalists at least somewhat interested in the classics. I think they are definitely interested in enduring sources of value. I've observed a fair amount of interest.Oliver: How much of a lay reader are you really? Because you read scholarship and critics and you can just quote John Gilroy in the middle of a piece or something.Kanakia: Yeah. That is a good question. I have definitely gotten more interested in secondary literature. In my book, I really talk about being a lay reader and personally having a nonacademic approach to literature. I do think that, over 15 years of being a lay reader, I have developed a lot of knowledge.I've also learned the kind of secondary literature that is really important. I think having historical context adds a lot and is invaluable. Right now I'm rereading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. When I first read it in 2010, I hardly knew anything about French history. I was even talking online with someone about how most people who read Les Miserables think it's set in the French Revolution. That's basically because Americans don't really know anything about French history.Everything makes just a lot more sense the more you know about the time because it was written for people in it. For people in 1860s France, who knew everything about their own recent history, that really adds a lot to it. I still don't tend to go that much into interpretive literature, literature that tries to do readings of the stories or tell me the meaning of the stories. I feel like I haven't really gotten that much out of that.Oliver: How long have you been learning Anglo-Saxon?Kanakia: I went through a big Anglo-Saxon phase. That was in 2010. It started because I started reading The Canterbury Tales in Middle English. There is a great app online called General Prologue created by one of your countrymen, Terry Richardson [NB it is Terry Jones], who loved Middle English. In this app, he recites the Middle English of the General Prologue. I started listening to this app, and I thought, I just really love the rhythms and the sounds of Middle English. And it's quite easy to learn. So then, I got really into that.And then I thought, but what about Anglo-Saxon? I'm very bad at languages. I studied Latin for seven years in middle school and high school. I never really got very far, but I thought, Anglo-Saxon has to be the easiest foreign language you can learn, right? So, I got into it.I cannot sight read Anglo-Saxon, but I really got into Anglo-Saxon poetry. I really liked the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Most people probably would not like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle because it's very repetitive, but that makes it great if you're a language learner because every entry is in this very repetitive structure. I just felt such a connection. I get in trouble when I say this kind of stuff, because I'm never quiet sure if it's 100 percent true. But it's certainly one of the oldest vernacular literatures in Europe. It's just so much older than most of the other medieval literature I've read. And it just was such a window into a different part of history I never knew about.Oliver: And you particularly like “The Dream of the Rood”?Kanakia: Yeah, “The Dream of the Rood” is my favorite Anglo-Saxon poem. “The Dream of the Rood” is a poem that is told from the point of view of Christ's cross. A man is having a dream. In this dream he encounters Christ's cross, and Christ's cross starts reciting to him basically the story of the crucifixion. At the end, the cross is buried. I don't know, it was just so haunting and powerful. Yeah, it was one of my favorites.Oliver: Why do you think Byron is a better poet than Alexander Pope?Kanakia: This is an argument I cannot get into. I think this is coming up because T. S. Eliot felt that Alexander Pope was a great poet because he really exemplified the spirit of the age. I don't know. I've tried to read Pope. It just doesn't do it for me. Whereas with Byron, I read Don Juan and found it entertaining. I enjoyed it. Then, his lyric poetry is just more entertaining to read. With Alexander Pope, I'm learning a lot about what kind of poetry people wrote in the 18th century, but the joy is not there.Oliver: Okay. Can we do a quick fire round where I say the name of a book and you just say what you think of it, whatever you think of it?Kanakia: Sure.Oliver: Okay. The Odyssey.Kanakia: The Odyssey. Oh, I love The Odyssey. It has a very strange structure, where it starts with Telemachus and then there's this flashback in the middle of it. It is much more readable than The Iliad; I'll say that.Oliver: Herodotus.Kanakia: Herodotus is wild. Going into Herodotus, I really thought it was about the Persian war, which it is, but it's mostly a general overview of everything that Herodotus knew, about anything. It's been a long time since I read it. I really appreciate the voice of Herodotus, how human it is, and the accumulation of facts. It was great.Oliver: I love the first half actually. The bit about the Persian war I'm less interested in, but the first half I think is fantastic. I particularly love the Egypt book.Kanakia: Oh yeah, the Egypt book is really good.Oliver: All those like giant beetles that are made of fire or whatever; I can't remember the details, but it's completely…Kanakia: The Greeks are also so fascinated by Egypt. They go down there like what is going on out there? Then, most of what we know about Egypt comes from this Hellenistic period, when the Greeks went to Egypt. Our Egyptian kings list comes from the Hellenistic period where some scholar decided to sort out what everybody was up to and put it all into order. That's why we have such an orderly story about Egypt. That's the story that the Greeks tried to tell themselves.Oliver: Marcus Aurelius.Kanakia: Marcus Aurelius. When I first read The Meditations, which I loved, obviously, I thought, “being the Roman emperor cannot be this hard.” It really was a black pill moment because I thought, “if the emperor of Rome is so unhappy, maybe human power really doesn't do it.”Knowing more about Marcus Aurelius, he did have quite a difficult life. He was at war for most of his—just stuck in the region in Germany for ages. He had various troubles, but yeah, it really was very stoic. It was, oh, I just have to do my duty. Very “heavy is the head that wears the crown” kind of stuff. I thought, “okay, I guess being Roman emperor is not so great.”Oliver: Omar Khayyam.Kanakia: Omar Khayyam. Okay, I've only read The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam by Edward Fitzgerald, which I loved, but I cannot formulate a strong opinion right now.Oliver: As You Like It.Kanakia: No opinions.Oliver: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.Kanakia: Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. I do have an opinion about this, which is that they should make a redacted version of Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson. I normally am not a big believer in abridgements because I feel like whatever is there is there. But, Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson, first of all, has a long portion before Boswell even meets Johnson. That portion drags; it's not that great. Then it has all these like letters that Johnson wrote, which also are not that great. What's really good is when Boswell just reports everything Johnson ever said, which is about half the book. You get a sense of Johnson's conversation and his personality, and that is very gripping. I've definitely thought that with a different presentation, this could still be popular. People would still read this.Oliver: The Communist Manifesto.Kanakia: The Communist Manifesto. It's very stirring. I love The Communist Manifesto. It has very haunting, powerful lines. I won't try to quote from it because I'll misquote them.Oliver: But it is remarkably well written.Kanakia: Oh yeah, it is a great work of literature.Oliver: Yeah.Kanakia: I read Capital [Das Kapital], which is not a great work of literature, and I would venture to say that it is not necessarily worth reading. It really feels like Marx's reputation is built on other political writings like The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and works like that, which really seem to have a lot more meat on the bone than Capital.Oliver: Pragmatism by William James.Kanakia: Pragmatism. I mean, I've mentioned that in my book. I love William James in general. I think William James was writing in this 19th-century environment where it seemed like some form of skepticism was the only rational solution. You couldn't have any source of value, and he really tried to cut through that with Pragmatism and was like, let's just believe the things that are good to believe. It is definitely at least useful to think, although someone else can always argue with you about what is useful to believe. But, as a personal guide for belief, I think it is still useful.Oliver: Major Barbara by George Bernard Shaw.Kanakia: No strong opinions. It was a long time ago that I read Major Barbara.Oliver: Tell me what you like about James Fenimore Cooper.Kanakia: James Fenimore Cooper. Oh, this is great. I have basically a list of Great Books that I want to read, but four or five years ago, I thought, “what's in all the other books that I know the names of but that are not reputed, are not the kind of books you still read?”That was when I read Walter Scott, who I really love. And I just started reading all kinds of books that were kind of well known but have kind of fallen into literary disfavor. In almost every case, I felt like I got a lot out of these books. So, nowadays when I approach any realm of literature, I always look for those books.In 19th-century American literature, the biggest no-longer-read book is The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper, which was America's first bestseller. He was the first American novelist that had a high reputation in Europe. The Last of the Mohicans is kind of a historical romance, à la Walter Scott, but much more tightly written and much more tightly plotted.Cooper has written five novels, the Leatherstocking Tales, that are all centered around this very virtuous, rough-hewn frontiersman, Natty Bumppo. He has his best friend, Chingachgook, who is the last of the Mohicans. He's the last of his tribe. And the two of these guys are basically very sad and stoic. Chingachgook is distanced from his tribe. Chingachgook has a tribe of Native Americans that he hates—I want to say it's the Huron. He's always like, “they're the bad ones,” and he's always fighting them. Then, Natty Bumppo doesn't really love settled civilization. He's not precisely at war with it, but he does not like the settlers. They're kind of stuck in the middle. They have various adventures, and I just thought it was so haunting and powerful.I've been reading a lot of other 19th-century American literature, and virtually none of it treats Native Americans with this kind of respect. There's a lot of diversity in the Native American characters; there's really an attempt to show how their society works and the various ways that leadership and chiefship works among them. There's this very haunting moment in The Last of the Mohicans, where this aged chief, Tamenund, comes out and starts speaking. This is a chief who, in American mythology, was famous for being a friend to the white people. But, James Fenimore Cooper writing in the 1820s has Tamenund come out at 80 years old and say, “we have to fight; we have to fight the white people. That's our only option.” It was just such a powerful moment and such a powerful book.I was really, really enthused. I read all of these Leatherstocking Tales. It was also a very strange experience to read these books that are generally supposed to be very turgid and boring, and then I read them and was like, “I understand. I'm so transported.” I understand exactly why readers in the 1820s loved this.Oliver: Which Walter Scott books do you like?Kanakia: I love all the Walter Scott books I've read, but the one I liked best was Kenilworth. Have you ever read Kenilworth?Oliver: I don't know that one.Kanakia: Yeah, it's about Elizabeth I, who had a romantic relationship with one of her courtiers.Oliver: The Earl of Essex?Kanakia: Yeah. She really thought they were going to get married, but then it turned out he was secretly married. Basically, I guess the implication is that he killed his wife in order to marry Queen Elizabeth I. It's a novel all about him and that situation, and it just felt very tightly plotted. I really enjoyed it.Oliver: What did you think of Rejection?Kanakia: Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte? Initially when I read this book, I enjoyed it, but I was like, “life cannot possibly be this sad.” It's five or six stories about these people who just have nothing going on. Their lives are so miserable, they can't find anyone to sleep with, and they're just doomed to be alone forever. I was like, “life can't be this bad.” But now thinking back over it, it is one of the most memorable books I've read in the last year. It really sticks with you. I feel like my opinion of this book has gone up a lot in retrospect.Oliver: How antisemitic is the House of Mirth?Kanakia: That is a hotly debated question, which I mentioned in my book. I think there has been a good case made that Edith Wharton, the author of House of Mirth, who was from an old New York family, was herself fairly antisemitic and did not personally like Jewish people. What she portrays in this book is that this old New York society also was highly suspicious of Jewish people and was organized to keep Jewish people out.In this book there is a rich Jewish man, Simon Rosedale, and there's a poor woman, Lily Bart. Lily Bart's main thing is whether she's going to marry the poor guy, Lawrence Selden, or the rich guy, Percy Gryce. She can't choose. She doesn't want to be poor, but she also is always bored by the rich guys. Meanwhile, through the whole book, there's Simon Rosedale, who's always like, “you should marry me.” He's the rich Jewish guy. He's like, “you should marry me. I will give you lots of money. You can do whatever you want.”Everybody else kind of just sees her as a woman and as a wife; he really sees her as an ally in his social climbing. That's his main motivation. The book is relatively clear that he has a kind of respect for her that nobody else does. Then, over the course of the book, she also gains a lot more respect for him. Basically, late in the book, she decides to marry him, but she has fallen a lot in the world. He's like, “that particular deal is not available anymore,” but he does offer her another deal that—although she finds it not to her taste—is still pretty good.He basically is like, “I'll give you some money, you'll figure out how to rehabilitate your reputation, and later down the line, we can figure something out.” So, I think with a great author like Edith Wharton, there's power in these portrayals. I felt it hard to come away from it feeling like the book is like a really antisemitic book.Oliver: Now, you note that the Great Books movement started out as something quite socially aspirational. Do you think it's still like that?Kanakia: I do think so. Yeah. For me, that's 100 percent what it was because I majored in econ. I always felt kind of inadequate as a writer against people who had majored in English. Then I started off as a science fiction writer, young adult writer, and I was like, “I'm going to read all these Great Books and then I'll have read the books that everybody else has read.” In my mind, that's also what it was—that there was some upper crust or literary society that was reading all these Great Books.That's really what did it. I do think there's still an element of aspiration to it because it's a club that you can join, that anyone can join. It's very straightforward to be a Great Books reader, and so I think there's still something there. I think because the Great Books movement has such a democratic quality to it, it actually doesn't get you to the top socially, which has always been the true, always been the case. But, that's okay. As long as you end up higher than where you started, that's fine.Oliver: What makes a book great?Kanakia: I talk about it this in the book, and I go through many different authors' conceptions of what makes a book great or what constitutes a classic. I don't know that anyone has come up with a really satisfying answer. The Horatian formulation from Horace—that a book is great or an author is great if it has lasted for a hundred years—is the one that seems to be the most accurate. Like, any book that's still being read a hundred years after it was written has a greatness.I do think that T. S. Eliott's formulation—that a civilization at its height produces certain literature and that literature partakes of the greatness of the civilization and summarizes the greatness of the civilization—does seem to have some kind of truth to it.But it's hard, right? Because the greatest French novel is In Search of Lost Time, but I don't know that anyone would say that the France in the 1920s was at its height. It's not a prescriptive thing, but it does seem like the way we read many of these Great Books, like Moby Dick, it feels like you're like communing with the entire society that produced it. So, maybe there's something there.Oliver: Now, you've used a list from Clifton Fadiman.Kanakia: Yes.Oliver: Rather than from Mortimer Adler or Harold Bloom or several others. Why this list?Kanakia: Well, the best reason is that it's actually the list I've just been using for the last 15 years. I went to a science fiction convention in 2009, Readercon, and at this science fiction convention was Michael Dirda, who was a Washington Post book critic. He had recently come out with his book, Classics for Pleasure, which I also bought and liked. But he said that the list he had always used was this Clifton Fadiman book. And so when I decided to start reading the Great Books, I went and got that book. I have perused many other lists over time, but that was always the list that seemed best to me.It seemed to have like the best mix. There's considerable variation amongst these lists, but there's also a lot of overlap. So any of these lists is going to have Dickens on it, and Tolstoy, and stuff like that. So really, you're just thinking about, “aside from Dickens and Tolstoy and George Eliot and Walt Whitman and all these people, who are the other 50 authors that you're going be reading?”The Mortimer Adler list is very heavy on philosophy. It has Plotinus on it. It has all these scientific works. I don't know, it didn't speak to me as much. Whereas, this Clifton Fadiman and John Major list has all these Eastern works on it. It has The Tale of Genji, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Story of the Stone, and that just spoke to me a little bit more.Oliver: What modern books will be on a future Great Books list, whether it's from someone alive or someone since the war.Kanakia: Have you ever heard of Robert Caro?Oliver: Sure.Kanakia: Yeah. I think his Lyndon Johnson books are great books. They have changed the field of biography. They're so complete, they seem to summarize an entire era, epoch. They're highly rated, but I feel like they're underrated as literature.What else? I was actually a little bit surprised in this Clifton Fadiman-John Major book, which came out in 1999, that there are not more African Americans in their list. Like, Invisible Man definitely seemed like a huge missed work. You know, it's hard. You would definitely want a book that has undergone enough critical evaluation that people are pretty certain that it is great. A lot of things that are more recent have not undergone that evaluation yet, but Invisible Man has, as have some works by Martin Luther King.Oliver: What about The Autobiography of Malcolm X?Kanakia: I would have to reread. I feel like it hasn't been evaluated much as a literary document.Oliver: Helen DeWitt?Kanakia: It's hard to say. It's so idiosyncratic, The Last Samurai, but it is certainly one of the best novels of the last 25 years.Oliver: Yeah.Kanakia: It is hard to say, because there's nothing else quite like it. But I would love if The Last Samurai was on a list like this; that would be amazing.Oliver: If someone wants to try the Great Books, but they think that those sort of classic 19th-century novels are too difficult—because they're long and the sentences are weird or whatever—what else should they do? Where else should they start?Kanakia: Well, it depends on what they're into, or it depends on their personality type. I think like there are people who like very, very difficult literature. There are people who are very into James Joyce and Proust. I think for some people the cost-benefit is better. If they're going to be pouring over some book for a long time, they would prefer if it was overtly difficult.If they're not like that, then I would say, there are many Great Books that are more accessible. Hemingway is a good one and Grapes of Wrath is wonderful. The 19th-century American books tend to be written in a very different register than the English books. If you read Moby Dick, it feels like it's written in a completely different language than Charles Dickens, even though they're writing essentially at the same time.Oliver: Is there too much Freud on the list that you've used?Kanakia: Maybe. I know that Interpretation of Dreams is on that list, which I've tried to read and have decided life is too short. I didn't really buy it, but I have read a fair amount of Freud. My impression of Freud was always that I would read Freud and somehow it would just seem completely fanciful or far out, like wouldn't ring true. But then when I started reading Freud, it was more the opposite. I was like, oh yeah, this seems very, very true.Like this battle between like the id and the ego and the super ego, and this feeling that like the psyche is at war with itself. Human beings really desire to be singular and exceptional, but then you're constantly under assault by the reality principle, which is that you're insignificant. That all seemed completely true. But then he tries to cure this somehow, which does not seem a curable problem. And he also situates the problem in some early sexual development, which also did not necessarily ring true. But no, I wouldn't say there's too much. Freud is a lot of fun. People should read Freud.Oliver: Which of the Great Books have you really not liked?Kanakia: I do get asked this quite a bit. I would say the Great Book that I really felt like—at least in translation—was not that rewarding in an unabridged version was Don Quixote. Because at least half the length of Don Quixote is these like interpolated novellas that are really long and tedious. I felt Don Quixote was a big slog. But maybe someday I'll go back and reread it and love it. Who knows?Oliver: Now you wrote that the question of biography is totally divorced from the question of what art is and how it operates. What do you think of George Orwell's supposition that if Shakespeare came back tomorrow, and we found out he used to rape children that we should—we would not say, you know, it's fine to carry on to doing that because he might write another King Lear.Kanakia: Well, if we discovered that Shakespeare was raping children, he should go to prison for that. No. It's totally divorced in both senses. You don't get any credit in the court of law because you are the writer of King Lear. If I murdered someone and then I was hauled in front of a judge and they were like, oh, Naomi's a genius, I wouldn't get off for murder. Nor should I get off for murder.So in terms of like whether we would punish Shakespeare for his crime of raping children, I don't think King Lear should count at all, but it's never used that way. It's never should someone go to prison or not for their crimes, because they're a genius. It's always used the other way, which is should we read King Lear knowing that the author raped children, but I also feel like that is immaterial. If you read King Lear, you're not enabling someone to rape children.Oliver: There's an almost endless amount of discussion these days about the Great Books and education and the value of the humanities, and what's the future of it all. What is your short opinion on that?Kanakia: My short opinion is that the Great Books at least are going to be fine. The Great Books will continue to be read, and they would even survive the university. All these books predate the university and they will survive the university. I feel like the university has stewarded literature in its own way for a while now and has made certain choices in that stewardship. I think if that stewardship was given up to more voluntary associations that had less financial support, then I think the choices would probably be very different. But I still think the greatest works would survive.Oliver: Now this is a quote from the book: “I am glad that reactionaries love the Great Books. They've invited a Trojan horse into their own camp.” Tell us what you mean by that.Kanakia: Let's say you believed in Christian theocracy, that you thought America should be organized on explicitly Christian principles. And because you believe in Christian theocracy, you organize a school that teaches the Great Books. Many of these schools that are Christian schools that have Great Books programs will also teach Nietzsche. They definitely put some kind of spin on Nietzsche. But they will teach anti-Christ, and that is a counterpoint to Christian morality and Christian theology. There are many things that you'll read in the Great Books that are corrosive to various kinds of certainties.If someone who I think is bad starts educating themselves in the Great Books, I don't think that the Great Books are going to make them worse from my perspective. So it's good.Oliver: How did reading the Mahabharata change you?Kanakia: Oh yeah, so the Mahabharata is a Hindu epic from, let's say, the first century AD. I'm Indian and most Indians are familiar with the basic outline of the Mahabharata story because it's told in various retellings, and there's a TV serial that my parents would rent from the Indian store growing up and we would watch it tape by tape. So I'm very familiar with it. Like there's never been a time I have not known this story.But I was also familiar with the idea that there is a written version in Sanskrit that's extremely long. It is 10 times as long as the Iliad and the Odyssey combined. This Mahabharata story is not that long. I've read a version of it that's about 800 pages long. So how could something that's 10 times this long be the same? A new unabridged translation came out 10 years ago. So I started reading it, and it basically contains the entire Sanskrit Vedic worldview in it.I had never been exposed to this very coherently laid-out version of what I would call Hindu cosmology and ethics. Hindus don't really get taught those things in a very organized way. The book is basically about dharma, the principle of rightness and how this principle of rightness orders the universe and how it basically results in everybody getting their just deserts in various ways. As I was reading the book, I was like, this seems very true that there is some cosmic rebalancing here, and that everything does turn out more or less the way it should, which is not something that I can defend on a rational level.But just reading the book, it just made me feel like, yes, that is true. There is justice, the universe is organized by justice. It took me about a year to read the whole thing. I started waking up at 5:00 a.m. and reading for an hour each morning, and it just was a really magical, profound experience that brought me a lot closer to my grandmother's religious beliefs.Oliver: Is it ever possible to persuade someone with arguments that they should read literature, or is it just something that they have to have an inclination toward and then follow someone's example? Because I feel like we have so many columns and op-eds and “books are good because of X reason, and it's very important because of Y reason.” And like, who cares? No one cares. If you are persuaded, you take all that very seriously and you argue about what exactly are the precise reasons we should say. And if you're not persuaded, you don't even know this is happening.And what really persuades you is like, oh, Naomi sounds pretty compelling about the Mahabharata. That sounds cool. I'll try that. It's much more of a temperamental, feelingsy kind of thing. Is it possible to argue people into thinking about this differently? Or should we just be doing what we do and setting an example and hoping that people will follow.Kanakia: As to whether it's possible or not, I do not know. But I do think these columns are too ambitious. A thousand-word column and the imagined audience for this column is somebody who doesn't read books at all, who doesn't care about literature at all. And then in a thousand-word column, you're going to persuade them to care about literature. This is no good. It's so unnecessary.Whereas there's a much broader range of people who love to read books, but have never picked up Moby Dick or have never picked up Middlemarch, or who like maybe loved Middlemarch, but never thought maybe I should then go on and read Jane Austen and George Eliot.I think trying to shift people from “I don't read books at all; reading books is not something I do,” to being a Great Books card-carrying lover of literature is a lot. I really aim for a much lower result than that, which is to whatever extent people are interested in literature, they should pursue that interest. And as the rationalists would say, there's a lot of alpha in that; there's a lot to be gained from converting people who are somewhat interested into people who are very interested.Oliver: If there was a more widespread practice of humanism in education and the general culture, would that make America into a more liberal country in any way?Kanakia: What do you mean by humanism?Oliver: You know, the old-fashioned liberal arts approach, the revival of the literary journal culture, the sort of depolitical approach to literature, the way things used to be, as it were.Kanakia: It couldn't hurt. It couldn't hurt is my answer to that question.Oliver: Okay.Kanakia: What you're describing is basically the way I was educated. I went to Catholic school in DC at St. Anselm's Abbey School, in Northeast, DC, grade school. Highly recommend sending your little boys there. No complaints about the school. They talked about humanism all the time and all these civic virtues. I thought it was great. I don't know what people in other schools learn, but I really feel like it was a superior way of teaching.Now, you know, it was Catholic school, so a lot of people who graduated from my school are conservatives and don't really have the beliefs that I have, but that's okay.Oliver: Tell us about your reading habits.Kanakia: I read mostly ebooks. I really love ebooks because you can make the type bigger. I just read all the time. They vary. I don't wake up at 5:00 a.m. to read anymore. Sometimes if I feel like I'm not reading enough—because I write this blog, and the blog doesn't get written unless I'm reading. That's the engine, and so sometimes I set aside a day each week to read. But generally, the reading mostly takes care of itself.What I tend to get is very into a particular thing, and then I'll start reading more and more in that area. Recently, I was reading a lot of New Yorker stories. So I started reading more and more of these storywriters that have been published in the New Yorker and old anthologies of New Yorker stories. And then eventually I am done. I'm tired. It's time to move on.Oliver: But do you read several books at once? Do you make notes? Do you abandon books? How many hours a day do you read?Kanakia: Hours a day: Because my e-reader keeps these stats, I'd say 15 or 20 hours a week of reading. Nowadays because I write for the blog, I often think as I'm reading how I would frame a post about this. So I look for quotes, like what quote I would look at. I take different kinds of notes. I'll make more notes if I'm more confused by what is going on. Especially with nonfiction books, I'll try sometimes to make notes just to iron out what exactly I think is happening or what I think the argument is. But no, not much of a note taker.Oliver: What will you read next?Kanakia: What will I read next? Well, I've been thinking about getting back into Indian literature. Right now I'm reading Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. But there's an Indian novel called Jhootha Sach, which is a partition novel that is originally in Hindi. And it's also a thousand pages long, and is frequently compared to Les Miserables and War and Peace. So I'm thinking about tackling that finally.Oliver: Naomi Kanakia, thank you very much.Kanakia: Thanks for having me. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.commonreader.co.uk

In this episode, William Green chats with Robert Hagstrom, Chief Investment Officer & Senior Portfolio Manager at Equity Compass. Robert is the author of a classic book, “The Warren Buffett Way,” which lays out the principles that made Buffett the greatest investor of all. Here, Robert shares life-changing lessons he learned from Buffett & two other icons: Charlie Munger & Bill Miller. He also explains why a focused, low-turnover portfolio is a brilliant but difficult strategy. IN THIS EPISODE YOU'LL LEARN: 00:00 - Intro 04:39 - How Robert Hagstrom became a multidisciplinary thinker. 08:09 - How to think better & invest better by tuning out the noise. 26:01 - What mistake Warren Buffett made most frequently. 35:30 - Why AI falls short when it comes to investment decisions. 35:30 - Why Nvidia is Robert's biggest holding. 01:04:49 - How Miller endured & recovered from a devastating mistake. 01:14:43 - What insights led Bill Miller to make billions in Amazon & Bitcoin. 01:32:04 - Why it's smart but really hard to own a concentrated portfolio. 01:34:29 - Why Robert views Modern Portfolio Theory with disdain. 01:42:23 - What advice Robert received from investing giant Bill Ruane. 01:48:06 - Why you should be deeply wary of investing in private equity. 02:04:04 - What life lesson Robert has learned from Buffett. Disclaimer: Slight discrepancies in the timestamps may occur due to podcast platform differences. BOOKS AND RESOURCES Join Clay and a select group of passionate value investors for a retreat in Big Sky, Montana. Learn more ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join the exclusive ⁠⁠⁠⁠TIP Mastermind Community⁠⁠⁠⁠ to engage in meaningful stock investing discussions with Stig, Clay, Kyle, and the other community members. Robert Hagstrom's investment firm, Equity Compass Investment Management. Robert Hagstrom's books: The Warren Buffett Way, The Warren Buffett Portfolio, Investing: The Last Liberal Art. Mortimer Adler's How to Read a Book. Louis Menand's The Metaphysical Club. William Green's podcast interview with Bill Miller. William Green's podcast interview with Bill Nygren. William Green's book, “Richer, Wiser, Happier” – ⁠⁠read the reviews of this book⁠⁠. Follow William Green on ⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠. Check out all the books mentioned and discussed in our podcast episodes ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠. Enjoy ad-free episodes when you subscribe to our ⁠⁠⁠⁠Premium Feed⁠⁠⁠⁠. NEW TO THE SHOW? Get smarter about valuing businesses in just a few minutes each week through our newsletter, ⁠⁠⁠⁠The Intrinsic Value Newsletter⁠⁠⁠⁠. Check out our ⁠⁠⁠⁠We Study Billionaires Starter Packs⁠⁠⁠⁠. Follow our official social media accounts: ⁠⁠⁠⁠X (Twitter)⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠ | ⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠. Browse through all our episodes (complete with transcripts) ⁠⁠⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠⁠. Try our tool for picking stock winners and managing our portfolios: ⁠⁠⁠⁠TIP Finance Tool⁠⁠⁠⁠. Enjoy exclusive perks from our ⁠⁠⁠⁠favorite Apps and Services⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn how to better start, manage, and grow your business with the ⁠⁠⁠⁠best business podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠. SPONSORSSupport our free podcast by supporting our sponsors: SimpleMining HardBlock AnchorWatch Human Rights Foundation Cape Unchained Vanta Shopify Onramp Abundant Mines HELP US OUT! Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a ⁠⁠⁠⁠rating and review⁠⁠⁠⁠ on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠! It takes less than 30 seconds, and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it! Support our show by becoming a premium member! ⁠⁠⁠https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm⁠⁠⁠ Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://theinvestorspodcastnetwork.supportingcast.fm

How should we teach classical education? In this episode of Classical Et Cetera, we dive into the real work of teaching—exploring what it means to guide students through knowledge, skills, and the deeper understanding of ideas and values. Drawing on insights from Mortimer Adler and others, we examine the Socratic method, the role of coaching in skill development, and why no single approach is enough. From didactic instruction to Socratic dialogue, we share a practical and philosophical framework for teaching that meets students where they are—and takes them further. Join the conversation about how classical teaching really works!   Read Martin's article _How to Teach_ right here: https://www.memoriapress.com/articles/how-to-teach-mortimer-adlers-three-pillars-revised/?utm_source=PodBean&utm_medium=CETC&utm_campaign=171   And shop our complete line of Classical Christian Curriculum! https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/?utm_source=PodBean&utm_medium=CETC&utm_campaign=171     *What We're Reading* from This Episode:  _The Name of the Rose_—Umberto Eco (Paul) _No Country for Old Men_—Cormac McCarthy (Paul) _The Island of Sea Women_—Lisa See (Jessica)    _Bloomsbury Girls_—Natalie Jenner (Tanya)  _Hamlet_—William Shakespeare (Martin)

Have any questions, insights, or feedback? Send me a text!Length of article: 2 pagesLength of audio: 7 minutes 22 secondsSynopsis: This is the audio version of the 2-page article I wrote and published on rabbischneeweiss.substack.com/ on 4/25/25, titled: Mortimer J. Adler's Mussar for Religious Educators. This excerpt from a lecture by Mortimer Adler to Catholic educators speaks just as powerfully to Jewish educators. If we truly took his words to heart, Jewish education would be in a far better place.-----The total cost of producing my five podcasts in 2024 came to $1,455—an expense I would have otherwise had to cover myself. I'm deeply grateful to the generous sponsors who helped shoulder that cost and supported my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone.-----If you've gained from what you've learned here, please consider contributing to my Patreon at www.patreon.com/rabbischneeweiss. Alternatively, if you would like to make a direct contribution to the "Rabbi Schneeweiss Torah Content Fund," my Venmo is @Matt-Schneeweiss, and my Zelle and PayPal are mattschneeweiss at gmail. Even a small contribution goes a long way to covering the costs of my podcasts, and will provide me with the financial freedom to produce even more Torah content for you.If you would like to sponsor a day's or a week's worth of content, or if you are interested in enlisting my services as a teacher or tutor, you can reach me at rabbischneeweiss at gmail. Thank you to my listeners for listening, thank you to my readers for reading, and thank you to my supporters for supporting my efforts to make Torah ideas available and accessible to everyone.-----Substack: rabbischneeweiss.substack.com/Patreon: patreon.com/rabbischneeweissYouTube Channel: youtube.com/rabbischneeweissInstagram: instagram.com/rabbischneeweiss/"The Stoic Jew" Podcast: thestoicjew.buzzsprout.com"Machshavah Lab" Podcast: machshavahlab.buzzsprout.com"The Mishlei Podcast": mishlei.buzzsprout.com"Rambam Bekius" Podcast: rambambekius.buzzsprout.com"The Tefilah Podcast": tefilah.buzzsprout.comOld Blog: kolhaseridim.blogspot.com/WhatsApp Content Hub (where I post all my content and announce my public classes): https://chat.whatsapp.com/GEB1EPIAarsELfHWuI2k0HAmazon Wishlist: amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/Y72CSP86S24W?ref_=wl_sharel

A great learning experience comes at the material using different practices—listening, reading, memorizing, interrogating, doing, speaking, and/or writing about the idea until it crystallizes in the student's mind. And a great teacher facilitates those practices in his class plan. For his talk at the 2024 Forum Teaching Conference, upper school teacher Austin Hatch borrowed the “three modes of teaching” proposed by author and educator Mortimer Adler. These are: didactic instruction, supervised practice, and active participation. Mr. Hatch explains why they are each needed in good proportion, and what each can look like in the classroom. Chapters: 00:04:25 The beginning and end is friendship 00:09:57 Didactic instruction: be brief and clear 00:12:23 Supervised practice: make the time 00:20:54 Active participation: host a seminar or performance 00:31:27 Beholding a man in performance 00:33:21 Q1: preparing students for a seminar 00:35:07 Q2: escaping the grade game Links: Paideia Program: An Educational Syllabus by Mortimer Adler De Amicitia (On Friendship) by Cicero Featured opportunities: Teaching Essentials Workshop at The Heights School (June 16-20, 2025)

Years ago, Mortimer Adler wrote a book titled How to Read a Book. It sounded elementary, but it proved to be absolutely necessary. It's highly likely that knowing how to listen to a sermon may be equally elementary and necessary in understanding and applying what is taught to everyday life. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/508/29

Years ago, Mortimer Adler wrote a book titled How to Read a Book. It sounded elementary, but it proved to be absolutely necessary. It's highly likely that knowing how to listen to a sermon may be equally elementary and necessary in understanding and applying what is taught to everyday life. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/508/29

Years ago, Mortimer Adler wrote a book titled How to Read a Book. It sounded elementary, but it proved to be absolutely necessary. It's highly likely that knowing how to listen to a sermon may be equally elementary and necessary in understanding and applying what is taught to everyday life. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/508/29

Years ago, Mortimer Adler wrote a book titled How to Read a Book. It sounded elementary, but it proved to be absolutely necessary. It's highly likely that knowing how to listen to a sermon may be equally elementary and necessary in understanding and applying what is taught to everyday life. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/508/29

Register your feedback here. Always good to hear from you!In lieu of my regular monthly report, I am here today to finish my list of the best books I've read this year. My final total for 2024 is going to come in at between 204 and 210 books — well off my ridiculous pace of 2023, but still, a lot. Obviously I have no hope of retaining everything or even anything from the vast majority of them. But casting a wide net makes it more likely that I find a few real delights. With a great deal of effort, I've whittled them to 10. Here they are. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty SmithTombstone, by Tom ClavinThe Little Girl who Fought the Great Depression, by John F. KassonThe Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas HardyThe Battle for the Beginning, by John MacArthur* Thunderstruck, by Eric LarsonWorst. President. Ever., by Robert Strauss* Luckenbach, Texas, by Becky Crouch PattersonThe Boys in the Boat, by Daniel James BrownGoodbye, Mr. Chips, by James HiltonA Man of Iron, by Troy SenekGod's Hand on America, by Michael Medved* Boundaries, by Henry Cloud and John TownsendHow to Read a Book, by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren* = carryovers from the list from the first half of the yearCheck out Hal on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@halhammons9705Hal Hammons serves as preacher and shepherd for the Lakewoods Drive church of Christ in Georgetown, Texas. He is the host of the Citizen of Heaven podcast. You are encouraged to seek him and the Lakewoods Drive church through Facebook and other social media. Lakewoods Drive is an autonomous group of Christians dedicated to praising God, teaching the gospel to all who will hear, training Christians in righteousness, and serving our God and one another faithfully. We believe the Bible is God's word, that Jesus died on the cross for our sins, that heaven is our home, and that we have work to do here while we wait. Regular topics of discussion and conversation include: Christians, Jesus, obedience, faith, grace, baptism, New Testament, Old Testament, authority, gospel, fellowship, justice, mercy, faithfulness, forgiveness, Twenty Pages a Week, Bible reading, heaven, hell, virtues, character, denominations, submission, service, character, COVID-19, assembly, Lord's Supper, online, social media, YouTube, Facebook.

The foundation of a deep education is living ideas. Learn what Charlotte Mason has to say about the role of living ideas with insights brought to bear from Plato and Mortimer Adler. Kolby, Jason and Patrick discuss ideas from the vantage point of educational philosophy and then provide some practical tips for you to apply living ideas in your classroom. The Educational Renaissance Podcast is a production of Educational Renaissance where we promote a rebirth of ancient wisdom for the modern era. We seek to inspire educators by fusing the best of modern research with the insights of the great philosophers of education. Join us in the great conversation and share with a friend or colleague to keep the renaissance spreading. Take a deeper dive into training resources produced by Educational Renaissance such as Dr. Patrick Egan's new book entitled Training the Prophetic Voice available now through ⁠⁠⁠⁠Amazon⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Years ago, Mortimer Adler wrote a book titled How to Read a Book. It sounded elementary, but it proved to be absolutely necessary. It's highly likely that knowing how to listen to a sermon may be equally elementary and necessary in understanding and applying what is taught to everyday life. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/508/29

Years ago, Mortimer Adler wrote a book titled How to Read a Book. It sounded elementary, but it proved to be absolutely necessary. It's highly likely that knowing how to listen to a sermon may be equally elementary and necessary in understanding and applying what is taught to everyday life. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/508/29

In this talk we cover the third and fourth chapters of Adrians Johns' book. The things that stood out to me were more about the social importance of reading rather than the research technologies and data collected. There was a profound anxiety that an American public that wasn't literate would not be up to the challenges of the 20th century. There's an explicit connection here to Mortimer Adler's idea of the Great Books helping people prepare to be better citizens, and Johns actually mentions Adler in Chapter 4. To watch a video of this conversation, visit https://open.substack.com/pub/danallosso/p/science-of-reading-meeting-3?r=i937&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true

YOUTH MINISTRY Wisdom from C.S. Lewis, the Gospel of John and a book on how to read a book – Steve digs into some curriculum and strategy for teaching disciples how to be disciples. Referenced in this episode: CCC 103, 131-133 The Gospel of John How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 21:30:00 GMT http://relay.fm/focused/196 http://relay.fm/focused/196 David Sparks and Mike Schmitz Cognitive neuroscientist and reading warrior Dr. Maryanne Wolf joins us to talk about the science of reading and how what we read changes our brains. Cognitive neuroscientist and reading warrior Dr. Maryanne Wolf joins us to talk about the science of reading and how what we read changes our brains. clean 4735 Cognitive neuroscientist and reading warrior Dr. Maryanne Wolf joins us to talk about the science of reading and how what we read changes our brains. This episode of Focused is sponsored by: Zocdoc: Find the right doctor, right now with Zocdoc. Sign up for free. Indeed: Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide using Indeed to hire great talent fast. Harvard Business Review: The leading destination for smart management thinking. Subscriptions start at just $10/month with code FOCUSED. Guest Starring: Maryanne Wolf Links and Show Notes: Deep Focus: Extended episodes with bonus deep dive content. Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century by Maryanne Wolf How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler

Tue, 30 Jan 2024 21:30:00 GMT http://relay.fm/focused/196 http://relay.fm/focused/196 Focus & The Reading Life, with Maryanne Wolf 196 David Sparks and Mike Schmitz Cognitive neuroscientist and reading warrior Dr. Maryanne Wolf joins us to talk about the science of reading and how what we read changes our brains. Cognitive neuroscientist and reading warrior Dr. Maryanne Wolf joins us to talk about the science of reading and how what we read changes our brains. clean 4735 Cognitive neuroscientist and reading warrior Dr. Maryanne Wolf joins us to talk about the science of reading and how what we read changes our brains. This episode of Focused is sponsored by: Zocdoc: Find the right doctor, right now with Zocdoc. Sign up for free. Indeed: Join more than 3.5 million businesses worldwide using Indeed to hire great talent fast. Harvard Business Review: The leading destination for smart management thinking. Subscriptions start at just $10/month with code FOCUSED. Guest Starring: Maryanne Wolf Links and Show Notes: Deep Focus: Extended episodes with bonus deep dive content. Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf Reader, Come Home by Maryanne Wolf The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler Tales of Literacy for the 21st Century by Maryanne Wolf How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler

How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler & Charles Van Doren is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader. Explains not just why we should read books, but how we should read them. Masterfully done, from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading this one has it all. The Classic Guide to Intelligent Reading "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler & Charles Van Doren - Book PReview Book of the Week - BOTW - Season 7 Book 4 Buy the book on Amazon https://amzn.to/42779mZ GET IT. READ :) #reading #books #growth  FIND OUT which HUMAN NEED is driving all of your behavior http://6-human-needs.sfwalker.com/ Human Needs Psychology + Emotional Intelligence + Universal Laws of Nature = MASTER OF LIFE AWARENESS https://www.sfwalker.com/master-life-awareness --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sfwalker/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/sfwalker/support

Welcome to Story Conversations, a podcast where Stephen and Travis discuss this week's sermon, answer your questions, and chat about how God's word impacts our lives. Text questions to (909) 317-3508.In this week's episode, Stephen and Travis answer questions about how to read the Bible, Christian ethics, and legalism.Books mentioned:How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler.How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth by Gordon Fee & Douglas StuartCheck out our website: https://story.churchInstagram: @ourstorychurch  Learn more about Story Church at our website: story.church.

Dr. Richard Meloche, Dr. Aaron Henderson, Dcn. Harrison Garlick, and Adam Minihan ask the question, "Why read the Great Books and how do you read them well?"In this episode, they discuss:What are the Great Books?Why should we read the Great Books?How reading the Great Books helps form the person.How reading the Great Books will help form the cultureHere is a copy of the text read at the beginning of the episode:Avoiding the Unreal: How to Read the Great Books WellBy Deacon Harrison GarlickOriginally published on The Alcuin Institute for Catholic CultureI. Reclaim your Education“We are concerned as anybody else at the headlong plunge into the abyss that Western civilization seems to be taking,” wrote Robert M. Hutchins, editor of the 1952 Great Books of the Western World.[1] In order to “recall the West to sanity,” Hutchins, and his associate editor Mortimer Adler, compiled the fifty-four volume Great Books of the Western World series representing the primary texts from the greatest intellects in Western history.[2] From Homer, to Dante, to Shakespeare, they saw these authors in a dialogue, a “Great Conversation,” that gave the West a distinctive character.[3] These authors, especially the ancient and medieval ones, had contributed to the rise of the liberal arts and to the belief that the liberally educated man was one who had disciplined his passions in pursuit of the good. As Hutchins observed, “the aim of liberal education is human excellence.”[4]Yet, Hutchins saw the West as undergoing a practical book burning.[5] The great books were being removed from Western education and with them any semblance of a true liberal education. Today, the book burning continues. It is evident that modern education is more a training—it trains students for a societal function and delegates the holistic, human formation to a culture of relativism. A college graduate is no longer expected to be “acquainted with the masterpieces of his tradition” nor the perennial questions into truth, beauty, or goodness.[6] We are deaf to the “Great Conversation.” We are cut off from the great treasury of our intellectual inheritance and only vaguely aware it even exists.The great books are an invitation to reclaim your education. They are a remedy to the privations of modern education and a salvageable substitute for our lack of a robust liberal arts formation. As Hutchins advocated, in reading the authors of the great books “we are still in the ordinary world, but it is an ordinary world transfigured and seen through the eyes of wisdom and genius.”

This episode continues my sporadic series on the various fields students may choose to study while in college. My guest is Dr. Hannah Eagleson studied the great books at St. John's College (Annapolis, MD) during her Masters degree, then went on to earn a PhD in Renaissance literature at the University of Delaware. She has written study guides to The Lord of the Rings and to works by C. S. Lewis and Dorothy L. Sayers. Dr. Eagleson also develops programming to support Christian scholars as they follow Christ and love their neighbors, including work with Global Scholars, Chesterton House (a Christian study center at Cornell University), and the American Scientific Affiliation (a scholarly and professional society for Christians in the sciences).   In this podcast we discuss: What the “Great Books” are What “Great Books” university programs are and why they were formed Difference between Great Books programs at pluralistic and Christian universities Defining the important literary term “canon” How Hannah got interested in the Great Books and these university programs The value of understanding the classical modes of education: grammar, logic, and rhetoric and Classical Christian Education How the classical model of education contributed to interest in Great Book programs Hannah's perspective on the medieval period of intellectual history, as a corrective to our current negative perspectives Details of specific Great Books programs How Hannah benefitted from being in a Great Books program The “seminar” approach to coursework in a Great Books program Why “new” is not necessarily “better,” especially concerning books How a Great Books program does and does not help you get a job and make a living, and strategies to better your chances What a “liberal arts” education is and is not      Strengths and weaknesses of Great Books programs Suggestions if you want to use a Great Books program to prepare you for graduate studies How Hannah's Great Books program continues to shape her today, and will into the future The positives and negatives of how social media encourages us to engage texts Defining “literary criticism”   Resources mentioned during our conversation: Britannica's Great Books of the Western World series, compiled by Mortimer Adler and Robert Hutchins of the University of Chicago Baylor Great Texts Program, an honors program within a Christian university setting with many different majors Biola Torrey Honors College an honors program within a Christian university setting with many different majors Columbia University Core Curriculum (a program within a secular Ivy League university that engages with great books) Notre Dame Program of Liberal Studies Great Books Seminars, a program within a Catholic university setting with many different majors St. John's College, Annapolis and Santa Fe (the whole program is Great Books) Thomas Aquinas College, Catholic (the whole program is Great Books) Dorothy Sayers, “The Lost Tools of Learning” C. S. Lewis, “On The Reading of Old Books”  George Herbert's poetry John Donne's poetry Chesterton House, the Christian Study Center at Cornell University “Why You Need to Join the Great Conversation About the Great Books,” The Art of Manliness Podcast #430 The New Yorker article “What's So Great About Great-Books Courses?”

This week's episode is another amazing graduate interview, this time with Andrew Read! Andrew was one of Tatiana's scholars when she mentored Shakespeare while she was in college. Andrew gained a strong sense of patriotism and the love of history and the English language through his experiences in the LEMI projects, but more than that, he made deeper connections. Check out this week's episode to learn more! LINKS The Moral Molecule by Paul Zak The Great Conversation by Mortimer Adler

Proverbios 14:6 Busca el escarnecedor la sabidura y no la halla; Mas al hombre entendido la sabidura le es fcil." To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/1235/29

There's a crisis of loneliness in the world, and a lot of it has to do with being closed off to other people. If we want to be open to other people, it means we need to live in a world that's big enough for people to disagree. Being open to potential conflict and disagreement is a necessary step to having a deeper relationship. The book we mention is "The Seven Levels of Intimacy" by Matthew Kelly, flavored a little bit by Diedrich von Hildebrand's "Liturgy and Personality" and Mortimer Adler's "Aristotle for Everybody".

In this week's conversation between Dr. James Emery White and co-host Alexis Drye, they take a break from discussing what's happening in culture to talk about how to become a student of culture. While Dr. White touched on this briefly in the podcast's inaugural episode CCP1: Welcome to the C&C Podcast, this episode really dives down into his practices for staying on top of what's happening in our world and how the church should respond and engage. Episode Links Being a student of culture is something Dr. White considers vital to his role in the church. He has a daily practice of reviewing more than 15 periodicals to see how they are engaging the news. The three he suggests to be most helpful for a true exploration of cultural events are: The Atlantic, National Public Radio, and The Washington Post. And for those in the Christian world he recommends: Christianity Today Magazine, UVA's Hedgehog Review, and Q from Gabe Lyons. Don't have time to read through multiple articles looking for important cultural trends? That's why Dr. White selects the four most relevant stories and posts these each day at churchandculture.org on our Daily Headline News. He often uses these cultural stories and findings as the source of inspiration for topics for his twice-weekly Church & Culture blog, which you can subscribe to for free on the Church & Culture website. Once you subscribe, you'll receive the blog delivered straight to your inbox every Monday and Thursday. Dr. White also uses his extensive research and study of culture to pour into the many books that he has written. There were five books specifically mentioned in this episode that are particularly relevant for the understanding of today's culture: Serious Times: Making Your Life Matter in an Urgent Day on understanding history as it relates to today's culture; A Mind for God which is extremely important for developing and maintaining a Christian mind and worldview; The Rise of the Nones: Understanding and Reaching the Religiously Unaffiliated to understand the alarming rise in those who claim no religious affiliation whatsoever; Meet Generation Z to grasp what makes this generation particularly unique and a primary mission field for the church; and finally his latest release, Hybrid Church: Rethinking the Church for a Post-Christian Digital Age looking at the digital revolution that has taken place in our day and the need for the church to adapt. Also, for help with how to quickly and efficiently read a book, Dr. White recommended “How to Read a Book” by Mortimer Adler. Finally, the concern with people creating a “Daily Me” was brought up during today's conversation. This is the idea that people tend to cultivate their news feed through social media to only show them stories that align with their political and ideological beliefs. You can listen to the recent podcast episode CCP71: On Social Media and Mental Health for a deeper look into this topic.

Last year I interviewed Margaret Atwood about "the role" of the writer. No such thing she informed me. So we talked about the "non-role." Combatative she is. Just like Tim Parks. He talks with me here about the other end of the spectrum, the reader. How to be a better one. I want him to be prescriptive, he won't be. But he does provide a lot of excellent insights, despite the resistence. Tim is an author, essayist, and translator. He was born in Manchester in 1954, grew up in London, and studied at Cambridge and Harvard. Not sure where or if he graduated from anywhere, but no matter. He's written 19 novels including Europa, Destiny, and most recently Hotel Milano, plus numerous works of non-fiction, including Where I'm Reading From, which we reference during our conversation. He's a regular contributor to the London Review of Books and the New York Review of Books. Aside from his own writing he has translated works by Moravia, Pavese, Calvino, Machiavelli and Leopardi from Italian into English. He's a very astute reader. A best practitioner I'd say, which makes him eligible to be a Biblio File podcast guest - given that our mission is to interview the best in the world of books. I invited him to talk about how "best" to go about reading a book. We talk about Borges's essays - notably one on James Joyce's perfect reader; an author's manner of addressing the reader, what the reader brings to the text, having an open attitude about what you read; Thomas Hardy; D.H. Lawrence as one of Hardy's best readers; Mortimer Adler; being argumentative, and more.

“Okumanın çoğu okuyarak yapılmaz." Üç yıl önceki popüler bir bölümün sıfırdan kaydedilmiş ve genişletilmiş hali.Konular:(01:11) Orijinal bölüm (Yazı)(03:36) Okumak mı izlemek mi dinlemek mi(08:40) Ekran mı kağıt mı?(10:11) Odaklanma periyodu(13:15) Alışkanlık oluşturmak(14:50) Mortimer Adler'e dönüş(21:42) Tekrar tekrar okumak.Kaynaklar:Yazı: Why we remember more by reading – especially printYazı: Reading vs Watching Videos: What Science SaysVideo: The Ideal Length of Time for Focused Work | Dr. Andrew HubermanKitap Listesi: Mortimer J. Adler's reading listSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Abigail van der Beken joined us again, hooray! She came to talk about education, philosophy and how big ideas are for everyone. And, here's the Mortimer Adler book we are talking about. Enjoy!

El mundo está cambiando día tras día. ¿Cómo puedes mantenerte actualizado? ¿Qué haces para salir de tus rutinas y ampliar tus horizontes? ¿Y cuáles son las claves de la mejora continúa?Ese es el tema principal del programa de esta semana, donde aprenderás todo sobre el aprendizaje y mejora continua o kaizen con Jaime Rodríguez de Santiago.Notas de programaLas notas del programa están disponibles en https://kenso.es/episodio/241-jaime-rodriguez-santiago-kaizenÍndice de la entrevista(01:49) Fascinación por la tecnología(08:41) Inspiración, transpiración y azar(14:48) Cuando abandonar un proyecto(19:01) Fortaleza tus fortalezas(25:08) Aplicando el kaizen(33:21) El valor de las generalistas(37:47) Lectura y aprendizaje(45:07) Los planes del futuro(46:39) ¿Cuál es tu protopía favorita?(49:20) Cuestionario KENSO(51:35) Resumen i despedidas(53:32) ¡Nos escuchamos muy pronto!Recursos mencionadosWeb: Kaizen con Jaime Rodríguez de SantiagoPodcast: Aprender de grandesVídeo: Jandro on Penn & TellerEpisodio: Boro Mas. Ganarse la vida en el podcast Kapital de Joan TubaoIngeniero que escribe en El País: Kiko LlanerasLibro: Cómo fracasar en casi todo y aun así triunfar: Algo así como la historia de mi vida de Scott AdamsLibro: En sólo 20 horas: Aprende lo que quieras de manera rápida de Josh KaufmanReseña: Cómo leer un libro de Mortimer Adler y Charles van DorenResúmenes de libros: BlinkistResúmenes de resúmenes de libros: Four minute booksPodcast: Nada que ganar de Cristina Carrascosa, Javier Recuenco y Jaime RodríguezEpisodio 230: Actualízate para tu futuro profesional con Mónica Quintana & David AlayónLibro: Esto es agua: Algunas ideas, expuestas en una ocasión especial, sobre cómo vivir con compasión de Foster WallaceCanción: Necesito droga y amor de ExtremoduroPelícula: El apartamento de Billy Wilder Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A deep dive on marginalia. What is it, why should you do it, and how does it reveal the more joyful side of history's most famous sadboy, Edgar Allan Poe? All that and more in this extended love letter to writing in books.Sponsor:ZocDoc, zocdoc.com/coolstuffLinks:Edgar Allan Poe on the Joy of Marginalia and What Handwriting Reveals about Character (The Marginalian) Marginalia by Edgar Allan Poe How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren Meaning in the Margins: On the Literary Value of Annotation (Literary Hub)Historical Figures who'd be outrageous online? (r/AskHistory) Drool over the personal bookplates of 18 famous writers. (Literary Hub)How Leaning into Marginalia Helped Me Accept the Loss of Control That Comes with Publication (Literary Hub)Please Report Your Bug Here by Josh Riedel Ryan Holiday's 3-Step System for Reading Like a Pro (Ryan Holiday, YouTube) Edgar Allan Poe Watches Too Much Tiktok (McSweeney's)See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Here in this video I talk to Nicolas about the benefits of having a pet; his own experience with Letting go/Surrender based on the work of David R. Hawkins; Surrendering every thought as it arises to God; psychoanalysis and his experience with it; doing psychoanalysis online; Ron DeSantis and his reaction to Covid; 'the madness of crowds'; how psychanalysis is not popular; the free-fall of the Western World; corrupt leaders in Latin America; Chile's prime minister pardoning criminals; LGBT in the West; moral relativism in the far-left excusing paedophilia and making it okay; explicit books in children's libraries in the West; the negative influence of Herbert Marcuse; Europe and Islam; immigration around the world; the Woke ideology having no Mercy - 'be cancelled and be gone'; porn addiction and prostitutes; peer-pressure, parents and karma; Great Books and The Western World; "Don't study gender studies - don't waste your money"; Eric Hoffer; Why he loves Sister Miriam Joseph's book 'The Trivium' (1937); The importance of the intellectual giant Mortimer Adler; reading in search for the Truth being the highest form of reading. Nicolas' IG: https://www.instagram.com/nicolastockar/ Other ways to see this podcast Rumble: https://rumble.com/v25xauy-nicolas-2.html YouTube: https://youtu.be/JhsPyCHr3cE

There was an American civil rights leader called Mortimer Adler that some believe said this: 'I believe that what we become depends on what our fathers teach us at odd moments, when they aren't trying to teach us. We are formed by little scraps of wisdom.'Trapped inside due to poor weather while on holiday with 3 young kids can produce a few scraps of wisdom, among other things. Playing games with kids though, provides a unique learning opportunity I don't think I've every really thought too seriously about.6 months ago I was at a 50th bday party – I got talking with this couple who start telling me about a board game they invented called Hacktics.We must have spoke for half an hour at least me quizzing them on everything I could – Why'd you do it, How did you do it, What's involved from start to finish?In the end I thought stuff it – let's bring it up in an episode. I'll let them explain the rest – I hope you enjoy this one.While not financial advice to suggest this, I hope you seriously consider getting one of these games for kids aged 13 and up. Since recording this one, I've played it twice now with my oldest – as far as advancing financial literacy with kids, this game can transfer a lot of knowledge.Hey! Can we have a little chat?If you're picking up what I'm putting down, help me build the Everyday Investor community!Spread the word: Write a review anywhere you can, share posts on social media, vote for Pedro! Follow me on YouTube, and if you can, subscribe on Spotify also. Use the following referral/affiliate links. In some cases with these codes, I may receive a financial benefit - in other cases I've waived any benefit so you can get a better deal.Hatch: $10 for you, and $10 for me, if you sign up and deposit $100NZD.Sharesies: $10 for you, and $10 for me, if you sign up for the first time.Easy Crypto: One of NZ's most trusted places to buy/sell your digital assets. Sharesight: Get 5 months free when you sign up to an annual (paid) subscription. CMC Markets: You and I both get $150 if you sign up using this link. *Note CFD's are incredibly high risk investment options(read more here)When you're reviewing your insurance plan or KiwiSaver, obtaining a mortgage or in need of financial advice, use Ungaro & Co Financial Services, the main partner of this podcast. Want to learn more about working with Darcy Ungaro, book in a free 15-min phone call - click on this link.Enough of the sales...

Recording remotely, the twins talk about growing up in Coconut Grove, the oldest permanent settlement in the greater Miami area - dredging up memories of their old stomping grounds and antics before moving to Los Angeles. They discuss music, songwriting, audio and more - including a musical sampling from one of Chris' recent sessions. Above: Coconut Grove (Photo: New York Times) SHOW NOTES: 0:00 - Chris exploring musical possibilities in new jam. 2:18 - Greetings / "Vote for Chris" / Chris singing at Mass / The Miami News / "The Magic Show" at Coconut Grove Playhouse and in L.A. / Peter De Paula / 4:46 - Roger wants all the family photos / What is family friendly? 5:15 - Roger's new blog post about growing up in Coconut Grove / Roger trying to remember / Feedback on Old Coconut Grove Facebook page / More about the Grove 8:10 - Vizcaya Museum & Gardens / Museum of Science / Miami Seaquarium shark display / Rickenbacker Causeway / Busted with BB guns in Miami and Hollywood Hills 11:25 - Eskil's Clog Shop Miami / Debbie Hansen / Cozzolli's Pizza / Buying fake IDs / Bus stop at Dinner Key / Sailboat Bay / David T. Kennedy Park 13:50 - Latency issues from piano to P.A. / PreSonus StudioLive 16 / 15:00 - Chris all alone at the house with the animals / Playing guitar through Roland Micro Cube amp / California Blonde amp 17:14 - Chris ' current reading / The Bible / C. S. Lewis "The Weight of Glory" / Roger mentions "Mere Christianity" / James Altucher "Choose Yourself" / Roger still reading "Main Street" by Sinclair Lewis / Game show scandal involving Charles Van Doren, co-author (with Mortimer Adler) of "How to Read a Book" / Syntopicon 21:12 - Roger "boning up" on Boogie Woogie piano 22:58 - Songwriting versus instrument mastery 24:24 - Playing the Selectric 24:59 - Parting shots / Americone Dream / Chris' regratabble diet, lately / The Pump House gym Myrtle Beach / Chris' grandsons Miles and Elijah      

Mortimer Adler, an American philosopher, wrote an article entitled "Schooling is not Education"; in it, we learn about his views on education and when it begins. Listen to this episode to hear how a classical Christian education fits in to that paradigm and how we can - and should - pick up one of the great books and start learning! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/paideia-ponderings/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/paideia-ponderings/support

Given all the dysfunction, ineptitude, profligacy, venality, shortsightedness, and unscrupulousness with which our political institutions are rife, we have to ask ourselves: is government necessary? Can we get along just as well without it? In this episode, the first in a series on the “Great Ideas”, we address the question in a dispassionate, philosophical way. This series is inspired by the work of Mortimer Adler, one of America's foremost public intellectuals and educators with whose countless works, you'd do well to spend some time. What do you think? Is government necessary? Comment below or email me at finneranswake@gmail.com with your response! This podcast is available on my YouTube channel, (Finneran's Wake) as well. For mindfulness, meditation, and wellness, visit my sister channel, Pneuma by Daniel Finneran.

¿Estás obsesionado con interminables listas de tareas pendientes, buzones saturados de correos sin leer y la sensación de que nunca llegarás a todo?Ese es el tema principal del programa de esta semana, donde aprenderás cómo aceptar tu finitud a mano del libro «Cuatro mil semanas» de Oliver Burkeman.Valoración Jeroen: ⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑Valoración Raúl: ⭑⭑⭑⭑½Notas de programa(Las notas del programa están disponibles en https://kenso.es/episodio/217-resena–4000-semanas)Índice de la reseña(02:54) ¿Qué vas a encontrar en este libro?(07:49) A la larga, estamos todos muertos(14:14) La trampa de la eficiencia(21:33) Enfrentarse a la finitud(25:03) Cómo procrastinar mejor(27:36) Quedarse en el autobús(32:35) Estás aquí(39:24) La soledad del nómada digital(41:34) El interruptor íntimo(45:30) 5 preguntas para empezar a aprovechar al máximo tu tiempo finito(48:43) Estilo y valoración(53:12) El siguiente libro(55:27) ¡Nos escuchamos muy pronto!Recursos mencionadosReseña: Las trampas del deseo de Dan ArielyLibro: Cuatro mil semanas de Oliver BurkemanElemento narrativa: McGuffinPodcast: Tim Ferriss and Matt Mullenweg in Antarctica: Exploring Personal Fears, Bucket Lists, Facing Grief, Crafting Life Missions, and Tim's Best Penguin ImpressionsReseña: La semana laboral de 4 horas de Tim FerrissArtículo: The Liberation of Cosmic Insignificance Therapy de Tim FerrissViñeta: Fue muy productivaLibro: Aceptación radical de Tara BrachLibro: Terapia de aceptación y compromiso (ACT) de Kelly G. WilsonLibro: Fluir de Mihaly CsikszentmihalyiArtículo: 3/3/3, a method for structuring the day de Oliver BurkemanLibro: Cómo leer un libro de Mortimer Adler y Charles van DorenReseña: Meditaciones de Marco AurelioÚnete a KENSO CírculoKENSO Círculo es el club para personas centradas en mejorar su efectividad y vivir más felices.Un club a tu alcance porque a partir de 1€ al mes tendrás acceso prioritario a los episodios del podcast, recibirás cada mes un episodio especial donde haremos una reseña sobre un libro de efectividad, disfrutarás de descuentos en los servicios de KENSO y de nuestra eterna gratitud por ayudarnos a mejorar.Más información & Inscripción Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

It was my pleasure to be a guest on Greg Denning's Be The Man podcast, where we explored the concept of a "culture stack", the idea that every society is built on moral, political, economic, and cultural layers that interplay and change over time - and are changing as we speak. We discussed Aristotle's formula for happiness outlined in his great classic, Ethics, and how western civilization in general, and the United States in particular, incorporated those ideas in their founding. The "pursuit of happiness" made famous in the Declaration of Independence isn't some subjective, ethereal concept, but is actually a specific recipe for individual and societal happiness. Check out Greg at www.gregdenning.com and Be The Man wherever you get your podcasts. Other content referenced in this episode: "Where Are We Heading? Bret [Weinstein] Speaks with Peter Boghossian" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIigprRbKcs&t=0s "I Regret Being a Slut", by Bridget Phetasy https://bridgetphetasy.substack.com/p/slut-regret "The Great Conversation", Robert M. Hutchins & Mortimer Adler https://ia801600.us.archive.org/11/items/in.ernet.dli.2015.150395/2015.150395.Great-Books-Of-The-Western-World-The-Great-Conversation.pdf #religion #culture #morality #politics #economics #society #founding #unitedstates #liberal #liberalism #conservatism #aristotle #johnlocke #marvel #drstrange

The twins discuss the various DAWs and standalone multitrack recorders at their disposal and the learning curves associated with them. They also touch on Georgetown, SC, going wireless, a discussion about a book Roger has been wanting to read for decades and much more - including a crazy instrumental from the archive. SHOW NOTES: 0:00 - "Crime Drama 1975" - by Chris Yale 1:39 - Greetings and about the track / Logic Pro versus GarageBand / Failing at Cubase / "Failing Forward" by John C. Maxwell 3:30 - Florian ZaBach was a real dude / The Firesign Theatre / Travalanche Blog 5:38 - "The Season" in Myrtle Beach / Overdevelopment 6:43 - Chris went wireless 8:47 - ZOOM LiveTrak L-8 - Roger is getting one, Chris has one / Remote podcasting 10:31 - Carolina Forest versus Myrtle Beach 11:03 - Chris' trip to Georgetown, SC, with wife Betsy / Front Street Guitars / Purr & Pour Cat Cafe / Folk art / Howard Finster / Howard Bannister / Fenster 16:50 - Recent gigs at LuLu's North Myrtle Beach 17:00 - "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer Adler and Charles Van Doren / Encyclopedia Britannica / Great Books of the Western World / Syntopicon / About the book 21:30 - Scrolling and the decline of attention / Bob Lefsetz / TikTok 22:43 - Learning the ZOOM L8 23:32 - Elton John is coming to Charlotte 24:00 - Georgetown / Brookgreen Gardens / Aesthetics / Appreciating Art / Ox head and scorpion tail / John Entwistle and Michael Schenker 25:49 - Birthday shout-outs to Jim Alden, Craig Cass, Scott Mann, Chris Garcia 27:05 - Al Goldstein, again / Parting shots

Guest BiographiesDr. Laura Eidt received her BA in English Literature and Linguistics from the University of Hamburg (Germany) and her MA and Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of Texas at Austin. She has been teaching Spanish, German, Comparative Literature, and Humanities at the University of Dallas since 2006 and has published on German and Spanish poetry and on ekphrasis. For many years she taught an applied foreign language pedagogy class that sent students to local area schools to teach their language to elementary children, and she was a mentor at a bilingual school in Dallas for four years. Her courses include classes on foreign language pedagogy, teaching classical children's literature, and great works in the modern world. She is the faculty advisor for UD's Classical Curriculum team and is currently writing a Latin curriculum for K-5rd grade. Robin JohnstonRobin Ann Johnston is a daughter, sister, wife, mother of five, grandmother of four (so far,) and a convert to Catholicism.  She graduated from Loyola University of New Orleans in 1985, cum laude, with a bachelor's degree in Cognitive Psychology and a minor in music. When her children were all old enough to go to school, she returned to the workforce as a teacher for Mount St. Michael Catholic School (MSMCS) in south Dallas. Robin taught mostly ELAR and World History during her years there, for grades ranging from 4th to 12th. As the lead middle-school teacher, she was instrumental in transitioning the school's culture and curriculum instruction to a classical model. During those decades, Robin was given the “Work of Heart” award for excellence in teaching (twice) by the Catholic Diocese of Dallas.  After retiring from teaching full time, she began writing classical ELAR and Humanities curriculum lessons and novel study guides. Robin's passion is for igniting students' hearts with a love for learning and helping teachers have a toolbox of ideas that are easy to use while making a real difference in the classroom.  She is now working on a master's degree in Humanities and Classical Education. In her free time, she likes to craft, read, swim, and, along with her husband of 35 years, babysit the grandchildren. Show NotesIn part one of this two-part episode, we reconsider the foundations of good reading with the help of influential thinkers like C.S. Lewis and Mortimer Adler and think about how an overabundance of “screen time” paired with modern “reading strategies” and a focus on “college prep” pale in comparison to the potential for life transformation within the classical tradition.    Some topics and readings in this episode include:How can we become good readers? Why is beauty harder to analyze than truth? What role should “vocabulary words” play in our approach to teaching literature? “College Prep” vs. Pursuit of Transcendence Reading and the Fear of GradesThe Role of Morals and Virtues in Teaching Literature The Origin and Place of Plot Analysis Is it ever ok to skim when reading? Narration and Picture Study Readings and Resources An Experiment in Criticism by C.S. Lewis How to Read a Book by Mortimer Adler Walking on Water by Madeleine L'Engle“Introduction to Poetry” by Billy Collins Heidi by Johanna SpyriAesop's Fables Little Red Ride Hood  _________________________________Credits:Sound Engineer: Andrew HelselLogo Art: Anastasiya CFMusic: Vivaldi's Concerto for 2 Violins in B flat major, RV529 : Lana Trotovsek, violin Sreten Krstic, violin with Chamber Orchestra of Slovenian Philharmonic  © 2022 Beautiful Teaching. All Rights Reserved ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Pat reads and comments upon a philosophy essay by Mortimer Adler on freedom of the will. For more, please subscribe to Pat's Philosophy for the People channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa3wHUIIJ2CeLcInYvuyEJw

In 1943, two University of Chicago educators, Robert Maynard Hutchins and Mortimer Adler, launched a series of Great Books seminars with prominent Chicagoans. By 1952, Hutchins had penned "The Great Conversation," an essay promoting the Great Books of the Western World published by Encyclopædia Britannica and intended for the masses.  The Great Conversation embodies the tradition of the West that began in the dawn of history and continues to the present day— a tradition Online Great Books strives to keep alive.  Both Alder and Hutchins point out that these books act as a principal instrument of liberal education. “Until lately the West has regarded it as self-evident that the road to education lay through great books,” Hutchins writes.  However, Scott and Karl disagree on Hutchins' metaphysical judgment of the books lodged in his salesmanship. Scott says, "I think they need to be read because there is something divine and special about these books and they are edifying to the individual."  Karl adds, "I think you should read the Great Books, dear listener. I don't think necessarily everyone ought to read the Great Books. More people ought to read them than do, but a lot of people can't read."  Tune in to learn more about the substance of a liberal education. Brought to you by onlinegreatbooks.com. 

¿Te gustaría leer mejor un libro, recordando más de lo leído?¿Entender mejor la meta del autor y ser más crítico con lo que lees?En este episodio revisamos el libro Cómo Leer Un Libro (How to Read a Book, 1972), de Mortimer Adler, en el que verás cómo pillarle el tema a un libro en 15 minutos, analizar inteligentemente un libro y sintetizar incluso múltiples libros de forma conjunta. En definitiva, aprovechar mejor nuestro tiempo sabiendo cómo leer mejor.Aquí puedes conseguir este libro:CONSIGUE EL LIBRO "Cómo Leer Un Libro": https://geni.us/comoleerunlibro En esta página encuentras las notas del episodio y todos los enlaces mencionados:https://librosparaemprendedores.net/197 ¿Quieres saber cómo aumentar tu velocidad de lectura? Mírate este vídeo y quizás hasta la dupliques en sólo 20 minutos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0VqCZlLuEc¿Cómo conseguir levantarse temprano? 10 consejos... también apps útiles, para conseguirlo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJPmqy6Qi1c En Youtube y en Instagram estamos publicando también contenido exclusivo. Suscríbete ahora:Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/c/LibrosparaemprendedoresNetInstagram: https://instagram.com/librosparaemprendedores Esta es nuestra página oficial de Facebook: http://librosparaemprendedores.net/facebook Además, recuerda que puedes suscribirte al podcast en:- Nuestra página: http://librosparaemprendedores.net/feed/podcast- iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/mx/podcast/libros-para-emprendedores/id1076142249?l=es- Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0qXuVDCYF8HvkEynJwHULb- iVoox: http://www.ivoox.com/ajx-suscribirse_jh_266011_1.html- Spreaker: http://www.spreaker.com/user/8567017/episodes/feed- Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=81214 y seguirnos en Twitter ( https://twitter.com/EmprendeLibros ) y en Facebook ( https://www.facebook.com/EmprendeLibros/ ). Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

 A love for reading and the proof of being "well read" doesn't require a person to own, or to have even read through, a large stack of books. Quality over quantity should always be the ideal standard, including in the practice of reading.In this episode, Tim talks about a minimalist approach to reading and shares the story of his decision to purge most of the books in his personal library out of a desire to create a more deliberate reading plan. Drawing from the advice of respected philosopher of education, Mortimer Adler, as well as supporting ideas from theologians Charles Spurgeon and John Piper, Tim argues for an approach that allows one to read more by reading less. 

Mortimer Adler said, “More consequences for thought and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.” The popular Chris Tomlin song, “Indescribable”, poetically articulates how God is beyond our comprehension. So how can we describe an indescribable God? Thoughts about the existence and nature of God are all over the place, even within the evangelical church. How can we know we are thinking well about God and that we are not in fact guilty of idolatry? What are God's attributes, and why does it matter that we get this right? For the next two weeks, we're going to be discussing these issues with my good friend and long-time SES professor, Dr. Doug Potter.

Howdy from Texas, You Beautiful Soul!Today on the podcast, I'm joined by one of the most brilliant thinkers you'll ever hear--mind you, this isn't what HE says, it's just my estimation of him, how he thinks, and the extraordinarily unique way in which he approaches all things in life.It's my friend, Ameer Rosic.From his bio at AmeerRosic.com, he's a:Multiple Founder, Investor, Philosophy Junkie, and Psychonaut.You're about to be blessed with hearing Ameer talk about how he's turned from being a 9th-grade dropout into a phenomenal life of love, learning, abundance, He's one of the most interesting people you'll ever get a chance to meet, virtual or otherwise, and I know you'll get that when you press play on this edition of the podcast!In this VERY far-ranging conversation about leading a better life, here's some of what we discuss:Epigenetics. The software for life.Life Experiments.Social norms and feedback loops.Capital "R" religion and some of Ameer's spiritual beliefs (he's studied a lot into this)Spirituality as a base for our ACTIONS.The two coming futures: natural or Gattica?The thesis for A.I. and how it might think."Heaven is on Earth, and man doesn't know it."How Ameer got to be so freaking brilliant!How Ameer reads (or has a relationship with a book)!An easy hack for learning another language.How he and we remember so much of what we read and learn.What he's looking for when he reads a book.The MIRACLE of new life and him being a proud new Papa.2 BIG THINGS to lead a better life.Emotional Bank Accounts and what life is all about.And...a whole lot more. These lists are never all-inclusive!I should warn you, there are a few "F" bombs--although not nearly as many as I thought there would be, and traditional "big R" religion is tested here, so I hope you can allow that to your ears. I promise you'll be blessed for it.Thank you for listening to The ChipChat Podcast.Please know that you're loved and deserving!Chip ❤️

Frank Bruni of The New York Times once dubbed St. John's College the "most contrarian college in America." On this episode, St. John's College President Pano Kanelos joins Jeremy to discuss the history of the school (one of the oldest colleges in the U.S.) and the academic reorientation that took place there in the early 20th century, one inspired by the Great Books movement facilitated by Mortimer Adler and others. He also discusses the issues of cost in higher education and highlights the "Freeing Minds" campaign and other efforts that St. John's took to lower tuition and improve access by rolling back over a decade of tuition increases. Dr. Kanelos also discusses a 2018 trip to South Korea (as well as other countries in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East) and the conversations that showcased an eagerness for liberal arts education across the globe. Send questions or comments to anchored@cltexam.com.Host Jeremy Tate @JeremyTate41Guest President Pano Kanelos

On this episode we explore why reading is essential to the life of a leader. J.R. shares 8 ridiculously practical ways to cultivate habits that help you become a more effective reader.Here are the 8 habits:[1] Read Mortimer Adler's book How to Read a Book (see link below).[2] Be extremely intentional about the books you choose to read.[3] Make a commitment to read, at minimum, 30 minutes a day.[4] Put your screens away.[5] As you read, pretend you're having a conversation with the author.[6] Always have a pen in hand when you read a book.[7] Type out your key thoughts in a Word document[8] Share with others what you're reading.Mortimer Adler's book ‘How To Read a Book'_______If you haven't signed up for my every other week FREE newsletter here's the link: www.kairospartnerships.org/newsletter

Erik Ellis, Research Fellow at The Center for Thomas More at the University of Dallas and on faculty in philosophy at the University of the Andes in Santiago, Chile, joins host Scot Bertram to discuss the thinking and teaching of Mortimer Adler.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You're a writer, so you write. But do you read? Silly question, I know, because of course you read. A better question is how do you read? Do you read like a writer? There are ways writers can read that can be both inspiring and instructive, and that's what we're going to cover today, so you can see how reading, as Stephen King says, can serve as your  "creative center." As we learn to read like a writer, you might be a little afraid I'm going to ruin reading for you—that you'll no longer be able to read for pleasure, but don't worry. You'll still be able to read for fun and distraction. You can listen, read, or watch to learn more. https://youtu.be/cHaeAOVodaQ Read to Collect Ideas for Your Work If you want to read like a writer, you'll benefit from reading with an analytical eye, but before we get into that, the first way to read as a writer is to go ahead and read for inspiration and information, just like you always do.​ You need to understand a topic better, so you research and read about it. You want to expand your knowledge, so you read and take notes. You want to improve yourself, so you grab a book that's going to help you gain a skill or solve a problem. We writers are always collecting ideas and content. All that you read can feed into your writing. In fact, we've done this our entire lives. If not consciously then subconsciously, we've been doing all this collecting. Now I want you to be more intentional about it. Even as you're casually reading the back of a cereal box, a tweet, or a magazine article, start to take notes about where this content came from, who wrote it, and how it impacted you, because this is material that you can use in all of your work. Authors Are Your Teachers Another big way we can read as writers is to start viewing other authors and writers as teachers. They can instruct us. Francine Prose in her book Reading Like a Writer said this: I've heard the way a writer reads described as "reading carnivorously." What I've always assumed that this means is not, as the expression might seem to imply, reading for what can be ingested, stolen or borrowed, but rather for what can be admired, absorbed, and learned. It involves reading for sheer pleasure, but also with an eye and a memory for which author happens to do which thing particularly well. So we read and pay attention to the choices an author makes that results in such engaging work. In literature, especially in poetry courses, we talk about a "close reading," where every idea, every sentence—even every word—is examined. A close reading reveals all: from the highest level of themes, ideas, organization, and structure all the way down to the details of sentences and word choices. We see what works and why it works. And while we do want to look to the best to be able to level up our work, we don't have to always be reading Shakespeare and Dickinson to improve as writers. Our teachers, our model texts, can be from the kinds of writing we want to pursue. We might find a blog post that serves as an excellent example and study the tone and topics that were covered as well as the length and the layout. And we can learn from that. So find your experts, your teachers, your models, your mentors...wherever they may be. Read Close by Annotating Another way we can read like a writer is to annotate. Mortimer Adler in his book How to Read a Book, written with Charles van Doren, wrote this: Full ownership of a book only comes when you have made it a part of yourself and the best way to make yourself a part of it, which comes to the same thing, is by writing in it. He claims that full ownership of a book happens not when you purchase it. It happens when you interact with it on the page. You annotate, you underline, you write in the margins, and in that way you make it your own. And the book becomes a part of you. But let me tell you something: I grew up in a household where we did not write...