Episodes
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
Political Rhetoric and the Common Good with Dr. Virginia Arbery
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
Tuesday Apr 18, 2023
In almost every walk of life and vocation, the ability to express yourself orally with clarity, precision, and persuasiveness are vital. That’s obvious for priests, teachers, salespeople, politicians, and lawyers, but consider that engineers, managers, administrators, builders, doctors, at-home moms, and…well, you name it… make presentations and proposals to individuals and groups.
This semester Dr. Virginia Arbery and Dr. Tonkowich each have two sections of sophomores for Trivium 202 and sat down for this conversation.
Tuesday Oct 04, 2022
Plutarch, Politics, and the Gracchi Brothers with Dr. Tiffany Schubert
Tuesday Oct 04, 2022
Tuesday Oct 04, 2022
Studying the lives of men and women is complicated, but it is from that study that we see vice and virtue and the end results of each, we learn of honor and dishonor, sacrifice and selfishness, self-discipline and dissipation.
The Greek Platonist and priest of Apollo at Delphi, Plutarch understood the project of instruction by writing the lives of great Roman and Greeks.
Dr. Tiffany Schubert has been teaching Plutarch’s Lives with the Wyoming Catholic College sophomores.
Tuesday Sep 13, 2022
”The Statesman as Thinker” with Dr. Daniel J. Mahoney
Tuesday Sep 13, 2022
Tuesday Sep 13, 2022
“The great difference between the real statesman and the pretender,” wrote Edmund Burke, “is, that the one sees into the future, while the other regards only the present; the one lives by the day, and acts on expedience; the other acts on enduring principles and for immortality.”
Eighteenth century British thinker and Member of Parliament, Edmund Burke is one of six politicians highlighted by Dr. Daniel J. Mahoney in his new book The Statesman as Thinker: Portraits of Greatness, Courage, and Moderation.
Dr. Mahoney, Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute, Senior Writer at Law and Liberty, and professor emeritus at Assumption University delivered a lecture last Friday at Wyoming Catholic College and was kind enough to record this interview.
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
St. Thomas More: ”A Man for All Seasons” with Prof. Kyle Washut
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
Tuesday Mar 01, 2022
Once each semester at Wyoming Catholic College we hold All-School Seminar. Our entire community reads the same work and the student body and faculty are divided into seminar groups led by our seniors. Last week the whole college discussed Robert Bolt’s play about St. Thomas More, “A Man for All Seasons.”
More, who along with King Henry VII was a staunch defender of the Catholic faith and a favorite of the king who eventually made him Lord Chancellor. Then Henry, wanting to divorce Catherine of Aragorn, declared himself the head of the Church in England. More quit his high post hoping to avoid conflict with the king. It didn’t work.
This week, Prof. Kyle Washut discusses about All-School Seminars and “A Man for All Seasons.”
Tuesday Oct 19, 2021
The American Character and the Revolution with Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos
Tuesday Oct 19, 2021
Tuesday Oct 19, 2021
In the preface to his History of Rome Livy wrote that he wanted to explore, “what was the life, what the mores, by what men, and by what arts—at home and at war—imperium was born and augmented.”
In the course, “Exodus and the American Vision,” What was the life, what the mores, by what men, and by what arts? are questions Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos’s senior humanities students are asking about the American character with the help of authors including John Adams, Edmund Burke, Thomas Jefferson, and others.
Tuesday Jul 27, 2021
Shakespeare's Rome: Politics and Eros by Dr. Tiffany Schubert
Tuesday Jul 27, 2021
Tuesday Jul 27, 2021
As Aeneus becomes increasingly comfortable building Carthage with Queen Dido, the god Mercury appears to him. “You, so now you lay foundation stones for the soaring walls of Carthage! Building her gorgeous city, doting on your wife. Blind to your own realm, oblivious to your fate!” Aeneus is supposed to be headed for Italy to build Rome. Carthago delenda est--Carthage must be destroyed.
The final presentation at The Wyoming School of Catholic Thought this past June focused on the story of Aeneas and Dido from Virgil’s Aeneid, the great founding myth of Rome. The parallel with Antony and Cleopatra is obvious and was probably intended.
But there’s a most important difference: where Antony stayed in Egypt forsaking Rome, Aeneas fled Carthage for the sake of Rome.
At the Wyoming School of Catholic Thought, Dr. Tiffany Schubert offered this presentation about the two couples and the relationship of politics and eros.
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra" by Dr. Adam Cooper
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
Tuesday Jul 20, 2021
The story of King David’s tryst with Bathsheba begins with these ominous words, “In the spring of the year, the time when kings go forth to battle, David sent Joab, and his servants with him, and all Israel…. But David remained at Jerusalem.” (2 Samuel 11:1).
Just as David remained in Jerusalem “when kings go forth to battle,” the great Roman general, Mark Antony, remained in Egypt, captivated by Queen Cleopatra. “Let Rome in Tiber melt, and the wide arch/Of the ranged empire fall! Here is my space,” he tells her.
The result as Shakespeare explains in the title of the play is “The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra.”
At the Wyoming School of Catholic Thought in June, Wyoming Catholic College professor Dr. Adam Cooper introduced Shakespeare’s play and its themes.
Tuesday Jul 13, 2021
Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" and Ceasarism by Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos
Tuesday Jul 13, 2021
Tuesday Jul 13, 2021
“Let me have men about me that are fat;
“Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.”
So said Julius Caesar to Mark Antony in Shakespeare's "Tragedy of Julius Caesar." Cassius was indeed dangerous as Caesar discovered on the Ides of March when a group of Senators led by Cassius stabed him to death.
They, for their part, believed their action represented the height of patriotism. Caesar would be king—an abomination in the Roman Republic. “Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!” they shouted as Caesar’s blood dripped from their knives and hands.
Were Cassius, Brutus, and the rest patriots or treasonous monsters? Dante put Cassius and Brutus in the frozen bottom of Hell endlessly chewed by Satan chews along with Judas Iscariot. What was Shakespeare’s judgment on these men and their plot? And how should we look at the conspirators and their attempt to defend the republic from what they perceived as tyranny?
At the Wyoming School of Catholic Thought, the college’s adult learning week, in June, most of those conversations took place in seminar sessions, but Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos started the discussion with this introduction.
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Shakespeare's Rome: "Coriolanus" and the Republic by Dr. Virginia Arbery
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
Tuesday Jul 06, 2021
You common cry of curs! whose breath I hate
As reek o' the rotten fens, whose loves I prize
As the dead carcasses of unburied men
That do corrupt my air, I banish you;
And here remain with your uncertainty!
Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts!
The quote is from William Shakespeare’s tragedy “Coriolanus.” Coriolanus was a great war hero during the fifth century BC, the early years of the Roman Republic. After returning from a great victory, the Roman Senate would make him a consul—the highest office in the city. But the common people of Rome egged on by their leaders, the tribunes, believe him too proud and vote instead to banish him from the city. In anger Coriolanus cries, “I banish you,” leaves the city, and joins ranks with the enemy to revenge the insult by conquering Rome.
“Coriolanus” was the first of three plays we considered in June at the Wyoming School of Catholic Thought as we considered “’Shakespeare’s Rome.” Before we divided into seminar groups, Dr. Virginia Arbery delivered this introduction to the play, to the Roman Republic, and to questions concerning our own republic.
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Russell Kirk and the State of Conservatism with Dr. Susan Hanssen
Tuesday May 18, 2021
Tuesday May 18, 2021
“Men cannot improve a society by setting fire to it,” wrote conservative political theorist Russell Kirk, “they must seek out its old virtues, and bring them back into the light.”
The twentieth century, in contrast with what Kirk wrote, witnessed various attempts to improve society by setting them on fire. And the twenty-first century has the nasty feel of more of the same.
Our final guest lecturer here at Wyoming Catholic College was historian Dr. Susan Hanssen from the University of Dallas. The day before her lecture, she addressed the student St. Boethius Society about Russell Kirk and the history and current state of American conservatism.