Episodes
Tuesday Mar 07, 2023
Lies and the Father of Lies in Milton’s ”Paradise Lost” with Prof. Adam Cooper
Tuesday Mar 07, 2023
Tuesday Mar 07, 2023
Defeated in the attempt to war against God, fallen from Heaven, chained in the fiery muck of Hell, Milton’s Satan nonetheless declares:
What though the field be lost?All is not lost; the unconquerable Will,And study of revenge, immortal hate,And courage never to submit or yield:And what is else not to be overcome? (I.1-5-109)
The Romantics in the nineteenth century saw Satan as the real hero of Paradise Lost, a mighty warrior who will not except defeat, will not apologize for his rebellion, insists on fighting on against impossible odds, and asserts his inner convictions, his inner identity no matter what.
Others aren’t so sure.
Prof. Adam Cooper has been teaching Paradise Lost to our Wyoming Catholic College juniors, debating, among other things, the character of Satan and his demon hoards.
Tuesday Feb 28, 2023
Exploring ”The Brothers Karamazov” with Dr. Tiffany Schubert
Tuesday Feb 28, 2023
Tuesday Feb 28, 2023
Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a landowner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place.
Thus begins Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s last and arguably his greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov. Recounting the story of Fyodor Karamazov and his three sons, Alexey, Ivan, and Dmitri, Dostoyevsky addresses suffering, the existence of God, good and evil, crime and punishment, worldliness and holiness.
Dr. Tiffany Schubert and our Wyoming Catholic College seniors have just finished reading the book.
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
Augustine’s Confessions with Dr. Daniel Shields
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
Tuesday Jan 31, 2023
St. Augustine was a prominent teacher of rhetoric in Roman North Africa and in Italy. Despite his success, he was restless, constantly casting about for what was true until he found his rest through faith in Christ. A great sinner, we learn in his Confessions who became a great saint.
Dr. Daniel Shields is attending sophomore humanities this semester and has been reading through Confessions with our students and he shares with us what he finds so compelling about the book.
Tuesday Dec 13, 2022
Caesar, Virgil, and The Aeneid with Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos
Tuesday Dec 13, 2022
Tuesday Dec 13, 2022
When Aeneas visits the underworld in Virgil's Aeneid, he sees great heroes who have died and great heroes yet to be born.
Here is Caesar, and all the offspring
of Julus destined to live under the pole of heaven.
This is the man, this is him, whom you so often hear
promised you, Augustus Caesar, son of the Deified,
who will make a Golden Age again in the fields
where Saturn once reigned, and extend the empire beyond
the Libyans and the Indians....”
It’s no surprise that Virgil wrote such extravagant praise of Caesar Augustus into his epic. After all, Caesar Augustus gave him the job of creating the founding myth of the Roman Empire that had supplanted the Roman Republic.
As he has been teaching The Aeneid to our Wyoming Catholic College sophomores, Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos has been thinking a great deal about that transition.
Tuesday Nov 29, 2022
”Fathers and Sons” with Dr. Tiffany Schubert
Tuesday Nov 29, 2022
Tuesday Nov 29, 2022
Ivan Turgenev began his novel, Fathers and Sons, with a father, Nicholai Kirsanov, as he awaits the arrival of his son, Arcady, who after years of study in St. Petersburg, is paying a visit to the family estate. When Arcady arrives, he has with him his best friend and mentor, Evgeny Bazarov, a medical student--and nihilist.
Bazarov is skeptical about everything with the exception of science. It is a position that played well in cosmopolitan St. Petersburg, but which seems a bit out of place in farm country.
Dr. Tiffany Schubert has taught the novel to our Wyoming Catholic College juniors and tells us a bit more about the book.
Tuesday Nov 08, 2022
”Markmaker” with Mary Jessica Woods
Tuesday Nov 08, 2022
Tuesday Nov 08, 2022
In Markmaker the new science fiction novel by Mary Jessica Wood (Wyoming Catholic College Class of 2019), tattoos are not optional. They define identity by commemorating birth, ancestry, accomplishments—even crimes. Though sworn always to record the truth, one tattoo artist tattoos a lie resulting in the banishment of an innocent man. He’s devastated at his dishonesty, but that leads him….
Perhaps it would be best to let Mary Jessica Woods tell us more about the story.
To order Markmaker by Mary Jessica Woods, click here.
Tuesday Sep 27, 2022
The Wife of Bath and the Meaning of Marriage with Prof. Adam Cooper
Tuesday Sep 27, 2022
Tuesday Sep 27, 2022
Geoffrey Chaucer begins The Canterbury Tales describing the beauty of April and the countryside coming back to life. It is the time, he tells us, “Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.” “And specially,” he adds, “from every shires ende / Of Engelond to Caunterbury they wende.”
A small company of pilgrims forms and, as the go, each tells a tale.
Like the Samaritan woman Jesus spoke with in John chapter four, The Wife of Bath says she has had five husbands not to mention “other companye in youthe.” She is a wealthy woman who had been on pilgrimage as far as Jerusalem. She is also rather fond of sex and knows quite a bit about marriage.
Prof. Adam Cooper has been reading The Canterbury Tales with Wyoming Catholic College juniors and shared these thoughts.
Tuesday Aug 02, 2022
Journeys Among the Dead by Dr. Glenn Arbery
Tuesday Aug 02, 2022
Tuesday Aug 02, 2022
In his poem The Four Quartets, T. S. Eliot wrote:
“What the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.”
In Homer’s Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, and Dante’s Divine Comedy, we read about encounters with those who have died. Odysseus seeks wisdom from the prophet Teiresias and his mother, Anikleia (Odyssey 11.1-224). Aeneas meets his father Anchises, parent and prophet (Aeneid 6.739-983). And Dante holds a long conversation in Heaven with his great-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida who also assumes the role of prophet (Paradiso 15-17).
What can we learn from these fictional encounters with the dead? Dr. Glenn Arbery gave this introduction at the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought.
Tuesday Jul 26, 2022
Introduction to William Faulkner’s ”Go Down, Moses” by Dr. Virginia Arbery
Tuesday Jul 26, 2022
Tuesday Jul 26, 2022
Author Ann-Marie MacDonald noted, “It’s important to attend funerals. It is important to view the body, they say, and to see it committed to earth or fire because unless you do that, the loved one dies for you again and again.”
In “Go Down, Moses,” the final chapter of his novel Go Down, Moses, William Faulkner tells us the story about a funeral. The deceased is a young man executed in Chicago for murder. Home is back in Mississippi and his grandmother who raised him is determined to bring him back home to bury him. For that she’ll need a great deal of help.
Dr. Virginia Arbery gave the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought this introduction to Faulkner’s story.
Tuesday Jul 19, 2022
Introduction to Sophocles’ ”Antigone” by Prof. Adam Cooper
Tuesday Jul 19, 2022
Tuesday Jul 19, 2022
Antigone’s brother Eteocles fought for Thebes and King Creon. Her other brother, Polyneices, fought against Creon and thus against Thebes. In battle they killed each other. Creon buried Eteocles with full military honor. But regarding Polyneices, has ordered, “No one shall bury him, no one mourn for him, / But his body must lie in the fields, a sweet treasure / For carrion birds to find as they search for food.”
His sister, Antigone, won’t stand for it.
Sophocles’ tragedy, “Antigone” was one of the readings as the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought considered “Mortality and Eternity.” In the play Antigone risks and loses her life over the filial duty of burying the dead.
Before we broke up into seminar groups to discuss the play, Prof. Adam Cooper gave us this introduction.