The After Dinner Scholar

Wyoming Catholic College and Technology with Dr. Kent Lasnoski

Lola Shub and a group of her friends at Essex Street Academy in Manhattan read Into the Wild about an adventurer who died while trying to live off the land in the Alaskan wilderness. As a result, she told The New York Times, “We’ve all got this theory that we’re not just meant to be confined to buildings and work. And that guy was experiencing life. Real life. Social media and phones are not real life.”

Lola Shub is a member of the Luddite Club, students who eschew technology—including smart phones—for the sake of other, better pursuits such as meeting together in a park, drawing, painting, and reading books included Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment and The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius.” 

Whether or not “Luddite Clubs” will become a social trend among teens has yet to be seen, but it does seem that the Wyoming Catholic College technology policy is, in fact, a good that’s ahead of its time.

As technologies and the needs of our students change, we update the policy and Dr. Kent Lasnoski has been at the center of recent revisions.

Pro-Life After Dobbs 2: The Arguments for Abortion Rights with Dr. Michael Bolin

“Usually when I debate on this topic,” said pro-life advocate Helen Alvare, “I feel like I’m behind a podium speaking French and the other person is behind a podium speaking Finnish. There’s no common ground.”

Part of the reason there is no common ground in the abortion debate is that our pro-abortion family and friends don’t understand our arguments and we don’t understand theirs.

Wyoming Catholic College philosopher, Dr. Michael Bolin allows his students to puzzle over what might be the best philosophical argument for abortion rights: Judith Jarvis Thomson’s “A Defense of Abortion” published in the journal Philosophy & Public Affairs in 1971—about 18 months before Roe v. Wade was decided.

Pro-Life After Dobbs 1: Humanae Vitae with Dr. Jeremy Holmes

At a banquet for a local pregnancy care center the speaker noted the U. S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs overturned Roe v. Wade. It’s true and thanks be to God. But, the speaker suggested, quoting Winston Churchill, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” That is, the battle rages on and could be uglier than ever.

With that in mind, this week and next will focus on the theology and philosophy of life beginning this week as theologian, Dr. Jeremy Holmes, discusses the encyclical Humanae Vitae.

Jesus Baptism and Ours with Prof. Kyle Washut

All of Lander including our Wyoming Catholic College Students love Sinks Canyon. The natural beauty is breathtaking and on any given day regardless of the season, you can meet people hiking, rock climbing, fishing, camping, birding, and mountain biking. Once a year, however, you’ll be able to see another unexpected activity: processing, worshipping, and the blessing of the waters.

Our guest this week, Wyoming Catholic College Professor Kyle Washut, reflects on this great feast. 

”Nativity” by John Donne with Dr. Glenn Arbery

After a month of “The Christmas Season” which was actually Advent, it’s finally the Christmas Season allowing us the leisure to reflect on the Nativity of Christ.

Poet, novelist, and Wyoming Catholic College president, Dr. Glenn Arbery helps us reflect on the birth of Christ using the poem "Nativity" by John Donne.

Christmas Poems with Izzy Ecoff, Gregory Bowman, Catherine Stancliffe, Elizabeth Shepherd, and Jonathan Alllen

Clement Clarke Moore’s “A Visit from St. Nicholas” may be the best-known poem in America today. For many it may be the only-known poem besides lyrics to one pop song or another. We are not a poetic people though that was not always true. Americans in the past had a huge appetite for poetry—an appetite we can recover.

Of course, Moore’s paean to St. Nick is hardly the only Christmas poetry in the world. Christians have been writing poems about the First Coming of Christ as a babe in Bethlehem for two thousand years.

As a Christmas gift to you, our listeners, on this podcast Wyoming Catholic College students share from that treasury of Christmas poetry.

Caesar, Virgil, and The Aeneid with Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos

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.

The Doctrine of the Immaculate Conception with Dr. Kent Lasnoski

While Martin Luther believed that Mary, “is full of grace, proclaimed to be entirely without sin—something exceedingly great,” there may be no other Catholic doctrine as contentious as the immaculate conception as we talk with our Protestant friends. They can’t imagine and I wonder how many of our Catholic friends can’t imagine either.

This Thursday, December 8 is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and Wyoming Catholic College theologian Dr. Kent Lasnoski joins us to shed a bit of light on the subject.

”Fathers and Sons” with Dr. Tiffany Schubert

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.

How and How Not to Be Happy with Dr. J. Budziszewski

While there may be people in this world who don’t care one way or another about happiness, it’s safe to say that most people often say to themselves, “I just want to be happy. Is that too much to ask?”

The question is how to achieve happiness if “achieve” is even the right word.

University of Texas Austin Professor of Government and Philosophy, Dr. J Budziszewski, takes on that question in a new book, How and How Not to Be Happy.

Dr. Budziszewski lectured at Wyoming Catholic College on the topic of that new book and was kind enough to join us for this podcast.