Episodes
Tuesday Jan 16, 2024
Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism with Dr. Tiffany Schubert
Tuesday Jan 16, 2024
Tuesday Jan 16, 2024
“I hate to hear you talk about all women as if they were fine ladies instead of rational creatures,” remarks Anne Eliot in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. “None of us want to be in calm waters all our lives.”
It is always a great pleasure on the After-Dinner Scholar to introduce you to books written by our faculty and Dr. Tiffany Schubert’s book, Jane Austen’s Romantic Medievalism: Courtly Love and Happy Endings, has just been released.
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
Virgil’s ”Aeneid” with Dr. Tiffany Schubert
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
Tuesday Dec 05, 2023
Virgil's Aeneid tells us about the founding of Rome and begins with the destruction of Troy at the end of the Trojan War, the war recounted in The Iliad. As the Greeks burn and sack Troy, Aeneas escapes with his father, his son, his household gods, and a small band of fellow refugees to found a new Troy—greater, more powerful, and more magnificent than the old Troy—in Italy.
Dr. Tiffany Schubert has been teaching The Aeneid to our Wyoming Catholic College sophomores.
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Captain Ahab and ”Moby Dick” with Dr. Virginia Arbery
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
Tuesday Nov 14, 2023
In Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, we meet Captain Ahab for the first time long after the Pequod has left Nantucket. “There was,” says Melville’s Ishmael, “an infinity of firmest fortitude, a determinate, unsurrenderable wilfulness, in the fixed and fearless, forward dedication of that glance. Not a word he spoke; nor did his officers say aught to him; though by all their minutest gestures and expressions, they plainly showed the uneasy, if not painful, consciousness of being under a troubled master-eye. And not only that, but moody stricken Ahab stood before them with a crucifixion in his face; in all the nameless regal overbearing dignity of some mighty woe."
Dr. Virginia Arbery has taught Moby Dick for years is, once again, reading it with our Wyoming Catholic College seniors many of whom are introduced to the book and Captain Ahab for the first time.
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
”The Merchant of Venice” with Dr. Adam Cooper
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
Tuesday Nov 07, 2023
The quality of mercy is not strained.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
’Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
Those are the words of Portia, heroine of William Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice as she defends her husband’s friend Antonio from the Jewish moneylender Shylock who, Antonio having defaulted on a debt, demands a literal pound of Antonio’s flesh.
Dr. Adam Cooper has been reading The Merchant of Venice with our Wyoming Catholic College juniors.
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Homer’s ”Iliad” with Dr. Glenn Arbery
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
Tuesday Oct 03, 2023
The Iliad, first of Homer’s great epics, tells the tale of the war between Greece and Troy as it unfolded on the plains outside that ancient city. And the focus of the tale is Achilleus, the greatest warrior on either side who, for most of the book, sits on the sidelines.
Dr. Glenn Arbery is both a scholar and teacher of The Iliad who, once again, is reading the epic with our Wyoming Catholic freshmen.
Tuesday May 16, 2023
Graduation 2023: The President’s Address by Dr. Glenn Arbery
Tuesday May 16, 2023
Tuesday May 16, 2023
This past Saturday, May 13 began what we’ve come to call our graduation triduum, three days of celebrating the achievements of ther Wyoming Catholic College Class of 2023.
Graduation weekend begins with the senior dinner on Saturday evening—seniors, faculty, and staff only. Monday was Commencement. And Sunday, after Baccalaureate Mass we held The President’s Dinner at which college president, Dr. Glenn Arbery, addressed seniors their parents, families, and friends along with the faculty and staff.
Here’s what Dr. Arbery had to say.
Tuesday May 09, 2023
Much Ado About Much Ado with Dr. Tiffany Schubert
Tuesday May 09, 2023
Tuesday May 09, 2023
BENEDICK But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.
BEATRICE A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.
BENEDICK God keep your ladyship still in that mind! so some gentleman or other shall 'scape a predestinate scratched face.
William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” has it all: heroes, villains, loyalty and betrayal, hatred and love, serious crime and silly sidelights. At one point it veers dangerously close to utter tragedy only to come right again with true love conquering even the coldest hearts.
I asked Dr. Tiffany Schubert to begin giving us an overview of the play.
Tuesday Apr 11, 2023
Gerard Manley Hopkins’ ”Spring” with Dr. Glenn Arbery
Tuesday Apr 11, 2023
Tuesday Apr 11, 2023
Fr. Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J. (1844-1889) is considered to be one of the greatest poets of the Victorian Era though, oddly, the Victorian Era never read Hopkins. While, imitating his father, he wrote poetry while growing up, he burned his early poems when he decided to become—of all things—a Roman Catholic priest, having been raised High Church Anglican and he wrote no poetry for years.
His later poetry, the poems we have today, were only published thirty years after his death.
Wyoming Catholic College President, Dr. Glenn Arbery suggested Hopkins' poem "Spring" would be a good one to consider during this Octave of Easter.
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.