Episodes
Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
Introduction to Leo Tolstoy’s ”The Death of Ivan Ilych” by Dr. Glenn Arbery
Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
Tuesday Jul 05, 2022
In the big building of the law courts, during a break in hearing the case of the Melvinskys, the members and the prosecutor met in Ivan Yegorovich Shehek's office, and the conversation turned to the famous Krasovsky case. Fyodor Vassilievich became heated demonstrating non-jurisdiction, Ivan Yegorovich stood his ground; as for Pyotr Ivanovich, not having entered into the argument in the beginning, he took no part in it and was looking through the just-delivered [newspaper].
“Gentlemen,” he said, “Ivan Ilyich is dead!”
Thus begins Leo Tolstoy’s 1886 novella, The Death of Ivan Ilych, the first reading for the 2022 Wyoming School of Catholic Thought. It’s intriguing that the story begins with Ivan Ilych’s death, recounting his life and his dying as a flashback after we hear of his funeral.
At the Wyoming School, Wyoming Catholic President, Dr. Glenn Arbery introduced Tolstoy’s novella this way.
Tuesday Jun 21, 2022
A Semester of Latin Hymns with Prof. Eugene Hamilton
Tuesday Jun 21, 2022
Tuesday Jun 21, 2022
NUNC, Sancte, nobis Spiritus,
unum Patri cum Filio,
dignare promptus ingeri
nostro refusus pectori.Now, O Holy Spirit (given) for us
One with the Father (and) the Son
condescend to enter [us] at once
(you) having been poured into our breasts
Wyoming Catholic College students study Latin during their freshman and sophomore years. From there they move to two years of Latin reading groups. One of the groups this last semester read Latin hymns including Nunc Sancte nobis Spiritus.
Prof. Eugene Hamilton—better known simply as Magister—led the reading group along with Dr. Travis Dziad. Prof. Hamilton is our guest on this podcast.
Tuesday May 31, 2022
Graduation 2022--The President’s Address by Dr. Glenn Arbery
Tuesday May 31, 2022
Tuesday May 31, 2022
The night before Wyoming Catholic College's graduation exercises, we celebrate our senior with a formal dinner, The President's Dinner, which includes seniors, their families and friends, as well as college faculty and staff. At the dinner, the college president addresses the seniors for one last time. President Glenn Arbery had this to say to the Class of 2022.
Tuesday May 24, 2022
”Ode to Constantine XI” with Prof. Adam Cooper
Tuesday May 24, 2022
Tuesday May 24, 2022
O last of Rome, among small-minded citizens,
The bickering children of your mother’s house,
Your gaze was calm and grave and kind
As is the glowing lamp
Upon the holy ikon’s deep-set brow.
Those lines are from the latest issue of the Wyoming Catholic College publication Integritas. They are the beginning of a poem called “Ode to Constantine XI” by Prof. Adam Cooper. While this podcast has featured any number of conversations about poem, it is a rare treat to feature a poem along with the poet.
To read "Ode to Constantine XI in Integritas click this link.
Tuesday Apr 26, 2022
Dante and The Sin of Ulysses with Prof. Adam Cooper
Tuesday Apr 26, 2022
Tuesday Apr 26, 2022
The eighth circle of Dante’s Hell are the Malabolge, the evil ditches. In the eighth evil ditch false counselors are punished, trapped in flames. Dante the pilgrim asks Virgil his guide about one flame in particular Virgil answers, "Within this flame find torment Ulysses and Diomedes.”
Ulysses is also known as Odysseus who, after conquering Troy, wandered ten years trying to get home to his kingdom of Ithaca, to his father, Laertes, to his beloved wife, Penelope, and to their son Telemachus. After he finally returns to all that was dear to him, Dante tells us, Odysseus succumbed to wanderlust "to gain experience of the world and learn about man’s vices, and his worth."
The voyage did not end well. Death and Hell take him. But did he deserve to be in Hell? Was his sin really as great as all that?
Prof. Adam Cooper has been teaching Dante helps us understand.
Tuesday Apr 19, 2022
George Herbert’s Easter Poems with Dr. Glenn Arbery
Tuesday Apr 19, 2022
Tuesday Apr 19, 2022
These lines are from George Herbert's poem "Easter Wings." Herbert, a contemporary of William Shakespeare and John Milton, lived 1593 to 1633. In addition to being a poet he was a Church of England priest and theologian. Wyoming Catholic College president Dr. Glenn Arbery has long been an admirer of Herbert’s metaphysical poetry including “Easter Wings” and a poem simply entitled “Easter.”
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Reading ”Moby Dick” with Dr. Elizabeth Reyes
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
Tuesday Mar 29, 2022
“Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation.”
The quotation comprises the first sentences of Herman Melville’s 1851 novel Moby Dick, a vast, sprawling work that is about, among other things, whaling.
Dr. Elizabeth Reyes, a faculty member at Thomas Aquinas College in California was our guest lecturer here at Wyoming Catholic college in March. Her dissertation was titled: “Ishmael’s Cetological Quest: A Progression of Imagination in Melville’s Moby-Dick.” Dr. Reyes was kind enough to join us for this podcast.
To hear Dr. Reyes lecture, "A Gentle Joyfulness," visit the Wyoming Catholic College website.
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 Feb 01, 2022
Tuesday Feb 01, 2022
“It is a good rule,” wrote C. S. Lewis, “after reading a new book, never to allow yourself another new one till you have read an old one in-between.”
About three years ago, Dr. Jason Baxter taught the distance learning course “The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis” after which he turned his lectures into chapters for the book The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind which will be available this March 15th—though you may, of course pre-order it today.
We tend to forget that in addition to being a popular novelist and apologist, Lewis’s day job was professor of Medieval and Renaissance Literature at Oxford University and later at Cambridge University. That is, he was first and foremost a scholar and his fiction and apologetic works are tied more tightly to his scholarship than most of his readers realize.
To order Dr. Baxter's book, The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis click here.
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
The Nature of Poetry: Socrates‘ Dialogue with Ion with Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
Tuesday Nov 30, 2021
Each semester here at Wyoming Catholic College, we hold an “All-School Seminar.” All students, faculty, and any interested staff read the same work and meet in groups led by our seniors to discuss what they’ve read. This fall’s All-School Seminar was Plato’s dialogue between Socrates and Ion.
In the dialogue, Socrates greets Ion, a rhapsode, that is, a reciter of poetry. Ion specializes in the work of the epic poet Homer—The Iliad and The Odyssey. When Socrates meets him, he is returning from a religious festival where in competition with other rhapsodes, he took first prize for his recitation.
This week, Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos, shares with us about Socrates’ and Ion’s conversation.