Given the constant stream of empirical data obtained by our five senses, human beings are awash in data. The key, of course, is to make sense of it all. By use of the imagination, we attend, filter, order, and conceive of countless perceptual signals, every moment of every day. The intellectual challenge, of course, is how...
As today is the birthday of Louis Armstrong (b. 1901), it seems an appropriate moment to highlight that great American musical idiom of Jazz. Certainly the syncopation and rhythms of jazz music have swept the globe and shaped modern music, perhaps more than any other influence. Emanuel Harrold has a helpful catalogue of the various ways...
This past week, I heard Kenneth L. Woodward interviewed on his 2016 book, Getting Religion: Faith, Culture, and Politics from the Age of Eisenhower to the Era of Obama (Penguin Random House). I was intrigued by Woodward’s vast experience as the former religion editor of Newsweek, where he went from observations in Omaha to visiting...
The rhythms of weeks, months, and years provide us the opportunities to reflect on temporal goals and plans, while the death of those we revere prompts us to reflect on life’s ultimate ends. As it turns out, today coincides with the conclusion of the workweek and the end of the month. And, this week we are...
The following entry is from Dr. Owen Anderson (Arizona State University), a Fellow of the Institute for Classical Education. I am starting a series on the Academy. We need to assess the state of the Academy and the challenges it faces. This includes questions about its purpose and how it achieves that purpose. It can be...
Midweek it’s always nice to peek at where the sciences are growing: pointing us to newly discovered phenomena, describing innovative tools of exploration, and developing theories to explain how the parts fit into the whole. Such is the ongoing, perpetual work of the sciences, an integral part of any coherent classical education. As such, it’s good...
The following blog entry comes to us from our colleague and friend, Betsy K. Brown, who teaches and chairs the humanities program at Cicero Preparatory Academy in Scottsdale, Arizona. A graduate of Seattle Pacific University’s MFA in Creative Writing program, with a focus on creative nonfiction, Betsy loves to share the goodness of words and...
Late this spring I turned on my webcam to teach students who had come to Furman University to live and study together in an Engaged Living Program called “Politics and the Human Soul.” This particularly tight cohort—who typically met up before class and proceeded en masse to the seminar room—was now scattered all over the...
One of the many fringe benefits of friendship is the sharing of probing thoughts and the artful expression of ideas. Just this morning, a good friend texted me today’s article by David Brooks (New York Times), which provided me with some real hope, based on specific developments in the world of punditry and public discourse. According...
Today's guest contributor is Dr. Colleen Sheehan of Arizona State University. Dr. Sheehan reminds us that there is much political sense and a great deal of civic sensibility found in the novels of Jane Austen. Sheehan seems comfortable suggesting that Austen has more political insights than the vast majority of today’s pundits--if only they would...