New Humanists

Ancient Language Institute
  • 4.9 (47)
  • LANGUAGE LEARNING
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Join the hosts of New Humanists and founders of the Ancient Language Institute, Jonathan Roberts and Ryan Hammill, on their quest to discover what a renewed humanism looks like for the modern world. The Ancient Language Institute is an online language school and think tank, dedicated to changing the way ancient languages are taught.

  1. 4D AGO

    Enter the Indo-Europeans, feat. Colin Gorrie | Episode CIII

    Send us a text Supposedly, about half of the world population speaks languages that all come from one root language: Proto-Indo-European. How do we know, and where did "PIE" come from? Ukraine, Anatolia, or somewhere else? Did the Indo-Europeans spread out in a massive, peaceful migration of farmers? Or as small bands of shepherds, stealing livestock and killing anyone standing in the way? How do we even know what a prehistoric language sounded like if we don't have any record of their language? In this episode, Colin Gorrie joins us to discuss the opening chapters of Laura Spinney's Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global, a fascinating and enjoyable survey of the current state of research into Proto-Indo-European, and a useful introduction to the fields of historical linguistics, archaeology, and paleogenetics, and how they relate to the question of Indo-European origins. Laura Spinney's Proto: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781639732586 Colin Gorrie's YouTube interview with Laura Spinney: https://youtu.be/_nVIV-qaHHY Fustel de Coulanges's The Ancient City: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780648690542 Erwin Rohde's Psyche: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780415225632 New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/ Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores. Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

    1h 11m

  2. 12/15/2025

    The Sophists Are the Founders of Classical Education | Episode CII

    Send us a text The classical education revival movement began in the 1980s as a DIY, grassroots attempt to recover the medieval liberal arts, most notably the Trivium of grammar, logic, and rhetoric. However, the classical ed movement also frequently drapes itself in the garb of Plato: leading students out of the cave, employing Socratic techniques in the classroom, and ensuring its students do not lead unexamined lives. But what if classical education, both in its love for the Trivium (and Quadrivium) as well as its institutional character, borrows more from the great enemy and rival of Socrates - sophistry? In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan read H.I. Marrou's chapter from A History of Education in Antiquity on the sophists and the birth of classical education proper. Henri-Irénée Marrou's A History of Education in Antiquity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780299088149 Plato's Symposium: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780521682985 New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/ Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores. Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

    54 min

  3. 12/01/2025

    Big Bad Leo Strauss, feat. Pavlos Papadopoulos | Episode CI

    Send us a text What is liberal education? It's the prompt that has launched one thousand essays, and in a 1959 lecture at the University of Chicago, the (in)famous Leo Strauss gave his answer. Despite fleeing Nazi Germany and coming to the United States, Strauss wasn't afraid of criticizing the positivism, historicism, and relativism of the American academy. And as is evident in reading his lecture "What is Liberal Education?" neither was he afraid of calling into question the value and feasibility of modern democracy. Wyoming Catholic College professor Pavlos Papadopoulos joins Jonathan and Ryan to discuss Strauss, his relation to the Great Books movement, and his views on the relation between liberal education and mass democratic society. Leo Strauss's What Is Liberal Education? https://archive.org/details/LeoStraussOnLiberalEducation/Strauss-WhatIsLiberalEducation/ Josef Pieper's Leisure, The Basis of Culture: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781586172565 New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/ Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores. Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

    1h 12m

  4. 11/17/2025

    Time Present, Time Past, Time Future | Episode C

    Send us a text In celebration of the 100th episode of New Humanists, we do an extended episode that is a retrospective, discussing the history of the Ancient Language Institute and the New Humanists podcast, has some updates on what we're up to at the moment, and a peek behind the curtain so listeners can find out what is upcoming at ALI and on the podcast. We also welcome both Colin Gorrie and Luke Ranieri to the show to discuss Ekho: The Ancient Language Streaming App. Alan Jacobs’s The Year of Our Lord 1943:  https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780190864651 Jacques Maritain's Education at the Crossroads: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781685953423 W.H. Auden's Vocation and Society: https://www1.swarthmore.edu/library/auden/documents/vs.pdf C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652944 Simone Weil's The Need for Roots: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780415271028 T.S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture: https://amzn.to/4p5ubVo Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781402782831 Introduction to Latin Poetry: https://ancientlanguage.com/intermediate-latin-ii/ Introduction to Ancient Greek Poetry: https://ancientlanguage.com/ancient-greek-intro-poetry/ Introduction to Old English Poetry: https://ancientlanguage.com/intermediate-old-english-ii/ Colin Gorrie's Ōsweald Bera: An Introduction to Old English: https://ancientlanguage.com/vergil-press/osweald-bera/ Learn Old English at ALI: https://ancientlanguage.com/register-for-old-english/ Learn Old Norse (through Old English) with ALI: https://ancientlanguage.com/old-norse-through-old-english/ Laura Spinney's Proto: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781639732586 Colin Gorrie's interview of Laura Spinney: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nVIV-qaHHY Luke Ranieri's Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LukeRanieri The Ranieri-Roberts Approach to Ancient Greek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vwb1wVzPec Apuleius' The Golden Ass: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780253200365 Xenophon's An Ephesian Tale: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781514295557 Benjamin Kantor's The Pronunciation of New Testament Greek: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780802878311 Lucian's Assembly of the Gods: https://amzn.to/4peTcxB New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/ Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores. Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

    2h 1m

  5. 11/01/2025

    Socrates Had It Coming | Episode XCIX

    Send us a text Socrates taught his students contempt for the gods, how to defraud creditors, and useless trivialities about flea-jumping. Or at least, that's how Socrates appears in the comedy Clouds. If you want to understand something of the Athenian hostility to the great philosopher which eventually reached its climax in sentencing Socrates to death, it helps to see how he was lampooned in front of Athenian audiences by his contemporary, the comedian playwright Aristophanes. But Clouds is more than just (dirty) jokes. It is a profane and self-critical attack on educational innovation, and a call to return to the old ways, the ways which produced heroic men like Aeschylus, who with his fellows turned the Persians back at Marathon and saved Greece. The new form of education, in Aristophanes' view, threatens to reduce Athens to a pathetic bunch of weak and impious nerds. But even in his mockery of the new, Aristophanes seems well aware of the inner weakness of the old ways and the reason for their defeat. So it shouldn't be too surprising that his conclusion simply seems to be: Burn it all down. Aristophanes' Clouds trans. by Alan H. Sommerstein: https://amzn.to/4hEaykY Aristophanes' Clouds trans. by Peter Meineck: https://amzn.to/4o7lr0R Aristophanes' Clouds trans. by William James Hickie: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0241%3Acard%3D1 Henri-Irénée Marrou's A History of Education in Antiquity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780299088149 Hesiod's Works and Days: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674997202 Herodotus' Histories: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400031146 Plato's Republic: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780465094080 Leo Strauss's "The Problem of Socrates" (in The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism): https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226777153 New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/ Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores. Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

    1h 6m

  6. 10/15/2025

    Do "Christian" and "Classical" Go Together? feat. Calvin Goligher | Episode XCVIII

    Send us a text In the 4th century AD, two Christian friends - Basil and Gregory - travelled from Cappadocia to Athens to go study Greek literature with Libanius, the leading rhetorician of the time. While there, these two young and wealthy Cappadocians befriended a fellow student named Julian, the nephew of the Emperor Constantine. There in Athens, the three young Christians mastered Greek philosophy and rhetoric at Libanius' feet. Later on, Basil went on to become the bishop of Caesarea, one of the architects of orthodoxy's victory over the Arian heresy, and was later named a "Doctor of the Church." His friend Gregory of Nazianzus rose to become one of the foremost preachers and theologians in church history. And their friend Julian became Emperor - and having repudiated the Christian faith, attempted to turn the newly Christian Roman Empire pagan again. Clearly, as the example of Julian the Apostate shows, pagan mythology and literature pose a danger to Christian faith. But can pagan learning serve Christian faith as well? Jonathan and Ryan are joined, once again, by the Rev. Calvin Goligher to discuss St. Basil of Caesarea's "Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature," in which he answers heartily in the affirmative, and explains how to use Greek poetry, philosophy, and history for the edification of young Christian students.  St. Basil's Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature: https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/basil_litterature01.htm Frederick Morgan Padelford's Introduction to St. Basil and the Address to Young Men: https://www.tertullian.org/fathers/basil_litterature00.htm Richard M. Gamble’s The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnO NH episode on Justin Martyr: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/10722142-justin-martyr-s-first-apology-feat-calvin-goligher-episode-xxiv NH episode on Athanasius: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/9827740-athanasius-on-the-incarnation-feat-calvin-goligher-episode-xv Robert Louis Wilken's The Spirit of Early Christian Thought: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780300105988 New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/ Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores. Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

    1h 14m

  7. 10/01/2025

    Jocks Versus Nerds | Episode XCVII

    Send us a text We tend to think of the Athenians as philosophers, architects, and mathematicians. But their highest devotion was rather to sports and to music. These priorities are evident from their system of education, in which young Greek men were trained to compete in the Olympics as well as to sing and dance in the chorus. They were jocks. Think of the tragic playwright Aeschylus, who despite his literary accomplishments was remembered in his epitaph merely as a warrior at the Battle of Marathon. A man's man. So when Socrates and the sophists came around, the defenders of old-style musical and athletic education scoffed at the sickly, ugly, and weak men that philosophical and rhetorical training produced: in other words, a bunch of nerds. In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan discuss what the comic Athenian poet Aristophanes called ἡ ἀρχαία παιδεία, i.e. that old-time education of Athens. Henri-Irénée Marrou's A History of Education in Antiquity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780299088149 NH episode on Homeric education: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/17406673-how-to-raise-an-achilles-episode-xci Thucydides' The Peloponnesian War: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780684827902 Aristophanes' Clouds: https://amzn.to/46GYaeK Cato's De agri cultura: https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/L/Roman/Texts/Cato/De_Agricultura/A*.html Pete Hegseth's and David Goodwin's Battle for the American Mind: https://amzn.to/4gHQEox Jacob Burckhardt's Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781617206047 New Humanists episode on Alcuin and Charlemagne: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/15992673-the-barren-contemplative-life-episode-lxxviii Herodotus' Histories: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781400031146 New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/ Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores. Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

    1h 13m

  8. 09/15/2025

    That Other Dorothy Sayers Lecture | Episode XCVI

    Send us a text Everyone knows "The Lost Tools of Learning." But did you know Dorothy Sayers delivered another, longer, and even more interesting lecture on education, all about learning Latin? Sayers recalls beginning Latin lessons with her father at the tender age of 6, but laments that after 20 years of study, she was left barely able to read a line of Latin - and not for lack of trying or talent. Sayers contrasts this with her success in learning French, and concludes that what she needed in Latin was a conversation partner and easier, intermediate texts, or in other words: spoken Latin and lots of comprehensible input. Sayers also relates a conversation with C.S. Lewis about what medieval Latin texts he'd give to an intermediate-level Latin student to read. Dorothy Sayers's The Greatest Single Defect of My Own Latin Education: https://www.memoriapress.com/articles/greatest-single-defect-my-own-latin-education/ NH episode on Dorothy Sayers's The Lost Tools of Learning: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/10347912-the-trivium-according-to-dorothy-sayers-episode-xx Hans Orberg's Lingua Latina Per Se Illustrata: https://amzn.to/3hoLz7V Mary Beard's What Does the Latin Actually Say? https://www.the-tls.com/regular-features/mary-beard-a-dons-life/what-does-the-latin-actually-say Hans Orberg's Latine Disco: https://amzn.to/3JWgKIl J.R.R. Tolkien's Letter 43: http://web.archive.org/web/20160308065444/http:/glim.ru/personal/jrr_tolkien_42-45.html C.S. Lewis's The Four Loves: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780062565396 New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/ Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores. Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com

    1h 35m
See All (103)

4.9
out of 5
47 Ratings

About

Join the hosts of New Humanists and founders of the Ancient Language Institute, Jonathan Roberts and Ryan Hammill, on their quest to discover what a renewed humanism looks like for the modern world. The Ancient Language Institute is an online language school and think tank, dedicated to changing the way ancient languages are taught.

Information

  • Creator
    Ancient Language Institute
  • Years Active
    2021 - 2026
  • Episodes
    103
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Ancient Language Institute
  • Show Website
    New Humanists

You Might Also Like