The Ralston College Podcast

Ralston College
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The Ralston College Podcast

The Ralston College Podcast delivers a series of conversations and lectures aimed at fostering a deeper, livelier, and freer intellectual culture for us all.

  1. HÁ 5 DIAS

    The Education of Iain McGilchrist, Part II: Medical School and Beyond

    The second part of a conversation between the renowned literary scholar and psychiatrist Dr Iain McGilchrist and Ralston College president Dr Stephen Blackwood about Dr McGilchrist’s remarkable educational trajectory. In this episode, Dr Iain McGilchrist explains how he left his successful career as a literary scholar to pursue training as a psychiatrist and how his combined study of literature, philosophy, and neuroscience informed his later academic work, including his books The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale University Press, 2009) and The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World (Perspectiva, 2021). List of people referenced in this episode: Ted Hughes William Wordsworth Samuel Johnson John Boswell Laurence Sterne William Shakespeare Oliver Sacks John Cutting Louis Sass Jan Zwicky Robert Bringhurst Erwin Schrödinger Martin Heidegger Max Planck Niels Bohr Michael Levin

    1h30min

  2. 9 DE DEZ.

    The Education of Iain McGilchrist, Part I: From Winchester College to All Souls

    A conversation between Dr Iain McGilchrist, the renowned polymath, and Dr Stephen Blackwood, President of Ralston College, about Dr McGilchrist’s formative experiences at Winchester College, the prestigious British public school, and his subsequent training as a literary critic at Oxford University and his appointment as a Fellow at All Souls. Drs McGilchrist and Blackwood emphasize the vital role of freedom, friendship, and the expectation of excellence in providing students with an authentic education. This conversation was recorded during Dr McGilchrist’s visit to Ralston College in March 2024 to deliver The Sophia lectures for the 2023-24 academic year. List of People Mentioned in the Episode:  Cicero George Herbert John Donne John Clare Guido d’Arezzo Alexander Pope Freeman Dyson Gerard Manley Hopkins Friedrich Schelling G.W.F. Hegel John Bayley  Christopher Tolkien John Milton Edmund Spenser  William Wordsworth Samuel Taylor Coleridge  Georg Chritoph Lichtenberg Derek Parfit Thomas Hardy Oliver Sacks Roger Scruton

    1h39min

  3. 18 DE NOV.

    We Live in the Flicker: T. S. Eliot and Dante on the Spaces Between

    Ralston College presents a talk by Christopher Snook, Lecturer in the Department of Classics at Dalhousie University, on the influence of Dante’s Purgatorio on two of T.S. Eliot’s most important works: The Waste Land and Four Quartets. Mr Snook attends, in particular, to how Eliot’s treatment of fragments represents at once both a departure from and a return to medieval understandings of the whole. This medieval understanding is evidenced in the “manifold articulation” of particulars within the architecture of the Gothic cathedral, the literary shape of the Divine Comedy, and the logical structure of the Summa Theologicae. Mr Snook’s lecture was given in the final term of the 2023-24 year of Ralston College’s MA in Humanities program, which focused on the concept of the Whole.    Applications are now open for the upcoming year of the MA in the Humanities program, which will focus on the theme of Fellowship. Apply now.    Authors, Artists, and Works Mentioned in this Episode:    Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologicae René Descartes, Meditations on First Philosophy Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness Charles Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”  T. S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” T. S. Eliot, “The Hollow Men” T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot Dante, The Divine Comedy  T. S. Eliot, The Family Reunion Ezra Pound William Shakespeare, Macbeth John Donne, “No Man is an Island”  Charles Baudelaire, “À une passante” William Shakespeare, The Tempest  George Herbert  Nicene Creed  Augustine, Confessions  Charles Williams Filippo Tommaso Marinetti  Franz Kafka, “Before the Law” (from The Trial)  Freidrich Schlegel  Pascal, Pensées  Michel de Montaigne  Plato, Republic

    1h7min

  4. 13 DE NOV.

    The Other Side of Despair: The Search for Meaning in T.S Eliot’s “The Waste Land”

    Ralston College presents a talk by Christopher Snook, Lecturer in the Department of Classics at Dalhousie University, on T.S. Eliot’s modernist masterpiece The Waste Land. The lecture explores the personal, historical, and literary contexts of Eliot’s poem. Through an engagement with the Western tradition that is simultaneously rich and fragmented, The Waste Land confronts cultural and personal crises that have atrophied both memory and desire. Snook finds in Eliot’s work a mournful modernism that serves as a serious and searching rejoinder to the more frivolous and enervated responses present in some modernist schools, most notably Dadaism. This lecture was delivered on April 15th, 2024 at Ralston College’s Savannah campus, during the final term of the second year of the MA in the Humanities Program. Applications are now open for next year’s MA program. Full scholarships are available. https://www.ralston.ac/apply Mentioned in this episdoe:  T. S. Eliot “The Waste Land” The Dial Kathleen Raine Virgil, Aeneid Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” Eliot, “Tradition and Individual Talent” Eliot, The Family Reunion Henri Bergson Bertrand Russell Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room Leonard Woolf Ezra Pound James Joyce, Ulysses Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus Oswald Spengler, Decline and Fall of the West Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past Claude McCay, Harlem Shadows August Strindberg Neo-impressionism Cubism Dadaism Surrealism Futurism Taxi Driver (film) Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, War, the World’s Only Hygiene Hugo Ball, Dada Manifesto “That Shakespearian Rag” William Shakespeare, Hamlet World War I Henry James F. H. Varley Punic Wars Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy The Tempest Modernism Collage Pablo Picasso Georges Braque Marcel Duchamp, Nude Descending Staircase; Fountain Montage F. H. Bradley Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit Plato The Matter of Britain Jessie Weston James Frazer Richard Wagner, Parsifal Augustine, Confessions Charles Dickens, Hard Times Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness Eliot, “The Hollow Men” Tower of Babel Petronius, The Satyricon Michelangelo, frescoes of Sistine Chapel Virgil, Eclogues Ovid, Metamorphoses Franz Kafka Chaucer, Canterbury Tales Thomas Middleton, Women Beware Women; A Game at Chess Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra Charles Baudelaire, “Au Lecteur” Fredrich Nietzsche, Genealogy of Morals

    1h39min

  5. 28 DE OUT.

    Jay Parini on Why Poetry Matters

    A conversation between Dr Jay Parini, a prolific author and the D.E. Axinn Professor of English and Creative Writing at Middlebury College, and Dr Stephen Blackwood, the founding president of Ralston College, recorded on the occasion of the release of a Ralston College short course, “Robert Frost: The American Voice,” taught by Dr Parini. Dr Parini discusses the film adaptation of his most recent book Borges and Me (2020), shares stories of his friendships with literary figures including Jorge Luis Borges, W. H. Auden, and Iris Murdoch, explains why poetry matters, and shares the fruits of a life “lived in literature.” Applications are now open for next year’s MA program. Full scholarships are available. https://www.ralston.ac/apply Authors, Artists, and Works Mentioned in this Episode: Jay Parini, Borges and Me Alan Cumming Jorge Luis Borges Beowulf Robert Burns Isaiah Berlin Homer Aeschylus Dante Michel de Montaigne William Wordsworth W. B. Yeats Brian Friel, Dancing at Lughnasa Robert Burns, “A Red, Red Rose” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet Iris Murdoch, The Bell W.H. Auden Boethius Jay Parini, Robert Frost: A Life Robert Frost, “Fire and Ice” Jay Parini, Robert Frost: 16 Poems to Learn by Heart Robert Frost, “The Road Less Traveled” Robert Frost, “After Apple-Picking” Robert Frost, “Birches” Robert Frost, “Directive” Robert Frost, “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” Gerard Manley Hopkins Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

    56min

  6. 26 DE AGO.

    Polytheism and the Polis: The Drama of the Individual Before the Self with Paul Epstein | Ralston College

    Ralston College Humanities MA   Dr Paul Epstein is a distinguished classicist and Professor Emeritus of Classics at Oklahoma State University, renowned for his extensive knowledge of Greek and Latin literature.  In this lecture and discussion—delivered in Savannah during the x term of the inaugural year of Ralston College’s MA in the Humanities program—classicist Dr Paul Epstein considers how Sophocles’s tragedy Women of Trachis and Aristophanes’s comedy Frogs arise from—and reflect upon—the polis-centered polytheism of ancient Greece as it appeared during the Athenian flourishing of the fifth century BC. Professor Epstein explores how these Greek dramas articulate the relationship between human beings, the gods, and the community. Tragedy, in Professor Epstein’s account, is about the overall structure of the community, while comedy starts with the individual’s exploration of that community. Yet both forms ultimately reveal an understanding of the individual that is inseparable from the polis in which he or she lives. Professor Epstein argues that our contemporary notion of the self as an entity fundamentally separate from context would be entirely alien to the ancient Greeks. Grasping this ancient understanding of the individual is vitally necessary if we are to correctly interpret the literary and philosophical texts of Hellenic antiquity. *In this lecture and discussion, classicist Dr. Paul Epstein considers how Sophocles’s tragedy Women of Trachis and Aristophanes’s comedy Frogs arise from—and reflect upon—the polis-centered polytheism of ancient Greece during the Athenian flourishing of the fifth century BC. Professor Epstein explores how these Greek dramas articulate the relationship between human beings, the gods, and the community. Tragedy, in Professor Epstein’s account, is about the overall structure of the community, while comedy starts with the individual’s exploration of that community. Yet both forms ultimately reveal an understanding of the individual that is inseparable from the polis in which he or she lives. Professor Epstein argues that our contemporary notion of the self as an entity fundamentally separate from context would be entirely alien to the ancient Greeks. Grasping this ancient understanding of the individual is vitally necessary if we are to correctly interpret the literary and philosophical texts of Hellenic antiquity.   —   0:00 Introduction of Professor Epstein by President Blackwood 6:25 The Polytheistic World of the Polis 01:09:35 Dialogue with Students on Polytheism and the Polis 01:22:40 Sophocles’s Women of Trachis 01:44:10 Dialogue with Students About Women of Trachis 01:56:10 Introduction to Aristophanes' Frogs 02:24:40 Dialogue with Students About Frogs  02:49:45 Closing Remarks for Professor Epstein's Lecture   —   Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in This Episode:    Athenian flourishing of the fifth century BC  Sophocles, Women of Trachis  Aristophanes, Frogs William Shakespeare Plato, Symposium Aristophanes, Lysistrata Homer, Odyssey  Aristotle, Poetics Peloponnesian War   Plato, Apology nomizó (νομίζω)—translated in the talk as “acknowledge” nous (νοῦς) binein (Βινέω)  Johann Joachim Winkelman  Nicene Creed  Titanic v. Olympian gods  Hesiod  Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility  Sigmund Freud  Existentialism  techne (τέχνη) logos (λόγος) eros (Ἔρως)  hubris (ὕβρις) Philip Larkin, “Annus Mirabilis”  Athansian Creed psuche (ψυχή)—translated in the talk as “soul” thelo (θέλω)—translated in the talk as “wishes”  Aristophanes, Clouds mimesis (μίμησις)  —   Additional Resources    Dr Stephen Blackwood    Ralston College (including newsletter)   Support a New Beginning    —   Thank you for listening!

    1h9min

  7. 2 DE AGO.

    Levels of Intelligibility, Levels of the Self: Realizing the Dialectic with Dr John Vervaeke | Ralston College

    Ralston College Humanities MA Dr John Vervaeke is a cognitive scientist and philosopher who explores the intersections of Neoplatonism, cognitive science, and the meaning crisis, focusing on wisdom practices, relevance realization, and personal transformation. Ralston College presents a lecture titled “Levels of Intelligibility, Levels of the Self: Realizing the Dialectic,” delivered by Dr John Vervaeke, an award-winning associate professor of cognitive science at the University of Toronto and creator of the acclaimed 50-episode “Awakening from the Meaning Crisis” series. In this lecture, Dr Vervaeke identifies our cultural moment as one of profound disconnection and resulting meaninglessness. Drawing on his own cutting-edge research as a cognitive scientist and philosopher, Vervaeke presents a way out of the meaning crisis through what he terms “third-wave Neoplatonism.” He reveals how this Neoplatonic framework, drawn in part from Plato’s conception of the tripartite human soul, corresponds to the modern understanding of human cognition and, ultimately, to the levels of reality itself. He argues that a synoptic integration across these levels is not only possible but imperative.   — 00:00 Levels of Intelligibility: Integrating Neoplatonism and Cognitive Science 12:50 Stage One: Neoplatonic Psycho-ontology and the Path to Spirituality 41:02 Aristotelian Science: Knowing as Conformity and Transformation 46:36 Stoic Tradition: Agency, Identity, and the Flow of Nature 01:00:10 Stage Two: Cognitive Science and the Integration of Self and Reality 01:04:45 The Frame Problem and Relevance Realization  01:08:45 Relevance Realization and the Power of Human Cognition 01:20:15 Transjective Reality: Affordances and Participatory Fittedness 01:23:55 The Role of Relevance Realization: Self-Organizing Processes 01:31:30 Predictive Processing and Adaptivity 01:44:35 Critiquing Kant: The Case for Participatory Realism 01:53:35 Stage Three: Neoplatonism and the Meaning Crisis  02:00:15 Q&A Session 02:01:45 Q: What is the Ecology of Practices for Cultivating Wisdom? 02:11:50 Q: How Has the Cultural Curriculum Evolved Over Time? 02:26:30 Q: Does the World Have Infinite Intelligibility? 02:33:50 Q: Most Meaningful Visual Art? 02:34:15 Q: Social Media's Impact on Mental Health and Information? 02:39:45 Q: What is Transjective Reality? 02:46:35 Q: How Can Education Address the Meaning Crisis? 02:51:50 Q: Advice for Building a College Community? 02:55:30 Closing Remarks   — Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode:    Antisthenes Aristotle Brett Anderson Byung-Chul Han Charles Darwin Daniel Dennett D. C. Schindler Friedrich Nietzsche Galileo Galilei Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Heraclitus Henry Corbin Immanuel Kant Iris Murdoch Isaac Newton Igor Grossmann Johannes Kepler John Locke John Searle John Spencer Karl Friston Karl Marx Mark Miller  Maurice Merleau-Ponty Nelson Goodman Paul Ricoeur Pierre Hadot Plato Pythagoras Rainer Maria Rilke René Descartes Sigmund Freud W. Norris Clarke anagoge (ἀναγωγή) Distributed cognition eidos (εἶδος) eros (ἔρως) Evan Thompson’s deep continuity hypothesis Generative grammar logos (λόγος) Sensorimotor loop Stoicism thymos (θυμός) Bayes' theorem Wason Selection Task The Enigma of Reason by Hugo Mercier and Dan Sperber The Ennead by Plotinus Explorations in Metaphysics by W. Norris Clarke Religion and Nothingness by Keiji Nishitani The Eternal Law: Ancient Greek Philosophy, Modern Physics, and Ultimate Reality by John Spencer   — Additional Resources  John Vervaeke https://www.youtube.com/@johnvervaeke  Dr Stephen Blackwood  Ralston College (including newsletter) Support a New Beginning  — Thank you for listening!

    2h56min

  8. 19 DE JUL.

    Knowing God in the Book of Job | Dr David Novak with Ralston College

    Ralston College Humanities MA   Dr David Novak is a distinguished professor at the University of Toronto, renowned theologian, and esteemed rabbi. He has authored numerous books, delivered the prestigious Gifford Lectures, and bridges ancient philosophical traditions with modern ethical issues.   Recorded live at Ralston College in Savannah, GA in November of 2022. Dr David Novak—Professor of Philosophy and Jewish Studies at the University of Toronto—offers a lecture on the Book of Job followed by an extended question and answer session with students enrolled in Ralston College’s Master’s in the Humanities Program. In his lecture, Dr Novak explores the complex position of Job in the canon of Jewish scriptures, surveys diverse scholarly accounts of the concluding passages of the book, and offers his own interpretation of Job’s “face-to-face” interaction with God, one that emphasizes direct knowledge over abstract understanding and finds in the book’s conclusion a vision of the resurrection of the body.    —   00:00 Introduction 08:20 Dr. David Novak’s Lecture on the Book of Job  53:25:00 Question and Answer Session with Ralston College Students and Dr. Novak  54:45 Question: Does Job’s Vision Occur Before or After Death? 59:40 Question: Why are Job’s Friends Punished for Their Conceptual Understanding? 01:03:00 Question: How Does This Align With the Belief That No One Can See God and Live? 01:09:05 Question: What is the Purpose of the Dialogues Between Job and His Friends? 01:13:05 Question: Did Job’s Friends Hear God’s Voice During the Appearance? 01:14:55 Question: What is the Significance of God Doubling Job’s Possessions? 01:15:30 Question: Is There a Visual Aspect to God’s Response to Job, or Is It Only Auditory? 01:15:30 Question: What Does it Mean for God to Make a Bet with the Adversary? 01:19:10 Question: Is Job’s Refusal to Curse God a Prerequisite for His Later Vision? 01:25:15 Question: What Do You Make of the Relationship Between Satan and God? 01:29:05 Did God Use Job to Prove a Point to Satan, Knowing the Outcome? 01:31:20 Question: Can Man Question God and Express Grievances? 01:35:40 Question: Does Elihu Suggest People Perceive God Through Suffering and Visions? 1:41:30 Question: How Has Your Belief in Providence Impacted Your Life? 01:44:45 Closing Remarks —   Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode:    The Book of Job The Book of Ezekiel The Book of Leviticus  The Book of Esther The Book of Ecclesiastes Robert Gordis, The Book of God and Man: A Study of Job  mashal (משל)—Hebrew, “parable” Katagoros (Hebrew—קָטִיגור; Greek—κατήγορος)—”accuser”  Fredrich Nietzsche Johann von Rist, “O Traurigkeit, o Herzeleid”  G.W.F. Hegel Richard Rorty Reinhold Niebuhr, The Nature and Destiny of Man  Leo Strauss  Plato, Republic  Yehuda Haleri  Aristotle Thomas Aquinas The Book of Isaiah  via negativa  John Rawls Eric Gregory  Chaim ibn Attar Tzimtzum (צמצום)    —   Additional Resources    David Novak    Dr Stephen Blackwood    Ralston College (including newsletter)   Support a New Beginning    —   Thank you for listening!

    55min
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The Ralston College Podcast delivers a series of conversations and lectures aimed at fostering a deeper, livelier, and freer intellectual culture for us all.

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