literature
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The Essence of Tragedy
What is the essence of tragedy? How is it a phenomenon of life, a genre of art? In what actions, characters, and thoughts is it most clearly represented? Join our Philosophical Happy Hour as we take up a central question of artistic signification. “That dinner party was a complete tragedy.” “Her outfit is, like, totally…
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On Reading the Great Books
A Philosophical Happy Hour inquiring after the merits of reading the Great Books and understanding the environment of the reader. The recovery of classical education, much in vogue today, has often been identified with the recovery of the Great Books. This is understandable: Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Boethius, Dante, Aquinas, Shakespeare, Newman, Dostoevsky, and others do…
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Literature, Writing, and the Recovery of Man
A Philosophical Happy Hour inquiring into the virtues of the written word—on literature, writing, and the possibility of meaningful truths amidst a flood of meaningless words. Walker Percy’s brief meditation, titled “From Facts to Fiction” begins autobiographically: a physician trained in the beauty, rigor, and explanatory power of science finds himself forced by illness into…
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Dr. Brian Kemple on “The Lame Shall Enter First”
Executive Director Brian Kemple joined Dcn. Harrison Garlick of Ascend: The Great Books Podcast to discuss a short story of Flannery O’Connor, “The Lame Shall Enter First”. You can find (and follow) Ascend on X.com here, and listen to their podcasts on all these many platforms—or watch on YouTube below.
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Macbeth and the Fall of Soul
On Thursday, October 16, from 6-8pm ET, members of the Lyceum Institute will gather to discuss the beginning of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth under the guidance of Dr. Mark McCullough, who is providing us lectures and readings to focus our understanding. There is much that we can learn from this great tragedy—and here we will focus…
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On Comedy
To complement our recent Happy Hour discussion of tragedy, let’s consider the concept of comedy. The Nature and Praxis of Comedy As permits our time and—above all—my supply of shamefully light beer, we shall discuss at our next Happy Hour the nature of comedy and the comedic.[1] To facilitate our chat, I propose we undertake…
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On Tragedy
A Philosophical Happy Hour on the nature and purpose of tragedy in both poetic and real experience. Twenty-three years ago, on nearly this day, many of us bore witness to an undoubtedly tragic event—a relative few with our own eyes, most through the television. I do not need to elaborate: only to say that I…
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Meet the Columbanus Fellows: Sneha Jain
Today we introduce another of our Columbanus Fellows—dedicated students demonstrating their commitment and desire to grow in knowledge, wisdom, and understanding through a creative retrieval of the classic Western tradition and participation in genuine dialogical inquiry. Sneha Jain is an alumna of The University of Texas at Austin, where she earned a B.S. in Chemical…