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Colloquy
On Creation
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�2
�Table of Contents
4. Letter from the Editor
6. Poetry
22. Short Stories & Musings
32. Essays
66. Translations
79. An Interview with Associate Dean Brendan Boyle
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�Letter from the Editor
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�On Creation and the Value of Themes
I think a short explanation of the role of theme within a publication is warranted, given its inclusion in a handful of recent issues of Colloquy. Not only is it useful for you,
the reader, but for the contributors, and the editorial team. Without theme, we have
nothing to judge against. I’m not speaking of judgements of quality, as we would have
a difficult and spirited discussion about how to ascertain a work’s quality. Instead I
mean “judge” as in weigh the value of any particular work within the context of its
setting. I think the simplest way to explain the importance of a theme is to highlight
how prevalent the habit of keeping something “thematic” is. You cannot say something coherently unless a theme renders what you say coherent.
I’d first point to books, like the many we read here at St. John’s. If Kant deviated at all
from theme then the Critique of Pure Reason would suddenly find itself impure and unreasonable. And what a detriment to the ends of that work such a change would be. A
core aspect of our ingrained habit of storytelling is theme. It ties one plot point to the
next and allows metaphor to shine in the liminal space between word and interpretation. The role of theme is the same as the role of words, to communicate, but theme
on its own can communicate an entire catalogue of interpretations and emotions that
words cannot in their isolation.
So, let us focus on the theme for this issue of Colloquy: On Creation. Creation is among
the most transcendent capabilities of any single thing. It can refer to the creation of
new life or new purpose. We talk of artists as creators, and we say the same of gods.
The role of creation is that something comes to fruition, and moves from a space purely other, that of the non-existent, to that of the tangible and knowable, materializing
reality from concept.
In a way, “On Creation” is not a theme that enforces rigid boundaries. Creation as act
is available to the entirety of life’s beings, and seems to belong to nature’s fundamental forces. The Universe forges stars as we create an idea. As a theme, “On Creation”
does invite the polity of the Graduate Institute to participate in the single most unifying capability of all the Universe. And so I would like to end this musing with what I
hope the following submissions create within you, dear reader.
I hope they create inspiration, so that some aspect of the style, content, or beauty of
what you read here aids you in creating something wholly your own. I hope they
create a reaction, as emotional states are a sudden and startling reminder that we are
alive. And I hope they create a sense of appreciation for the brilliant, curious, and creative minds that make up the polity of the Graduate Institute, in this time and place.
Thank you, and give witness to creation.
Stephen Borsum - Editor
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�Poetry & Musings
On Creation
Old Dog
Forbidden Fruit
Children of that World
Mimi
My Mind’s a Dark Forest
Before the Blank Stare
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�Contributors
Austin Suggs
Chris MacBride
Stacey Rains
Louis Petrich
Sydney Rowe
Sylvie Bernhardt
John Harwood
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�On Creation
Austin Suggs
What was in that dark
Over which the Spirit’s spark
hovered?
There was water there it seems
Though not the water of our streams.
This was of a different order
Not teeming with life
But humming with the power
Of a world not yet made
But somehow already there.
Did you tame primordial chaos
Or disturb a primal peace?
And what happened on that second day
That caused the pen to betray
Something was off.
For it was not good
Nor was it great.
It simply was.
Did the mass of land amidst the seas
Begrudge the Spirit its roaming free
A new strife where once there was peace?
And tell me, how great was man, really,
If you came to regret his progeny?
And if he’s an image of you,
Well, what are we to do
With that?
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�Somewhere with Warm Waters - Louis Petrich
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�Old Dog
Chris Macbride
The click-clicking of four arthritic ankles
announce him into the kitchen
At 17, he’s still turning up whenever the recipe begins
warm olive oil over medium heat, add 2 cloves garlic…
We met him at a rescue and were told his first owner was a chef
it explains a lot
His back is now a long, deep sway between hip and shoulder
curved like the mountain valley in Virginia where he was born
He shakes his head and the World’s softest ears
slap against sunken cheekbones
These days, he speaks in low groans as if to say
getting older stinks (like dog poop)
And yet
when the air outside turns chilly
darn if he isn’t a pup again
Trotting up the driveway eager to sniff out
the latest news left by four-legged friends
Nose to ground, tail wagging
he is happy
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�Forbidden Fruit
Stacey Rains
In 9th grade Biology, we dissected lilies;
we carefully opened the white petals to access the pale green center,
separated the stamen from the pistil, and
learned that even flowers have ovaries
to grow life inside of life,
inside the deep, protected center, comes the slow swelling and upwelling,
‘til the petals drop away, and all is given
to the potential.
I have wrestled with
the discovery that trees can be dioecious–
that plants also are gendered–and, more, that there exists
a botanical misogyny. “When used for street plantings,
only male trees should be selected,
to avoid the nuisance from the seed.”
Fertility is so inconvenient.
Nevermind the spewing,
fertile pollen that now dominates the landscape,
causing red eyes and running noses.
Nevermind regret.
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�Children of that World
Louis Petrich
(Luke 20:34-36)
“—they neither marry, nor are given in marriage—”
That’s all, perhaps, you need to say to inculcate
thy kingdom come and save us bouts of parables:
your sower, famed as seeding ground that’s cursed,
then straining after roots to clutch at light,
next family farms and winter strawberries—
all angelically void when wings caress
god’s breath and ‘tis enough to harvest songs.
Your late-hired field hands, prodigally paid for?-consider angels--any time--for free.
The good Samaritan gets even better,
stays the night with beaten travelers
instead of backing home to wife and stacking
nursing on an innkeeper, whose own shrewd wife,
though scraping profit from the dirty sheets,
with years grows tired of busybody neighbor feats.
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�There’d be no rigmarole with folks declining
t’attend the wedding--no resorting last
to uncast idlers outing for a lark—
when kingdom come has come, the nights are done
that consummate, no made-up faces fine
or bodies nipped and tucked to light a spark—
O what a load from off the mind!--you lookers, mark.
My savior dear, your promised kingdom
parabolic could have been a kingdom
literal, in words that summon what they mean
forthright as prince’s peal: I say there shan’t be
children given away from honied skies.
For yes, I do remember Paradise-creation, mine to color.
Then the pall,
for none do slice off married once for all
until they deal their evil able parts
and die while knowing them inseparable.
She, hearing how to swallow serpentine
the world, tends him naked taste of inside
out desire; henceforth, he’s good no more alone
to name things as he will and hear the Lord approve.
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�If only kingdom come, pie rained from sky,
were plated now for simple thanks to still
the pulpy verbiage, round it goes: “Now eat
at once the astronomical wee apple
that lets fall the dominoes.” Along come back pains,
raking leaves from tree left-o’er uneaten,
cracking truth on fossil fruit pertaining
not to peaceful night of sleep ‘til death-with tugging of the limbs and closing in
and never deeper getting than this flushing skin.
To walk with God in cool breeze
of the evening--unafraid
of after-hidden, poor performing fool—
that’s ever, and forever, bliss.
For that, be overcome, O world amiss.
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�Mimi
Sydney Rowe
Vertebrate coast.
Silent boat.
Cusp of tropics, touch pearl.
Medicine inside embers.
Sails high; flatter.
Arcing Inwards to you.
The tiny cabin with a bowl of salt.
Cut open, pouring.
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�My Mind’s a Dark Forest
Sylvie Bernhardt
Escape—run for the trees—evade;
Before they mark me freak,
No hope flickers warmth I might save.
No others will I need learn.
Down, down a dark stone cave
Goes I, who dares and burns.
I’ll claim honors as renegade,
Down, down these mountain graves
As friend to claw and beak.
That shutter, crack, and groan.
No good friend have they been to me—
Community of Fear—
Scratching fang nails on rusty rails,
These wretched creatures roam.
Conquer my last youthful decree:
I’m no Devil nor deity;
“I know this dark mirror.”
Grisly death wings me home.
Under night’s blanket I make haste
Away from light, away.
To fall in sight would lead to waste;
Safety in darkness lay.
Know I seek not a Paradise
Where those wretched do roam.
Those that claw against their stone
tombs
Wail, weak cretin cries.
As I descend, no lights a friend
Forever suckling purple blooms,
To delve through depths returned.
They who lives no more dies.
Wicked shadows cling to bright kin,
To I, who dares and burns.
Brutish heads prevail in disorder,
In guise of man though beast.
Debased are they, the exploiter,
And violence of brutes won’t cease.
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�I move quietly in shadow
But if my flesh be not my end,
With sharp claw I unsheathe.
Then question not my aim.
No hatred I harbor in tow,
Makers of form are divine kin,
But blood be what we breathe.
So worship not to tame.
Should I consent to suffer more
Tread on, but move most steadily,
Or live in sunk despair?
Else these shales might splinter,
I know in cruelty they’ll restore
And break. Striking me readily,
A lust for death so fair.
As done in past winter.
Earth, oh Earth, cries do bury
Depths I dove, and air gusts led
An evil rot in mind.
Through caverns and deluge.
Spoken in tongues—restless fury
A moonlit grove, past tamed, then freed—
Stirs frenzied force blind.
Now my living refuge.
If only I had strength in hand to rake
A melody of crinkling leaves
The tremors from my flesh.
Invokes safety’s soft glee.
From my throat’s rage to the world’s
break,
Lantern flower blooms now breathes
All cries ever languish.
A loving warmth through me.
Death I keep always in soft heart,
Hold I no more despotic dark,
That will know endless cold.
While rose, mint and oak grows;
Love binds us before we depart;
Reflecting sanctuary’s mark
Of All, this I now hold.
Away I from old woes.
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�Ruins are ripened with dull time.
On this bed of oak leaves I sleep;
I find the warm glow safe.
No company I seek.
Lonely lantern’s golden flame climbs
My tale always to tell as creep,
An ancient etched-stone waif.
As friend to claw and beak.
Secret garden beneath the falls
Spiraling to center.
Fire sprouts flame on vine-meshed
walls
Blooming in November.
To stir thoughts of metaphysics
I deny mind’s fetters.
Alight there glows hieroglyphics—
Spells in gold letters.
Timber crackles in a dirt pit.
Smoke fails to reach the floor.
Poems I babble and I spit,
So to deepen the lore.
Tonight, what dreams will I endure?
Be they kind or bleak?
While rosy-cheeked dawn will ignore
Me so tender and meek.
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�Puck: Consider it a Dream - Nadine Bucca
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�Before the Blank Stare
John Harwood
Here I sit and kneel
Before the blank stare
Of some little earth,
An image, of one
I have never seen nor touched.
The more thoughts rattle
In between my ringing ears,
The less I can manage
To imagine even the carving
Of the one I’ve never seen.
A faceless and mangled
Homunculus of marble
Stands before my penitent’s gaze.
In fear, I can not fathom to begin;
To set a chisel into the creature,
To even gesture to the creator.
How can I release anger and dread,
Praise and duty, pent up
In the veins and muscles
Of marble, so finely shaped
By the hands of the Almighty?
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�Would even a painting,
A lead etching,
A mindless praying,
Or even tranced dancing
Begin to evoke the Unspeakable,
The Ever-Perplexing?
So, I sit and scratch lines into letters
And letters into the pages of my heart
That resembles the stone
That patiently awaits
Before my artist’s first minding.
After a purging time of pondering
Before the blank stare
Of the One Unfathomed,
Who fathoms me gently,
I dare begin to finally set a mark.
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�Short Stories & Musings
Dialogue: Meeting with Descartes
TRANSLATIONS
The First Postulate
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�Contributors
Yonas Ketsela
Cynthia Crane
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�Dialogue: Meeting with Descartes
Yonas Ketsela
I set out on a journey today to meet with Descartes. He invited me to come and chat
with him at his house. I have been anxiously waiting to see him all day. I have his
book, Meditations on First Philosophy under my arms. After a long walk, I arrived at the
appointed time, and I am now only waiting for his call. This is roughly how our conversations go:
Descartes: “Let us for example take the wax; it has only just been removed from the
honeycomb; it has not yet lost all the flavour of its honey; it retains some of the scent of
the flowers among which it has gathered; its colour, shape, and size are clearly visible;
it is hard, cold, easy to touch, and if you tap it with your knuckle, it makes sound. In
short, it has all the properties that seem to be required for a given body to be known as
distinctly as possible.”
Yonas: What you said makes sense to me. This is in fact what I myself experimented on
a candle before coming here. If I put it in my own words, what you describe is exactly
what I characterise as my conscious sense-experience or sensations: the colour, shape,
size of the candle belongs to my vision; it has some cedar flavour which belongs to my
sense of smell and taste; its hardiness and coldness to my sense of touch; and its sound
to my ear. Thus, all these sensations are distinct to me. Even though I am not sure if I can
say that it is clear, nor do I know exactly what this experience means to me.
Descartes: “But wait–while I am speaking, it is brought close to the fire. The remains of
its flavour evaporate; the smell fades; the colour is changed, the shape is taken away, it
grows in size, becomes liquid, becomes warm, it can hardly be touched, and now, if you
strike it, it will give off no sound. Does the same wax still remain?”
Yonas: It is unclear to me now how I can precisely answer the question whether the
same wax remains or not. But one fact is clear to me that it has undergone some changes
of appearance. Its previous qualities are not there anymore. My sensations are obviously diminished in reaction to this change. I can barely smell it, its colour is unclear, its
shape somewhat deformed or irregular as a result of being in a change of state—from
that of solid to liquid; I also cannot grasp it; its sound is not as distinct as before. So, I
guess, so far as my sensation is diminished, I can say it is not exactly the same wax as
before. In fact, if someone now breaks into the house and senses this wax, he would
hardly be able to exactly predict or imagine its previous state. But as for me, I know
what happened and I can remember its previous state–however vague it might be. So I
don’t see the same wax as before.
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�Descartes: [I see what you are saying but] “we must admit it does remain: no one would
say or think it does not. So what was there in it that was so distinctly grasped? Certainly, none of those qualities I apprehended by the senses: for whatever came under taste,
or smell or sight, or touch, or hearing, has now changed: but the wax remains.”
Yonas: Ahh, you are right. I hadn’t reflected in this way before. But If I follow your suggestion, it does seem to me that what I distinctly grasped was first its number, namely,
there was one wax here which has undergone a change from one state to another. But
as you said, for its taste, smell, sight, touch and hearing, they become very obscure and
even my imagination can only be a little to no help (given that my imagination is not
good enough). My senses may still retain a certain trace of sensations in them, but I am
sure they will disappear pretty soon (given that my memory does not always record
these sensations accurately). In another extreme case, someone who does not have one
of these sense organs may not participate in the same experience at all as I am now. I am
now wondering if these qualities are not necessarily what belongs to the essence of this
wax, then what is the essence of the wax apart from these qualities?
Descartes: [Good], “perhaps the truth of the matter was what I now think it is: namely
that the wax itself was not in fact sweetness of the honey, or the fragrance of the flowers
or the whiteness, shape, or sonority, but the body which not long ago appeared to me
as perceptible in these modes, but now appears in others. But what exactly is this that I
am imaging in this way?”
Yonas: That is exactly what I am wondering about too.
Descartes: [Okay] “let us consider the matter and, thinking away those things that do
not belong to the wax, let us see what remains.”
Yonas: Ok. Good.
Descartes: “Something extended, flexible, mutable: certainly, that is all.”
Yonas: I think I can understand that.
Descartes: “But in what do this flexibility and mutability consist? Is it in the fact that
I can imagine this wax being changed in shape, from a circle to a square, and from a
square into a triangle?”
Yonas: Well, speaking in clear concepts, I think, that may be what we can understand by
terms such as flexibility and mutability. But I am not sure if that is exactly what happens
in reality.
Descartes: [Okay] “That cannot be right: for I understand that it is capable of innumerable changes of this sort, yet I cannot keep track of all these by using my imagination.”
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�Yonas: Now, I see what you mean, namely that the limitation of my faculty of imagination would not at all allow me to keep track of all these changes ad infinitum.
Descartes: “What about ‘extended’? Surely, I know something about the nature of its
extension. For it is greater when the wax is melting, greater still when it is boiling, and
greater still when the heat is further increased.”
Yonas: Yes, in some vague estimation, I can surely think of changes in its state, that is to
say, from a solid state to liquid or further to gas, consequently its extension increases.
Yes, I am not sure whether at a certain point, we may want to say that it is dispersed,
and not any longer an extension but discrete parts in space.
Descartes: [Okay, hold that thought] “And I would not be correctly judging what the
wax is if I failed to see that it is capable of receiving more varieties, as regards extension,
than I have ever grasped in my imagination.”
Yonas: Your meaning is that if I cannot determine what this wax is like as it changes
from one state into another in some notion or idea, then it seems that I could not do that
by my imagination alone.
Descartes: “Now [see] I am left with no alternative, but not to accept that I am not at all
imagining what this wax is, I am perceiving it with my mind alone: I say ‘this wax’ in
particular, for the point is even clearer about wax in general. So then, what is this wax,
which is only perceived by the mind?”
Yonas: If I remember correctly, we previously said that if we remove all the qualities
from the wax, we will arrive at only flexibility, mutability, and extension. Is that what
you mean? I mean that the mind can grasp the wax in these ideas and yet it would be
the same wax.
Descartes: “Certainly, it is the same wax I see, touch, and imagine, and in short it is
the same wax I judged it to be from the beginning. But yet—and this is important—the
perception of it is not sight, touch or imagination and never was, although it seemed to
be so at first: it is an inspection by the mind alone, which can be either imperfect and
confused, as it was before in this case, or clear and distinct, as it now is, depending on
the greater or lesser degree of attention I pay to what it consists of.”
Yonas: Indeed, that seems to be an interesting and important point. There seems to be
much more happening in perception than my simple sensations. But I don’t quite see
the problem yet. I do trust my senses that they can give me accurate sensations, but
I hadn’t quite reflected in this way before—how my mind can be problematic to this
experience or how it would inspect the wax apart from the senses and yet could be in
error?
Descartes: “...I am amazed by the proneness of my mind to error. For although I am considering this in myself silently and without speech, I am ensnared by words themselves,
and all but deceived by the very ways in which we usually put things. For we say that
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�we ‘see’ the wax itself, if it is present, not that we judge it to be there
on the basis of its colour or shape. From this I would have immediately concluded that
I therefore knew the wax by the sight of my eyes, not by the inspection of the mind
alone.”
Yonas: That difference makes sense to me.
Descartes: [For example, as I am seeing this wax]..”If I had not happened to glance out
of the window at people walking along the street, I have immediately concluded that I
knew the wax by the sight of my eyes, not by the inspection of the mind alone but using
the customary expression, I say that I ‘see’ them [the people in the street] just say I ‘see’
the wax. But what do I actually see other than hats and coats, which could be covering
automata? But I judge that they are people. And therefore, what I thought I saw with
my eyes, I in fact grasp only by the faculty of judging that is in my mind.”
Yonas: This explanation does make much more sense to me now, especially when I
connect it to what you said before about the degree of attention one needs to put in his
observation of facts of experience. Thus, my mind’s imperfection and confusion then
only consist in that it judges quickly and that is when it errs.
Descartes: [Good] “Let us then go on where we left off by considering whether I perceived more perfectly and more evidently what the wax was, when I first encountered
it, and believed that I knew it by these external senses, or at least by what they call common sense, that is imaginative power; or whether I perceive it better now, after I have
more carefully investigated both what it is and how it is known. Certainly, it would be
foolish to doubt that I have a much better grasp of it now. For what, if anything, was
distinct in my original perception?”
Yonas: I don’t believe we arrived at that yet.
Descartes: [That is right] When I distinguish the wax from its external forms, and as if
I had stripped off its garments, consider it in all its nakedness, then, indeed, although
there may still be error in my judgement. I cannot perceive it in this way except by [my]
mind…I have learned now that bodies themselves are perceived not, strictly speaking,
by the senses or by the imaginative faculty, but by the intellect alone and that that they
are not perceived because they are touched or seen, but only because they are understood, I clearly realise that nothing can be perceived by me more easily and more clearly
that by own mind.
Yonas: I am amazed by this conclusion. I think I would rather stop our discussion here.
I want to go now and come back another day for more discussions. For now, I have
enough thoughts to contemplate for the coming days. It is really nice meeting you and
talking to you in such a respectful way.
27
�Walking to My House
My dialogue with Descartes was very interesting and, on my way back home, I was
contemplating deeply the significance of his conclusion. Descartes’s assertion is that in
one’s act of thinking, he said, it is possible to strip all external impressions and concentrate a certain degree of attention to the object and receive a correct perception in the
mind. This is conceivable. After a long walk, I finally arrived at my house. I was completely lost in contemplation; only when I looked at the flowers at the front door of my
house that I was awakened to the facts of this amazing world. I said to myself, ‘that is
my house.” I judged it correctly but the question that is still with me is how I did that—
is it my mind or my senses that showed me the way here?
Note: The Full Treatise of Descartes’s Discussion of the Wax is found in Book II of his
Meditations on First Philosophy.
28
�The First Postulate
Cynthia Crane
A false and scurrilous tale
Let it be postulated to draw a straight line from any point to any point.
East of the dusty market, under a low dry tree, a girl put an open wooden box at the feet
of her little brother. The boy did not notice, but stared at the curling clouds brushing the
near-white sky, broken to bits by the branches and leaves of the olive. “Euclid, look,”
she said, and tapped the box. Their mother, working the edge of the market, stopped her
hawking, saw the children safe in conversation, and turned back to her selling. Nothing
would come of it, she knew, and wished the girl would let her brother be. Euclid’s eyes
moved slowly off the clouds and his mind moved slowly off the job of assembling them
back to wholes from the fragments between the leaves. The box of sand assembled itself
at his feet, and then his sister’s face: lips, teeth, sunned freckles, black eyes obscured by
curls. “Euclid,” she said, “come back.” So he did.
The boy knelt and smoothed the sand
And smoothed the sand
And smoothed the sand,
Grains of glass under his palms
Grains of glass under his palms
Grains of glass under his palms and fingertips.
Mother’s cries, “here, here, sailor,”
Cut his ears like
Grains of glass under his palms and fingertips.
“Don’t listen,” the girl said, and shifted the box around so Euclid would not watch their
mother. His tears were leaving tracks in the dust on his face, but she did not wipe them
away, would not touch him and set him off.
He spit the dirt out of his mouth, and watched it bead then sink into the ground.
29
�No.
He smoothed the sand and smoothed the sand and smoothed the sand, grains of glass
under his palms and fingertips.
“Yes. Look.”
His sister’s dirty finger poked a dot in the sand,
And by it, another,
And by it, another,
And by it, another,
Snaking a line across the box of sand,
Awaking a serpent in his mind,
Between his eyes,
Behind his nose,
Above the taste of salty olives and grape leaves boiled in wine
Lingering
Annoying
On his tongue.
He spit again.
No.
The serpent reared its hooded head, smelling tongue and clouded eyes. It curled around
his thoughts and flicked them into disarray.
Euclid jabbed his finger into the sand, dragged it straight across the box, connecting one
of his sister’s dots to another and abandoning the rest. He pulled his finger out again,
and smoothed the sand on either side of the line he’d made. He leaned forward, his face
close to the surface of the sand, and then he leaned back. Strange. Sensation. He felt his
face with his fingertips and palms. It moved soft as shifting sand or dust and as though
and as though and as though .
“You’re smiling,” his sister said.
30
“Yes.”
�Galaxy in a Flower - Nadine Bucca
31
�Essays
Corruption at the Symposium
How to Read Well
The Galileo Affair
The Nature of the Pilgrimage
The Creation of the Self
32
�Contributors
Sam Hage
Siobhán Petersen
Shirley Quo
Noah Vancina
Kyle Reynolds
33
�Corruption at the Symposium
Sam Hage
At the conclusion of the Symposium’s six speeches about Eros, the drunken Alcibiades
interrupts the party with a crowd of attendants in tow. At the conclusion of Alcibiades’
speech, another, drunker crowd of revelers interrupts the party, sending things into
confusion and signaling the end of Aristodemus’ narrative. Unlike Alcibiades’ initial
entrance, which enables his long and rhapsodic depiction of Socrates—providing key
biographical information found in only a handful of places in Plato—this second entrance seems to serve no discernible dramatic purpose.
A small detail, however, included almost as an afterthought, may tell us a great deal.
The second time around, the intruders find the door to Agathon’s house already open,
because “someone had gone out.” We mustn’t suppose this detail is accidental; according to ancient anecdotes, Plato revised individual lines of his dialogues hundreds of
times. What’s more, the preposterous custodial chain of the Symposium’s narrative is a
clear indication of Plato’s own authorial hand at work.
So who has left the party? And why does Plato wish for us to know? Once noticed, the
first question is not difficult to answer: Alcibiades is still speaking or has just finished;
Phaedrus and Erixymachus are mentioned as leaving right after this; Socrates, Agathon, and Aristophanes stay awake talking all night; Aristodemus is there to witness and
narrate it all. Of the seven speakers, plus Aristodemus, Pausanias is the only one not
explicitly mentioned. Unless this is a meaningless addition meant to refer to one of the
unnamed speakers whom Aristodemus or Apollodorus forgot about, the only possibility is Pausanias.
Why Plato should present us with this detail is a much greater question. Pausanias,
we are told in the opening pages, is still hungover from last night’s festivities—but no
reader will be satisfied to think he has left simply because he isn’t feeling well. More
relevant is the fact that he has been witnessing his beloved, Agathon, flirt with the beautiful newcomer Alcibiades—and with Socrates from the very start of the party. Given
that it is during Alcibiades’ speech that Pausanias finally storms out, it seems likely that
34
Alcibiades will provide us with the key to Plato’s lesson.
�Without undertaking a tedious examination of Pausanias’ and Alcibiades’ speeches, we
can at least observe some cursory points. Pausanias’ defense of Eros is highly unerotic;
even the “highest” relationships are for him ultimately transactional. In truth, Eros is
not defended at all, but instead undergoes a kind of technical scrutiny and classification. Pausanias’ bizarre focus on the jurisprudence of pederasty is especially startling
in juxtaposition with Phaedrus’ emphasis on the tragic nobility of a lover’s self-sacrifice
and Eryximachus’ rapturous elevation of Eros as the governing principle of the entire
cosmos. His focus on the shameful is revealing: he seems rather ashamed of erotic relationships altogether.
No character could be further opposed than that of the shameless and bombastic Casanova who delivers the evening’s unexpected epilogue. Whereas Socrates reveals the
true nature of Eros properly understood, Alcibiades vividly illustrates the corruption
that this philosophic attitude can sometimes leave in its wake. As a youth, Alcibiades has been partially won over by an appeal to wisdom; nonetheless, the conversion
has not entirely succeeded. Plato’s dramatic art demonstrates the extreme care Socrates
took in choosing to whom, and how, he disclosed his teachings. Socratic education does
not admit of half measures, and a little learning is a dangerous thing. No doubt Socrates
is not entirely to blame for the schizophrenic political career of a man with such unreformable erotic impulses. Nevertheless, many Athenians would have seen Alcibiades
as a prime example of Socratic corruption.
However strange his views of pederasty might seem to us, Pausanias, by contrast, is a
spokesman for the conventional. His archetypal pederastic relationship exchanges the
beauty of the body for the knowledge of a wise teacher. The lover possesses the good
that is truth, and desires the beauty he lacks. Socrates recognizes the beauty of his own
soul as superior to that of any mere body; he would never participate in this transaction. Socrates’ students instead come to recognize the beauty of his soul, and become
his lovers instead.
Plato offers us many indications that corruption is a theme of the Symposium. When
Apollodorus is first approached by his unnamed companion in the dialogue’s opening
lines, he reports that just the other day, Glaucon had asked to “question him closely”
about the party where “Socrates, Alcibiades, and the others” made erotic speeches.
35
�The singular focus on Alcibiades is understandable, not only because of his prominent
role in Athenian politics throughout the Peloponnesian War, but especially on account
of suspicions that Socrates was somehow responsible for Alcibiades’ spectacular downfall. The party depicted in Plato’s dialogue occurred not long before the Sicilian expedition, Alcibiades’ recall, and his subsequent desertion to Sparta; the framing device at
the start of the dialogue takes place just over a decade later—only a handful of years
before Socrates’ trial.
This offhand inclusion of Glaucon as Apollodorus’ interrogator is extremely notable:
the evidence of this dialogue, in addition to that of other Platonic works, suggests that
of all Socrates’ close associates, Glaucon in particular may have felt himself corrupted
by Socrates’ tutelage.
At the start of this dialogue we learn that “everything” is more important to Glaucon
than philosophy. This might indicate that he now holds a conventional and suspicious
view of Socrates’ way of life; moreover, it tells us that his concern with the details of the
speeches at the party can’t possibly have been philosophical. How odd, indeed, that if
he is so interested in the events of the drinking party, he did not simply consult Socrates
himself. Glaucon’s importance is also signaled by similarities between the opening lines
of the Symposium and the Republic, in which Glaucon is Socrates’ central interlocutor:
both begin with the narrator “going up” to town, before being arrested by a combative
acquaintance. In this case, the verb used by Apollodorus in the dialogue’s first line,
πυνθάνεσθε (“I am not unprepared for what you ask about”), is in the second person
plural—is he now being scrutinized by a group of inquisitors?
Xenophon also wrote a dialogue called the Symposium, also with an unmistakable suggestion of the theme of corruption: Socrates is there depicted in the company of the
beautiful youth Autolycus and his father, Lycon—one of Socrates’ accusers in his trial
for corrupting the young.
In general, Xenophon seems more willing than Plato to concede the reality of the corruption charge. He grants in the Memorabilia, first, that Socrates did indeed impart political skill to his associates and, second, that Alcibiades and Critias were among those
associates.
36
�(It is often taken for granted that the ruination of these two supreme criminals was the
real substance of Socrates’ indictment, but that because of the amnesty of 403, such
a charge could not be made explicit.) Commentators have even pointed out that the
Greek verb απομνημονεύω, from which the title Memorabilia is derived, can mean, in
addition to simply “call to mind,” to “hold something against another”; not just “bear
in mind,” but also “bear a grudge.”
Just like Plato’s inclusion of the detail of the open door, Xenophon cannot possibly
have placed Lycon among the banquet’s attendees by accident. He must wish for us to
learn something about what would become Lycon’s motivations for accusing Socrates
23 years later. It is true that in Xenophon’s version of events, just as in Plato’s, Socrates
subverts commonly accepted pederastic norms, urging both Callias and Critobulus to
avoid sexual entanglements and to care only for the virtue of their young beloveds. But
while disagreements like this might explain a frustrated lover’s early departure from
a party, they can hardly provide motive for the prosecution of a capital crime. Besides,
this chaste exhortation is exactly the kind of thing Lycon, the father of a handsome
youth, would most wish to hear.
Doubtless far more important, then, is the revelation that Autolycus was killed by the
Thirty Tyrants after the Peloponnesian War. Did Lycon hold a particular grudge against
Socrates for his role in Critias’ education, or associate him with Thirty’s rise? Did he
blame Socrates for Autolycus’ being an “outspoken” member of the insurgent democratic faction, as Diodorus Siculus describes him?
Beyond his putative influence on Critias, there is admittedly a strong case against Socrates as an opponent of democracy. Republicanism and the rule of law are presented a
number of times in Plato’s dialogues as a “second sailing” to the rule of a wise statesman, and in the Republic, Kallipolis bears certain unmistakable similarities to Sparta
and other monarchic or oligarchic regimes. Socrates’ theories about “intellectual despotism”—the belief that the wise alone hold a rightful claim to rule—could easily have
been taken by men like Lycon to constitute support for actual despots.
It is understandable that an embittered father could attribute some blame to Socrates,
the famous political philosopher, for the power and brutality of the oligarchic Thirty
37
�Tyrants. It may not at first make sense that Lycon could also blame him for his son
Autolycus’ membership in the coalition that resisted them. But Xenophon once again
suggests the connection. Despite the fact that no reader of the dialogues could mistake
Callias III of Alopece for a genuine follower of Socrates, the debaucherous grandee
presents himself at the beginning of Xenophon’s Symposium as a devoted student of
philosophy and a member of the Socratic circle.
In Xenophon’s depiction of the party, Socrates exhorts Callias to a career in politics, and
tells him the surest way to woo Autolycus is to make him more virtuous. Indeed, the
theme of the evening’s conversation is introduced by the question of who can “make
Autolycus better.” Socrates quickly warns the others that this is a dangerous topic, and
should be put off to another time. It seems he was right: Callias’ unfortunate political
career during the Peloponnesian War demonstrates a respect in which Autolycus chose
the wrong mentor.
Perhaps Lycon sees it thus: a follower of Socrates ensured Autolycus became an outspoken member of the losing side; a follower of Socrates caused the winning side to form a
powerful, repressive oligarchy that put Autolycus to death.
Socrates’ supposed intellectual despotism, it turns out, is not unconnected to his erotic
innovations. In both Symposia, erotic attachment to the beautiful is supplanted by attraction to the good. This reorientation is of a piece with the typical Socratic line about deliberate action and human motivations: everyone is always pursuing what seems good
to him, and wrongdoing is thus the result only of mistaken apprehension of the good.
Human action, in other words, is to be understood in terms of a kind of self-interest;
elevated self-interest perhaps, but self-interest nonetheless.
To truly comprehend this outlook is to radically undermine traditional notions of noble
virtue. If what it means to act deliberately is to act in accordance with a belief in one’s
own good, how could beautiful sacrifice be possible? On this extreme Socratic view of
human nature, the brave or noble person really thinks what he’s doing is best.
Orpheus, Alcestis, and Phaedrus’ invincible regiment of male lovers would no longer
deserve our admiration—not to mention pediatricians, special ed teachers, firemen, and
38
�Nobel Peace laureates.
In teaching this doctrine, Socrates did something far more subversive than impugn the
city’s religion. Most Athenians, in any case, seem to scorn literal belief in the gods: Euthyphro is openly ridiculed for his unusual fundamentalism. It was corruption of the
young that carried the real weight in Socrates’ indictment, for which impiety was mere
window dressing. Socrates has done something much worse than simply contravene
the city’s religion; he has taken away its idols, and undermined the very basis for noble
and heroic deeds. No wonder the city tries to kill him. We would, too.
39
�Nightmare - Nadine Bucca
40
�How to Read Well
Siobhán Petersen
How is it that I’m able to say that I’m not sure I ever read a book before I started the
Program? Close reading – attending deeply to what is said, the way it was said, what
it could mean – has never been a weakness of mine. Yet, something was still missing;
some crucial engagement beyond merely what the author has put on offer that gets to
the vitality of what our labors are all for. How do we facilitate a meaningful conversation with an inanimate object, how do we engage with ideas so renowned they’re
practically cliché? If we decide the inexhaustibility we’re seeking in the Great Books
actually comes from ourselves, can this teach us how to drink deeper from them? I
offer some thoughts on how I’ve met that challenge.
I
On a pragmatic concern: I am a strong advocate of writing in our books. The best
advice I ever got on annotation – after it was too late to help with my first semester,
incidentally – was to not to try to make insights or observations in the margins, but
rather to be indexing them for things I found interesting about it as I read. My margins
are full of notes that just describe the action, like “Patroclus’ ghost;” running motifs
specific to the text, like “synthetic judgment” or “The Moment;” and big ideas it might
speak to, like “fate” or “death” or “divine justice.”
i This makes it easy to find quotes in discussion, and come paper season, it’s so
helpful to know what I was thinking about and where. I’ve turned my copy into a
bespoke reference for textual evidence on every line of inquiry that matters to me. But
more to the point, it helps me read deeper because it helps me return to the text as I
think about it later on; it is perhaps only half of the experience to actually read and
discuss, the other half is how you turn it over in your mind after.
ii Beyond the practical value, I’d also advocate for an aesthetic value to the practice.
Books are strange, fourth dimensional objects – they carry our thoughts forward in
time. A thought is ephemeral; a body of them preserved against the passage of time is
a text, and that can be as true for the reader as it is for the writer. Further, I am creating a shelf of artifacts of my life at St. John’s. What starts as a two-way conversation
between the reader and the author becomes a trialogue, with the version of myself
as a Master’s student participating too. Just as I feel privileged to see inside the head
of people I care about when I read their annotated books, someone is likely to value
these thoughts from this particular stretch of time of my life at some point in the future, even if that someone is only me.
41
�II
I think what separates a lay reading and a close reading is a decision: to take nothing
within a text as incidental. Every word was deliberately chosen for a particular effect;
every tangent, every metaphor was considered in light of the whole. I take as axiom that
no one writes anything because they want to say something – they do it because they
need to say something. Whatever the author set out to express lies
in the background of every small detail, so it pays to attend them with care.
How do we attend to details that will enhance the discussion? I think that anything that
sticks out to you is interesting. A particular use of language, a mention of something
else you read, the way some pet interest of yours appears in a reading: I’ve seen some
of the most profitable inquiries come out of someone’s peculiar observation. Someone
offering their idiosyncratic take opens up vistas of thought that, definitionally, I could
never have hoped to imagine myself. Ultimately (or with an eye to the Good Life, let’s
say penultimately), we read to come ready to share; to me, this is what we call the
“learning community.” No one else can give your perspective, and it’s our function as
classmates in-community to offer it.
i In trying to sort out the big picture, I think it’s valuable to remind myself – as anyone who’s written anything can probably relate to – I’ve never gotten to the end of any
writing project and felt like I’d fully said everything I set out to. I try to leave space in
the text for what the author perhaps couldn’t write. I think this is different from simply
granting a charitable reading; I’m perhaps suggesting we can sometimes glimpse past
the text if we look hard enough at the totality as well as the particularity: can see the
forest and the trees. Whether we’re impressed with the picture we see is up to us, but
given the choice between two readings, I try to default to the one that is most nuanced,
human, interesting.
ii Counterintuitively, what I’m not suggesting is a devotion to the author, nor their
intended message. What I’ve found reading so many Great Texts birthed from Great
Minds is that somewhere along the way I stopped reading to find out what Plato, or
Descartes, or Dostoevsky thought; I only read to find out what I think. We talk about
ourselves as “in conversation” with the books. Part of being a good conversationalist is
to hold up your end of the discussion. Have your own thoughts! There’s a bit of a
pressure-relief in realizing I can be nearly certain I can’t have a wholly original idea
about texts so widely read, but that doesn’t mean we have to rely on cliché, or pre-made
understandings. What does a text mean to you, right now?
III
In that spirit of the “now,” I’ll even go so far as to say it is okay to disinterpret a text to
the end of creating the most interesting possible reading. “Disinterpretation” implies
willfulness; we are free to develop accounts of the reading that run contrary to good
sense, so long as we can support it with textual evidence. Put a quote in another context!
Take one out of context!
42
�Are you unsatisfied with the answer the author provides, can you develop a more elegant account with what else they’ve said?
i Even if you end up spiraling out or spinning the wheels; experimenting by analyzing, combining and recombining ideas from all over the canon, from your classmates,
from your favorite novel will be a worthwhile skill to build in its own right. I try not
to worry myself with the products of any of these experiments, nor do I try to disguise
my experiments in-seminar as completed positions; the idea is to
push every idea to its limits. I only ever want to be a better scientist.
ii Partly, my decision to close-read is built on this disinterpretation; I can’t know for
sure what was in the mind of the author when they selected any element, but I choose
to read it otherwise, even if I’m wrong. I joyfully forfeit any spurious claim on the
Necessary for a ground in the realm of the Aesthetic. If something seems to come out
of nowhere based on everything you’ve previously understood about the work, it’s
easy enough to disregard it as incidental, but far more worthwhile to examine it as
vital, integral. Why might this be here? There’s no ambition to exactitude in “might,”
only pliable openness. It is my firm opinion we are not here to be right about anything; we’re here to be wrong in interesting ways.
43
�Galileo and the Interaction between Religion and Science
Shirley Quo
Introduction
Galileo’s Dialogue on the Two Chief World Systems: Ptolemaic and Copernican (Dialogue) is one of the most important texts of the Copernican and Scientific revolution.
It started the transition from the geocentric to a geokinetic worldview by means of interdisciplinary considerations based on Galileo’s new physics, observational evidence
stemming from his telescopic discoveries and methodological principles including critical reasoning.
The Dialogue is also noteworthy because it led to Galileo’s trial by the Roman Catholic
Inquisition in 1633. His book was banned and he was found guilty of ‘vehement suspicion of heresy’. This was because the Catholic Church believed that the Holy Scriptures
supported the geocentric worldview i.e. that the sun revolved around the earth. To
support a geokinetic worldview was therefore an act of heresy. These developments are
known as the Galileo Affair.
The purpose of this article is to examine the conflict between science and religion in the
context of the Dialogue, the Galileo Affair and its aftermath. What, if any, is the role of
religious authority and the Bible in scientific inquiry?
The Geostatic Worldview
The geostatic worldview assumed that the earth is spherical, motionless and that it is
located at the center of the universe i.e. geocentric theory. Aristotle and Ptolemy were
the two main contributors to this view of the universe. The old view considered that
there was a fundamental division in the universe between the earthly and the heavenly
regions and each region consisted of bodies with different properties and behavior.
This is called the heaven-earth dichotomy.
Terrestrial bodies occupied the central region of the universe below the moon, whereas
heavenly bodies occupied the outer region from the lunar to the stellar sphere (the highest heaven or the firmament). Earthly bodies moved naturally straight toward (downward for earth and water) or away from the center of the universe (upward for air and
fire), whereas celestial bodies (aether) moved circularly around the same center.
44
�Geometrically there were only two lines with the property that all parts are congruent
with any other part – the circle and the straight line. Motion could be simple or mixed.
Simple motion was motion along a straight line. Thus there were only two types of simple motion – straight and circular. Mixed motion was motion which is neither straight
nor circular.
There was a theoretical reason why upward and downward natural motions could
belong to the same fundamental region of the universe but were essentially different
from natural circular motion. This is the theory of change as contrariety according to
which all change derives from contrariety and no change can exist where there is no
contrariety. Contrarierty means opposites such as hot and cold, dry and humid. So up
and down is a fundamental contrariety. This applies to terrestrial bodies which is full
of qualitative changes e.g. birth, growth, generation, destruction etc. Circular natural
motion of heavenly bodies by contrast have no contrary therefore it lacked an essential condition for the existence of change. Because no physical or organic or chemical
changes were detected or observed in the heavens, it was claimed that the heavenly
realm, unlike the terrestrial realm, was unchangeable, ingenerable, incorruptible etc.
This provided the basis for the heaven-earth dichotomy.
The Copernican System
Copernicus published ‘On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres’ (Revolutions) in
1543. Unlike the old view, the stellar sphere was motionless and did not revolve around
the earth with westward diurnal rotation. Instead, the diurnal rotation belonged to the
earth, though its direction was eastward in order to result in the observational appearance of the whole universe rotating westward. This is called a geokinetic worldview.
The earth was given a second motion, an orbital revolution around the sun with a period of one year, and also in an eastward direction. The annual motion was shifted from
the sun to the earth thus making the earth a planet rather than the sun. This terrestrial
orbital revolution meant that the earth was located off-center, the center being instead
the sun. This is called a heliocentric worldview.
45
�Copernicus’s view was based on an idea proposed by the Pythagoreans in ancient
Greece which had been rejected in favour of the Ptolemaic worldview. In Copernicus’s
worldview, the earth moves by rotating on its own axis daily and by revolving around
the sun once a year. It was a simpler and more coherent theory if the sun rather than the
earth is assumed to be at the center and the earth is taken to be the third planet circling
the sun yearly and spinning daily on its own axis. It had fewer moving parts than the
geokinetic system because the apparent daily motion of all heavenly bodies around the
earth is explained by the earth’s axial rotation and thus there is only one thing moving
daily (the earth) rather than thousands of stars.
There were also theological and religious objections. The biblical objection claimed that
the idea of the earth moving is heretical because it contradicts many biblical passages
stating or implying that the earth stands still.1 For example, Psalm 104:5 provides that
the Lord “laid the foundations of the earth, that it should not be removed for ever”.
In Ecclesiastes 1:5, it provides that “the sun also riseth, and the sun goeth down, and
hasteth to the place where he ariseth” which seems to attribute motion to the sun and
support the geostatic system.
Another theological objection was based on the idea that God is all powerful – this
may be called the divine omnipotence argument.2 This was endorsed by Pope Urban
VIII during whose reign Galileo was tried and condemned. One version of this argument was that since God is all powerful, He could have created any one of a number
of worlds e.g. one in which the earth is motionless. It was religiously heretical because
it conflicted with Holy Scripture and the biblical interpretations of the Church Fathers
and therefore undermined belief in an omnipotent God.
The Galileo Affair
In 1615, the Holy Office, or Roman Inquisition, asked its Inquisitors for an opinion on
two propositions based on some formal complaints filed against Galileo in relation to
the Copernican system:3
(1) the Sun is the centre of the world and completely immovable by local motion; and
(2) the Earth is not the centre of the world nor immovable, but moves as a whole and
also with a diurnal motion.
46
�The Inquisitors returned a unanimous opinion:
(1) The first proposition was declared unanimously to be foolish and absurd in philosophy and formally heretical inasmuch as it expressly contradicts the doctrine of Holy
Scripture in many passages, both in their literal meaning and according to the interpretation of the Fathers and learned theologians.
(2) All were agreed that this proposition merits the same censure in philosophy and
that, from a theological point of view, it is at least erroneous in the faith.
In 1616, the Congregation of the Index issued a Decree declaring that the doctrine of the
earth’s motion was physically false and contrary to Scripture; condemning and permanently banning Foscarini’s book, Letter on the Pythagorean Opinion, which had argued
that the earth’s motion was probable and not contrary to Scripture; and temporarily
prohibiting Copernicus’s Revolutions until and unless it was revised.5
Although Galileo was not mentioned at all in the Decree, he was given a warning in
private. This warning exists in two versions. One is written on a certificate given to
Galileo and signed by Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, who was an authoritative member
of both the Congregation of the Index and of the Inquisition; it stated that Bellarmine
had informed Galileo that the earth’s motion could not be held or defended. The second
version is in an unsigned note written by a clerk and found in the file of Inquisition trial
proceedings; it stated that the Commissary-General of the Inquisition gave Galileo the
special injunction that he must not hold, defend, or discuss in any way the earth’s motion. Galileo claimed that he had never received the second version.6
Despite the warning given to him by the Catholic Church, Galileo published the Dialogue in 1632. The book was a discussion of the earth’s motion but took the form of
a critical examination of all the arguments for and against the idea; the arguments on
both sides were presented, analysed, and evaluated. The arguments for the earth’s motion turned out to be much stronger than those against it. This was an implicit defence
of Copernicanism. However, Galileo believed that he had acted within the spirit of
Bellarmine’s warning because it was only a hypothesis.
47
�In 1633, Galileo was brought to trial by the Inquisition on the charge that in his Dialogue, published in the previous year, he had disobeyed the injunction of 1616 and
had defended the Copernican system, knowing it to be heretical. In the course of their
judgment the Inquisitors twice reaffirmed that the system was heretical, in two slightly
different forms. In the first place they recalled and quoted the judgment of 1616, citing
it as evidence that it had already been duly examined and condemned. The Inquisitors
then delivered their own verdict:7
“We say, pronounce, sentence and declare that you, the said Galileo... have rendered
yourself, in the judgment of this Holy Office, vehemently suspected of heresy, namely
of having believed and held the doctrine, which is false and contrary to the Sacred and
Divine Scripture, that the Sun is the centre of the Earth and does not move from east to
west, and that the Earth moves and is not the centre of the world, and that an opinion
may be defended and held as probable after it has been declared and defined contrary
to Holy Scripture.”
According to one commentator, there is an interesting difference between the two statements.8 The Inquisitors in 1616 condemned as heretical the proposition that the Sun is
the centre of the world (centro del mondo) and immovable; in 1633 they condemned as
heretical the proposition that the Sun is the centre of the Earth (centro della terra) and
does not move from east to west (i.e. does not move in a diurnal orbit around the Earth).
What does this mean? Surely it cannot be taken to mean literally that the Sun is the centre of the Earth? Perhaps it means that it is the centre of the Earth’s orbit or, as in Copernicus’s own theory, the centre of the celestial sphere in which the Earth is embedded
(which might be called ‘the Earth’ in an extended sense).9
As time went on, however, the situation changed. In the new theory, the fixed stars did
not rotate and hence, it was no longer necessary for them to be held together in a rigid
sphere. The whole system of rigid spheres could be abandoned. The universe need not
be spherical, it could be any shape or even infinite. Even if it was a sphere there was no
need for the Sun to be at its centre or immovable (for the whole planetary system might
be in motion).
48
�Galileo was aware of this theory. In the Dialogue, Salviati, the advocate of the Copernican centre of the universe; if any centre may be assigned to the universe, we shall rather
find the sun to be placed there, as you will understand in due course’.10 Galileo added
this marginal note “The sun more probably at the centre of the universe than the earth.”
In 1633, the Inquisition found Galileo “vehemently suspect of heresy” for holding and
defending the thesis that the earth revolves around the sun and for thinking “that one
may hold and defend as probable an opinion after it has been declared and defined
contrary to the Holy Scripture”.
The content of Galileo’s suspected heresy was two-fold. The first was an astronomical
or cosmological claim about physical reality, which Galileo had supported and defended in the Dialogue. The second was a methodological principle or rule about how to
proceed in the search for physical truth or the acquisition of natural knowledge i.e. the
principle that Scripture is not an authority and may be disregarded as irrelevant in astronomy and natural philosophy. Galileo’s new telescopic evidence removed most of
the observational-astronomical objections against the earth’s motion and added new
evidence in its favor. Galileo believed not only that the geokinetic theory had greater
explanatory coherence than the geostatic theory (as Copernicus had shown) and that it
was physically and mechanically more adequate (as Galileo’s new physics suggested)
but also that it was empirically and observationally more accurate in astronomy (as the
telescope now revealed). His assessment was that the arguments for the earth’s motion
were stronger than those for the earth being at rest; that Copernicanism was more likely
to be true than the geostatic worldview.
According to one argument, the view was developed during the Enlightenment that
Galileo’s trial embodied the inherent incompatibility between science and religion, and
later this view became widely accepted. The case of Galileo may be one of those where
science and religion happened to be in conflict. Galileo’s trial does exhibit such a conflict if science is interpreted in that context as Copernicanism and religion as Scripture;
for although Galileo believed and argued that Copernicanism is compatible with Scripture, the Catholic Church (through Bellarmine, Pope Urban VIII, the Index, and the
Inquisition) claimed that Copernicanism is contrary to Holy Scripture.
49
�The conflict between science and religion is a striking feature of both the original and
the subsequent Galileo affair: in the original episode in 1616, it takes the form of Copernicanism versus Holy Scripture; in the subsequent controversy in 1633, it takes the
form that Galileo’s trial was widely perceived to epitomise the conflict between science
and religion.
Aftermath of the Galileo Affair
The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:
Though faith is above reason, there can never be any real discrepancy between faith
and reason. Since the same God who reveals mysteries and infuses faith has bestowed
the light of reason on the human mind, God cannot deny himself, nor can truth ever
contradict truth.
Consequently, methodical research in all branches of knowledge, provided it is carried
out in a truly scientific manner and does not override moral laws, can never conflict
with the faith, because the things of the world and the things of faith derive from the
same God. The humble and preserving investigator of the secrets of nature is being
led, as it were, by the hand of God in spite of himself, for it is God, the conserver of
all things, who made them what they are. By 1939, Pope Pius XII was praising Galileo
for being among the “most audacious heroes of research … not afraid of the stumbling
blocks and the risks on the way, nor fearful of the funereal monuments.”
Galileo was again mentioned with approval by Pope Pius XII in an address to the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in 1952, where he concluded his
remarks saying:
As so, friends, above and beyond the deep respect which we entertain for all the sciences and for yours in particular, this is yet another reason why we are moved to pray: may
the science of astronomy, founded on the highest and most universal horizons, the ideal
of so many great men in the past such as Copernicus, Galileo, Kepler, and Newton,
continue to bear the fruit of marvellous progress and, through to the heartfelt collaborations promoted by such groups as the International Astronomical Union, bring the
astronomical vision of the Universe to an ever deeper perfection.
50
In 1979, at a meeting of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences commemorating the centen
�nial of Einstein’s birth, Pope John Paul II gave a speech in which he talked about the
Galileo affair. The Pope admitted errors on the part of ecclesiastic individuals and institutions and acknowledged some wrongdoing on their part. He spoke of Galileo having
been caused “suffering,” of his treatment as an instance of unwarranted interference
into the autonomy of scientific research, and of the fact that the Second Vatican Council
had “deplored” such interferences.
From the point of view of the principles Galileo held regarding the relationship between
science, religion and the Bible, Pope John Paul II spoke with unprecedented clarity and
remarkable accuracy. In the 1979 Einstein centennial speech, the Pope said:17
He who is rightly called the founder of modern physics declared explicitly that the two
truths, of faith and of science, can never contradict each other . . . The Second Vatican
Council does not express itself otherwise.
Pope John Paul II also issued a call for further studies of the Galileo affair that would
be guided by three goals: bipartisan collaboration between the Galilean scientific side
and the ecclesiastic religious side; open-mindedness to the wrongs of one side and the
merits of the other side; and validation of the harmony between science and religion.
Although the third goal was in some tension with the other two, it was the one closest
to the Pope’s heart. For he argued that Galileo believed that science and religion are
harmonious and that Galileo conducted his scientific research in the spirit of religious
service and worship.
Galileo also elaborated important epistemological principles about Scriptural interpretation, which correspond to the correct ones later clarified and formulated by the Catholic Church. The Pope wanted to reverse the traditional interpretation of Galileo’s trial
as epitomising the conflict between science and religion.
For Pope John Paul II, a key lesson from the Galileo affair is the need and importance of
methodological pluralism i.e. the rule that different branches of knowledge call for different methods. This is what Galileo himself had advocated. In contrast, his theological
opponents were committed to a misplaced cultural unitarianism that led them to fail to
distinguish scriptural interpretation from scientific investigation and so to illegitimately transpose one domain into the other.
51
�Some commentators argue that the Inquisition was wrong to condemn Galileo since
he preached and practiced the principle that scriptural passages should not be used in
astronomical investigation, but only when dealing with questions of faith and morals.
The Inquisition found this principle intolerable and abominably erroneous, and wanted to uphold the opposite principle that Scripture is a scientific authority, as well as a
moral and religious one. On this question of theological and epistemological principle,
Galileo was ultimately exculpated.
In regard to the biblical issue, the main point of Galileo’s letters to Castelli and to Christina is that the literal interpretation of the Bible is binding only for questions of faith
and morals and not for physical questions.18 Although in a sense this proposition can
be accepted as true, it was regarded and was in fact singularly dangerous at that time.
The most detailed description of how the Church views the interaction between religion
and science can be found in a 1987 letter written by Pope John Paul II to Fr. George
Coyne SJ, director of the Vatican Observatory. In this letter, he insisted on the equal
value of science and religion:19
… both religion and science must preserve their autonomy and their distinctiveness.
Religion is not founded on science nor is science an extension of religion. Each should
possess its own principles, its pattern of procedures, its diversities of interpretation and
its own conclusions.
Science can purify religion from superstition; religion can purify science from false absolutes. Each can draw the other into a wider world, a world in which both can flourish.
The Pope also argued that this dialogue was essential to progress within science itself,
a theme which Pope Francis would later develop in Laudato Si’:20
… science develops best when its concepts and conclusions are integrated into the
broader human culture and its concerns for ultimate meaning and value. Scientists …
can also come to appreciate for themselves that these discoveries cannot be a genuine
substitute for knowledge of the truly ultimate.
And in 1992, at the conclusion of his inquiry, the Pope had not changed his mind in this
regard but reaffirmed the point with these words:
52
�“Paradoxically, Galileo, a sincere believer, showed himself to be more perceptive in this
regard than the theologians who opposed him . . . The majority of theologians did not
recognize the formal distinction between Sacred Scripture and its interpretation, and
this led them unduly to transpose into the realm of the doctrine of the faith a question
that in fact pertained to scientific investigation.
Moreover, from the Galileo affair . . . another lesson we can draw is that the different
branches of knowledge call for different methods . . . The error of the theologians of the
time when they maintained the centrality of the earth was to think that our understanding of the physical world’s structure was in some way imposed by the literal sense of
Sacred Scripture.”
The Galileo myth claims that Galileo was not condemned for his astronomical conclusion that the earth moves, but for his theologically unsound practice of supporting an
astronomical view with biblical passages.22
This explanation is untrue because Galileo preached and practiced the opposite principle that Holy Scripture should not be used to support physical propositions. This myth
seems to have acted as a catalyst for the subsequent Galileo affair to become the cause
celebre it is today.
Commentary
As Galileo put it, quoting Cardinal Baronius, “The intention of the Holy Ghost is to
teach us how one goes to heaven, not how the heavens go.”
Galileo added the following note in the preliminary leaves of his own copy of the Dialogue:
“Take note, theologians, that in your desire to make matters of faith out of propositions
relating to the fixity of sun and earth you run the risk of eventually having to condemn
as heretics those who would declare the earth to stand still and the sun to change position – eventually, I say, at such time as it might be physically or logically proved that
the earth moves and the sun stands still.”
Galileo rejected the conception of the center of the universe which deprived the justi
53
�fication for the idea of the immovable earth. Following Copernicus, Galileo set forth
the advantages of assuming the sun to be at rest. It is simpler to assume a rotation of
the earth around its axis than a common revolution of all fixed starts around the earth.
The assumption of a revolution of the earth around the sun makes the motions of the
inner and outer planets appear similar and does away with the troublesome retrograde
motions of the outer planets, or rather explains them by the motion of the earth around
the sun.These arguments are convincing but are only of a qualitative nature i.e. since
humans are tied to the earth, our observations will never directly reveal to us the “true”
planetary motions but only the intersections of the lines of sight (earth-planet) with
the fixed star sphere. Galileo demonstrated that the hypothesis of the rotation and
revolution of the earth is not refuted by the fact that we do not observe any mechanical
effects of these motions. However, this misled him into formulating a wrong theory of
the tides.
Galileo’s work represents the passionate fight against any kind of dogma based on authority. Only experience and careful reflection are accepted by him as criteria of truth.
In Galileo’s time, this was a revolutionary concept. Merely to doubt the truth of opinions which had no basis but authority was considered a capital crime and punished accordingly. This is one of the reasons that Galileo is considered to be the father of modern science. The Dialogue is the book which historically did the most toward breaking
down the religious and academic barriers against free scientific thought.
As Einstein said, ‘the leitmotif which I recognise in Galileo’s work is the passionate fight
against any kind of dogma based on authority’. Galileo’s works were not removed from
the Catholic Church’s prohibited list until 1741 by Pope Benedict XIV.
The Inquisitions of Galileo Galilei between 1615 and 1633 highlighted the Catholic
Church’s interpretation of the role of tradition. In that time, the Church was facing the
fact that Copernican heliocentrism was better able to predict planetary motion than biblical tradition. Galileo has also been celebrated as a figure of valor to the scientific community because the Dialogue pulled no punches in mocking the then Pope Urban VIII.
Galileo allegedly used direct quotes in the Dialogue and attributed them to a character
called Simplicio. What is less appreciated however, is that Galileo agreed that the natural world could not be in contradiction with the faith that he maintained his whole life.
54
�Conclusion
The moon is 40 million years older than we thought, according to a new analysis of lunar samples collected by Apollo astronauts a half-century ago.
This research looked at moon dust brought back by the Apollo 17 mission in 1972, the
last time humans set foot on the surface.
The results, published in the journal Geochemical Perspectives Letters, suggest it must
be at least 4.46 billion years old and that it could have formed as long as 4.51 billion
years ago.
“It’s important to know when the moon formed”, Professor Philipp Heck of the Field
Museum in Chicago, senior author of the study, said, “(because) the moon is an important partner in our planetary system – it stabilises the Earth’s rotational axis, it’s the
reason there are 24 hours in a day, it’s the reason we have tides. Without the moon, life
on Earth would look different.
In the Dialogue, Galileo argued that the tides are caused by the compounding motion
of the earth as a conclusive proof of heliocentrism. Despite this error, the Dialogue remains one of the most important texts of the Scientific revolution.
The Galileo affair illustrates that changing scientific paradigms caused increasing
problems for religious doctrines that had been reconstructed according to the scientific knowledge of earlier times. It has been claimed that science and religion constitute
“non-overlapping magisteria” whereby science pertains to the empirical realm of facts
and religion to ultimate meaning and moral value.28
From the late nineteenth century, free inquiry came to encompass the study of religion
itself. Emile Durkheim, a prominent social scientist, defined religion as “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is to say, things set apart and
forbidden.” This assumes conflict whenever scientists attempt to study sacred things
“set apart and forbidden” and in so doing, challenge religious prohibitions. Today,
stem cell research invokes some of the same deep-seated religious prohibitions as heliocentrism once did.
55
�Mind in a Fog - Nadine Bucca
56
�The Nature of the Pilgrimage:
The Meaning of Springtime in The Canterbury Tales
Noah Vancina
“Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages” (12)—why now, and whence the longing?
Before he even arrives at the human subjects of his tale of pilgrimage, all described in
the General Prologue, Chaucer, as an “introduction” to the General Prologue, gives the
sweetest description of springtime, which evokes already in the hearer the longing for
the peaceful time he describes. Let us go on our own pilgrimage to seek how Chaucer
awakes this longing, and how we might then be ready to join the pilgrims as “to Caunterbury they wende.”
Chaucer begins by providing a context for pilgrimages: “whan” (1). “When” is a temporal description that is precise or imprecise, depending on what follows. What follows
must be some event, identifiable such that the time, the “when” of the sought-after
occurrence, appears. Yet, Chaucer draws out his “whan” for eleven lines, one great dependent clause, in which he lists multiple conditions before the long-desired “thanne”
arrives. Even these conditions, though, remain imprecise: “Whan that Aprille with
his shoures soote/The droughte of March hath perced to the roote/And bathed every
veyne in swich licour/Of which vertu engendred is the flour” (1-4); at what moment
have all these things come to pass? Rain falls gradually, only in drops, and slowly it
soaks into the earth, uprooting the drought that preceded. So likewise the blowing of
the zephyr until it reaches and warms end of every damp wood. Thus, the awaited
fulfillment is an atmosphere, not a moment, in which pilgrimages begin. With these
descriptions, Chaucer evokes a dawning awareness, a longing that does not come all
at once and overwhelm but that grows like the fitful entrance of springtime and the
growth of young shoots, like the passing away of sickness and the coming of full health.
Chaucer presents meteorological events not exactly as personified, but yet as intentional and moving towards a goal. April, with “his” sweet showers, as if the showers
belonged to April (as opposed to “April’s” showers, which feels more distant), who
brought them with the intention of ending the drought and bringing the moisture needed for the flowers. The zephyr and the sun, too, play a part with “sweete breethe” and a
“cours” to run. This almost personification suggests that natural phenomena act in the
world as more than dumb happenings.
57
�Each verb, too, is loaded with intentions. April’s showers pierce the drought of March
(2). Not a simple statement of cause and effect in nature, “pierce” suggests attack, an
intentional breaking through as if much depends on not being repelled. The next line
reveals the goal: to “bathe[] every veyne in . . . licour” (3), that life be not hindered. The
zephyr then inspires the “tendre croppes” (5-7) as if it had breath to share, or the shoots
could receive spirit. When Chaucer arrives at the birds, no change of language is necessary. One might even say that the verbs applied to the birds, “maken” and “slepen,”
are the least suggestive of life, although birds are the most obviously conscious of the
characters so far.
Curious also is the peacefulness suggested by Chaucer’s diction. The showers are
“soote” (1), the zephyr’s breath is “sweete” (3), the shoots are “tendre” (7), and the birds
are “smale” (9). Everything in this springtime bespeaks gentleness and peace. Only
against the intruder is any harsh word said, for the “droughte of March” is “perced” to
the root (2): the drought being an unwelcome condition that would forestall the coming
of spring and, perhaps, also of pilgrimage.
It is in this verdant time, teeming with life, that men long to go on pilgrimages. Now
why at a time when everything seems so right with the world would men desire change
rather than rest? We find a suggestion in a line that sits right between the dependent
clause description of springtime and the independent clause discussion of pilgrimage:
“So priketh hem nature in hir corages” (11). Of whose hearts is Chaucer speaking? It
may seem natural, as the immediate antecedent, to think that the birds are meant, who
make melody and sleep with open eyes due to nature’s influence. But could it not be
looking ahead as well, to the folk who long to go on pilgrimages? Even the rhyme
scheme would couple “hir corages” with “pilgrimages.” Line 11, situated close to the
midpoint of this introduction to the General Prologue and at the meeting of the dependent and independent clauses, joins weather, plants, animals, and humans in the influence of nature on their thoughts and actions.
What kind of nature incites men to longing? Two meanings of “nature” seem possible:
the inherent constitution of a creature or the creation itself. But perhaps neither meaning is really distinctive. If nature is understood the first way, Chaucer is saying that
something within man stirs him up in the springtime, in reaction to what it perceives
around it. If the second way, creation in springtime moves man to longing.
58
�Chaucer points to the importance of the natural world in either case, leading us to wonder why springtime would cause such feelings in human beings.
There is, first, a correspondence between the creation emerging from winter and a man
recovering from sickness. Chaucer lavished attention on explicating the blooming flowers, the tender shoots, and the centrality of the sun, but these conditions or incitements
for longing are only linked to humans with a “thanne,” the termination of the dependent clause. Nevertheless, the pilgrims on the road to Canterbury are seeking a saint
who helped them recover from sickness. The parallel is evident, though human convalescence is not described so lyrically. It has already been described through springtime.
But more darkly seen is a lack in men out of which rises this longing. Before nature, with
its wholeness and life, man is disturbed. The showers do not enliven him; the wind does
not warm him. Or not primarily. Man stands across from a natural world that seems as
conscious as he. He longs, and so he leaves his familiar home, sometimes to go to foreign lands. Still, what is the lack, the source of longing? As has been said, those pilgrims
that go to Canterbury have been healed from sickness. Wholeness there; so we would
have to say those pilgrims are responding to wholeness, not to want. Thus, man at his
best state would still not possess something of which he is made aware by springtime.
The conceit behind Chaucer’s tales suggests that this want is filled by fellowship. Plurality is present throughout the introduction: “every” vein is bathed by the rain, “every”
wood and field is inspired by the zephyr, and multiple “foweles” sing. As emphasized
to by the loading of all these plurals into a dependent clause, these plurals are bound
together, as if joining one another in a festival of spring. Thus, people who recover out
of the loneliness of sickness (or whatever separates them from others) find in springtime the inspiration to join fellowship on pilgrimages. The newness of spring incites
men to seek new acquaintances, new sights, and new experiences. We see how Chaucer
(or whoever the narrator may be) embarks on his pilgrimages alone but quickly seeks
out, and is accepted into, the company of other pilgrims (19-34). Men desire to mirror
the character of the season around them. They participate in this way not solely with
creation, but with each other, each individual being drawn out of himself and into a
community.
59
�Of course, we should not force Chaucer to say that he has described all people in springtime or even all who go on pilgrimages, just as not every springtime is as consistently
idyllic as the one represented in the General Prologue. What Chaucer does offer is insight into human nature, seasons, and pilgrimage. The wholeness found in a beautiful
springtime does incite longing in the human heart, but not a longing of despair or unrequited passion. Instead, it draws people together into communities of thanks—for to
this end Chaucer’s pilgrims wend to Canterbury. While it may be less common now to
make a pilgrimage of the kind Chaucer describes, springtime can still create longing in
our hearts and, now that we better understand what it means, we are better prepared to
meet our own longing “to goon on pilgrimages.”
60
�The Creation of the Self: Shakespeare and Aristotle
Kyle Reynolds
It might seem self-evident that Prince Hal undergoes a significant change in character
throughout Shakespeare’s Henry IV. His character is first introduced as a drunken degenerate ne’er-do-well. Yet, by the end of Part One, Hal has redeemed himself in the
eyes of his father and is hailed as a hero. This does not necessarily signify a change in
character though, only a change in his conduct. One does not need to be virtuous to
act virtuously. As Plato’s Ring of Gyges allegory demonstrates, the utilitarian benefits
of acting justly are often enough to compel just behavior. Still, perhaps a change in
conduct is enough to result in a genuine change in character, even if this result is unintended. This begs the question, does Hal’s character truly change and does he become
a more virtuous man?
Hal’s first soliloquy, spoken to the audience after the prince agrees to join his comrade
Poins in a plot to embarrass their friend, Falstaff, provides some critical insight on this
question. Shakespeare uses this soliloquy to help elucidate Hal’s intentions and provide an explanation for his behavior. The prince tells us he is seeking to “imitate the
sun / Who doth permit the base contagious clouds / To smother up his beauty from
the world, / That, when he please again to be himself, / Being wanted, he may be more
wond’red at” (Shakespeare 15). If the prince is to be believed then, his juvenile and
dishonorable behavior is all in service to a grand façade. By shirking his duties and
ensuring he is perceived as worthless and reprehensible throughout the kingdom, Hal
is tempering the expectations of his subjects, his father, and his peers. So, when he does
finally cast off this façade, his redemption and reformation “shall show more goodly
and attract more eyes”.
However, it’s not clear that Hal’s behavior is merely a façade. He seems to thoroughly enjoy taking part in the debauchery perpetrated by his dishonorable cohort. Take
the dialogue directly preceding Hal’s soliloquy for example. Hal is at first weary of
Poins’s scheme to prank the unsuspecting Falstaff. To convince the prince, Poins offers
the prophetic argument, “[t]he virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible lies that
this same fat rogue will tell us when we meet for supper: how thirty, at least, he fought
with; what wards, what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this
lives the jest”.
61
�Hal, now convinced, responds, “[w]ell, I’ll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary
and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap. There I’ll sup. Farewell” (Shakespeare 14).
It is the prospect of humiliating Falstaff and catching him in his lies and exaggerations
that finally compels Hal to join Poins’s plan. There does not appear to be any utilitarian
benefit for Hal in joining Poins. His willingness to go along with the prank seems best
explained by a genuine and wholly ignoble desire to humiliate Falstaff.
Hal’s reactions to Falstaff’s all too predictable lies concerning the prank only a few
scenes later serve to further illustrate this point. Falstaff begins to eagerly, and inaccurately, recount his ordeal to Hal and Poins, telling them of the men who robbed him of
his stolen gold, entirely unaware of the fact that those men were in fact Hal and Poins.
Almost immediately, Falstaff begins to, in a rather obvious manner, increase the number of his attackers, for which Hal derides him, saying, “O monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two!” (Shakespeare 47). Falstaff, surprisingly unphased by the
prince’s derisions, continues with his fictional account of the “battle” and Hal continues
with his mockeries. Finally, after Falstaff becomes wholly indignant due to Hal picking
apart every aspect of his tale, the prince tells Falstaff the truth, stating:
“We two set on you four and, with a word, outfaced you from your prize, and
have it; yea, and can show it you here in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your
guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity and roared for mercy, and still run
and roared, as ever I heard a bullcalf. What a slave art though to hack thy sword
as though hast done, and then say it was in a fight! What trick, what starting hole
canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent shame?”
Every action Hal has taken and every word he has spoken in this scene seems to have
been aimed at maximizing Falstaff’s embarrassment. If this is simply a part Hal is playing, such intricate scheming would be unnecessary. However, if Hal truly is morally
degenerate and elicits genuine joy from poking fun at and participating in the schemes
of his corrupt and contemptible crew, then his behavior makes a great deal more sense.
Hal’s so called “reformation” begins in earnest when he confronts his father and pledges to fulfill his duties as a prince of the realm.
62
�He tells the king, “So please your Majesty, I would I could / Quit all offenses with as
clear excuse / As well as doubtless I can purge / Myself of many I am charged withal”
. The king rejoices at this news, but is, at first, skeptical. Hal reassures him, promising
to “[b]e more”.
Hal appears to honor his commitment, marching off to battle against a rebel force, to the
astonishment of his enemies. Percy Hotspur, the leader of the rebels, inquires as to the
statues of Hal and his forces, asking, “Where is … [t]he nimble-footed madcap Prince of
Wales”. His cousin, Vernon, replies:
“All furnished, all in arms; / All plumed like estridges that with the wind / Bated like
eagles having lately bathed; / Glittering in golden coats like images; / As full of spirit
as the month of May / And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer; / Wanton as youthful
goats, wild as young bulls. / I saw young Harry with his beaver on, / His crushes
on his thighs, gallantly armed, / Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury, And
vaulted with such ease into his seat / As if an angel dropped down from the clouds /
To turn and wind a fiery Pegasus / And witch the world with noble horsemanship”.
Hal has, at least in the eyes of his enemy, become an entirely different person. He is no
longer seen as the “madcap Prince of Wales,” but is instead viewed as a gallant warrior.
Hal has done little except show up to the battle, yet, Vernon offers him some of the most
striking and sincere praise seen throughout the play. At this point, the reformation Hal
prophesized seems to be coming to pass. Hal is executing his plan and those around
him are taking note.
However, Hal’s plan is to simply feign virtue so as to be better looked upon by those in
his kingdom. He is only interested in the utilitarian benefits of being perceived as virtuous. Yet, after the conclusion of the battle with Hotspur’s forces, Hal takes an action
which appears entirely inconsistent with this philosophy. Falstaff falsely tells Hal and
his brother, John, that he had killed Hotspur. Hal responds, truthfully, “[w]hy, Percy
I killed myself”. This, of course, does not stop the invariably deceitful Falstaff from
arguing that his account of Hotspur’s death is accurate, going so far as to threaten to
make anyone who doubts him “eat a piece of [his] sword” (Shakespeare 114). Hal, despite knowing the falsehood of Falstaff’s claims, agrees to allow him to take credit for
the killing of Hotspur, saying, “if a lie may do thee grace, / I’ll gild it with the happiest
terms I have”.
63
�While it’s not entirely clear why Hal chooses to let Falstaff persist in his lie, it seems
to come from a genuine desire to see Falstaff improve himself and his circumstances,
which Falstaff commits to do only a few lines later. There doesn’t appear to be any
benefit to Hal in allowing Falstaff to claim the glory and honor associated with killing
Hotspur. Hal’s motivations are instead altruistic in nature and demonstrative of true
virtue.
Despite deciding to reform himself in the eyes of those around him, Hal is unable to
entirely forgo his old ways. Much to the dismay of his father, Hal continues to associate
with Poins, Falstaff, and his other sinful companions. When the king learns that Hal is
back in London with his band of scoundrels, he laments;
“Most subject is the fattest soil to weeds, / And he, the noble image of my youth, /
Is overspread with them. Therefore my grief / Stretches itself beyond the hour of
death. / The blood weeps from my heart when I do shape / In forms imaginary th’
unguided days / And rotten times that you shall look upon / When I am sleeping
with my ancestors. / For when headstrong rage and hot blood are his counselors,
/ When means and lavish manners meet together, / O, with what wings shall affections fly / Towards fronting peril and opposed decay!”
The king is deeply afraid that Hal cannot truly reform and will ultimately succumb to
his rage and other vices which will destroy him.
Finally, at the conclusion of Part Two, Hal ultimately casts of his old habits and comrades. In a cutting and markedly harsh speech directed at Falstaff, the prince announces:
“I know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers. / How ill white hairs becomes a
fool and jester! / I have long dreamt of such a kind of man, / So surfeit-swelled,
so old, and so profane, / But, being awaked, I do despise my dream. / Make less
thy body hence, and more thy grace. / Leave gormandizing. Know the grave doth
gape / For thee thrice wider than other men. / Reply not to me with a fool-born
jest. / Presume not that I am the thing I was, / For God doth know, so shall the
world perceive, / That I have turned away my former self. / So will I those that
kept me company”.
The way Hal speaks of his transformation makes it sound not as if he is simply put
64
�ting on a different mask but as if he has truly undergone a metamorphosis of spirit. He
likens his reformation to wakening from a bad dream, a dream he now despises.
So, although Hal may not have meant to undergo a genuine change in character, he did.
His actions make clear that he was a morally corrupt degenerate that enjoyed taking
part in the activities of his London gang. Then, he undergoes a reformation, which may
have at first simply been an act, but ultimately results in a changed character capable of
committing acts of altruism. Hal does seem to waver in his new convictions, returning
to the London tavern to fraternize with Poins and Falstaff, but finally lets his old wayward acquaintances go. But why does Hal undergo this change in character? Perhaps
Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics can provide some insight. Aristotle tells us:
“oral virtue comes about as a result of habit, whence also its name (ethike) is one
that is formed by a slight variation from the word ethos (habit). From this it is also
plain that none of the moral virtues arises in us by nature; for nothing that exists
by nature can form a habit contrary to its nature. … Neither by, then, nor contrary
to nature do the virtues arise in us; rather we are adapted by nature to receive
them, and are made perfect by habit”.
Hal lived a life of vice and did not create a habit of virtue. He thus became sinful and
devoid of moral integrity. Hal then began to act virtuously. Eventually, acting ethically
became habitual. However, habits are engrained on the soul and Hal struggled to overcome his past transgressions. Though, finally, a new, virtuous Hal was created through
the prince’s actions. For, the self is formed by our habits, and Hal is no different.
65
�Translation
On the Creation of Man
66
�Contributor
Stephen Cunha
67
�On the Creation of Man
By Wolfgang Musculus
Translation by Stephen Cunha
Now, accordingly, in proper order, we proceed to consider the work of God in the creation of
man: which consideration must be understood, not only to be next after those things which we
have noted concerning God the maker of all things, but also to especially concern man. For what
is more properly suitable for man than, after his creator, to understand himself? We are drawn
to this knowledge not only by that which Lactantius somewhere puts into words, “Great is the
power of man, great his reason, great his mystery, so that not undeservedly Plato gave thanks
to nature, because he was born a human being”—yes indeed, because next to God nothing is
more sublime than man, nothing more excellent has been made;3 but also because no small
portion of our salvation requires this, that we know ourselves, wherein even those who have
everywhere inculcated the saying γνωθε σεαυτόν, that is, “know thyself,” as if it had dropped
down from heaven, have admonished that the greatest part of wisdom is found. But who does
not know that it is especially required for the knowledge of man, that we should not be ignorant
of the origin and making of mankind? And the Holy Spirit has described the creation of man
with singular care and greater diligence than all other created things in the Sacred Scriptures,
undoubtedly for this purpose, that even from the origin of our race, we might be reminded that
when God made man, he wanted to create a certain remarkable work, which would be much
more outstanding, and would much more closely approach the glory of his divinity, than the
rest of creation; and in the next place, that the knowledge of our beginning might be very much
conducive to the consideration of divine wisdom, goodness, and power, and contain, as it were,
some principles of heavenly philosophy.
And I also think that some parameters of knowledge are required, so that we do not extend our
consideration beyond those things that are able to advance Christian godliness. What should be
thought by the godly person concerning the creation of man cannot be better determined than
from the instruction of the Holy Spirit, which Sacred Scripture sets forth to us. For the mind of
man has been so darkened, that he is able to judge rightly neither of his maker nor of himself.
For this reason, man must take care to search for the things that ought to be known, and held
with certainty, not only concerning man himself but also concerning God his creator, from the
Sacred Scriptures rather than from human opinion.
And those things which have been handed down in the Sacred Scriptures, having rejected all
curiousness, are so composed, that they are adapted to both our capacity and our benefit. They
are moderate, but solid, certain, profitable, necessary, and harmonious. Therefore, concerning
the creation of man, this is related to us in few words in Genesis chapters one and two. First,
that man is a work, just as all other created things. He was made in time; he did not exist before
time. Indeed, if we consider the time of our beginning, which Sacred Scripture also reveals, every creature is more ancient than man. Now everything which has been made does not exist on
account of itself, but by reason of another source. And just as
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it does not exist from itself, so whatever it has, it does not have from itself, but from the one by
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�whom it was made. Nor when it was made, was it able to cause itself to be made different, either
better or worse, than what it was made according to the will of its maker. On the contrary, it has
not even contributed in the smallest degree to become what it has been made. Accordingly, it
should be observed concerning man, that since he also, just like the rest of creation, was made,
all that he is and all that he has (in terms of natural abilities), depended on the will, wisdom,
and power of his maker.
Second, since the very consideration that we have been made immediately leads us forward to
become acquainted with our maker, we next inquire about the maker and creator of man. Sacred
Scripture attributes the creation of man to the same One by whom all other things were made.
It says, “God created man.”The books of the Gentiles say concerning a certain Prometheus, the
father of Deucalion, that he first formed man. And he did not form man, but the image of man
from clay: for which reason he is also the author of the art of molding. We acknowledge that
the maker of our race is the only and true God, who made heaven and earth, and all the things
which are in them, visible and invisible, and so we confess that whatever we are and whatever
we have is from him. Moreover, it is properly required that in all things we depend on him
alone, as the creature on his creator. Israel is reproached in the Mosaic and prophetic books
because it abandoned its maker. And God himself cries out, saying: “I made you.” Wherein it is
sufficiently demonstrated how perverse the heart of man is, to such an extent that he forsakes
his own maker, God.
Furthermore, we are admonished by this knowledge, since we all have the same creator and
maker, lest any man find fault with his work, either in himself or in others, saying: “Why
did he make me like this?” In Isaiah chapter forty-five we read as follows: “Woe to him
who speaks against his maker, a potsherd among the potsherds of the earth. Shall the clay
say to its potter, ‘What are you making?’” And in Proverbs chapter fourteen we read: “He
who finds fault with a poor man, reproaches his maker.”Therefore, that faith by which we
believe that we have been created by God, will work these three things in our hearts. First,
that in all things we depend with our whole heart on God our creator. Second, that each man
is content with how he has been created, and even embraces it with thanksgiving, for which
he has been made by God the creator. Third, that no one looks down on how his neighbor
has been made, however base and lowly, lest he dishonors in him their common creator.
In the third place, the Sacred Scriptures are not silent about this, of what man was made. In Genesis chapter two we read the following, “Therefore, the Lord God formed man from the dust of
the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living creature.” In
Hebrew it is, המדאה ןמ רפע. Notice the material from which man was made. And what is baser,
what is poorer and more unstable, than the dust of the ground, from which not even bricks can
properly be made? He could at least have been made from solid earth. This origin of our race
warns us all, that in consideration of it we maintain modesty, lest it be said to us: “Why are you
prideful, O earth and ashes?” For what other assessment is to be made of that, which is made
from dust? The Holy Spirit could have said, “The Lord God formed man from the ground,” or
“from the dust”: but in order to inculcate the lowliness of man, he called man, made from dust,
“the dust of the earth.” And what did
God say to Adam? “Dust you are, and to dust you will return.” He did not simply say, “you are
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�from dust,” but “you are dust.” Lest the flesh should say, “So what that I am from dust? Whatever I came from, I am now a human being, and am not dust”; the sentence of God our maker
comes to us, saying: “And from dust you are, and dust you still are, and to dust you will return,” just as if you were to say to a magnificent glacier: “And water you were, and water you
are, and to water you will return.”
In the fourth place, the way in which the first man was made is read in the Sacred Scriptures.
We read the following in Genesis chapter two: “Therefore, the Lord God formed man, from
the dust of the earth, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living
creature.”11 By the verb “formed,” the Holy Spirit expresses the singular diligence put into the
creation of man. Second, in order to describe what material God formed, when he built man,
he adds: “dust of the earth.” Third, he adds, “and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,”
by which words he teaches us how the figure of the human body, first formed from the dust,
and still inanimate, was made animate and living. His maker poured into him spirit and breath
(for in the Hebrew it is )םייח תמשנfrom which he would live, and so he was made into a living
soul: that is, he began to live, a man now animated, who before was dust and inanimate. Thus,
the things concerning the first man Adam.
And how Eve was subsequently made, is in the same chapter read in this way: “The
Lord God sent a deep sleep on Adam. And while he slept, he took out one of his ribs, and replaced the flesh over it. And the Lord God built the rib, which he had taken from Adam, into a
woman, and brought her to Adam. And Adam said, ‘This is now bone of my bones, and flesh
of my flesh. She is called woman, since she was taken out of man.’”
In both cases, the singular purpose and care that God used in the creation of man is
sufficiently intimated. And yet, in like manner, we are permitted to see how the Holy Spirit describes in three words the wonderful way man was formed—wherein the body together with its
members, both internal and external, such as bones, veins, cartilage, vertebrae, muscles, joints,
and limbs were most harmoniously fashioned, put together, and adorned, and then vivified by
the infusion of the soul—when he says, “he formed,” “he built,” and “he breathed [inspired].”
And in this way, he restrains our curiosity, which is itching to know each of these things, how,
by what industry, by what strength, and in what space of time it was accomplished, admonishing us to reverently hold fast to those things imparted in few words, and to acknowledge and
honor God our maker.
In the fifth place, it is also taught in the Sacred Scriptures, what kind of man was made.
With respect to the figure of the body of both, male and female, its stature, and the fitting together of the body and soul, it is in itself plain, of what constitution we have been made. But
as for clearly perceiving the nature and dignity of man, since both have been corrupted, and
deprived of their original quality, of what kind both were in the first man, we are not able to
know, unless the Holy Spirit speaks of and teaches it to us.
And I do not understand in this place by quality of nature the bodily necessities and
affections, in which we are still subjected, but that original quality of rectitude, which it is read
that God imparted to the first man in Ecclesiastes chapter seven. For Ecclesiastes says the following, “I have found this only, that God made man [ רשיthat is, upright].” This is not to be un
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�derstood of the uprightness of the body, but of the soul, which men call original righteousness,
and which comprises the knowledge of God the creator, obedience, faith, love toward both God
and one’s neighbor, and the freedom of an upright will, together with other adornments of that
nature.
Therefore, when the first man by nature was made such—namely, upright, not only in
body, but also in soul—he possessed free will in such a way, that he was able to obey God, if he
wanted: and, on the other hand, he was able to sin, if he wanted. For however upright and free
to do good he was made, nevertheless, at the same time, he differed from the angels in this, that
he was able to be tempted by inordinate affections, and consent to them, and be led away from
the rectitude of original righteousness. This does not have a place in those angels who, since the
fall of the reprobate spirits, have remained in the truth of God.
The Sacred Scriptures also testify concerning the dignity of the first man, when they
teach that he was made in the likeness and image of God. God says in Genesis chapter one, “Let
us make man in our own image and likeness, and let him rule over the fish of the sea, and over
the birds of the air, and over every living creature on the earth, and over every creeping thing
that moves on the earth. And God created man in his image and in his likeness, in the image of
God he created him,” and the things which follow in that place.
Most ancient and contemporary authors expound the dignity of man as uprightness of
nature, of which we have made mention, so that the image of God was what separated man
from the beasts, by reason and by the internal integrity of man which more nearly resembled
the divine nature, wisdom, and righteousness. But although that exposition is not to be altogether discarded, it is nevertheless clear from the very words of Sacred Scripture that man was
so made in the image of God, that he should be like God on the earth, and have all things placed
under his feet. For what else is being said where it reads, “And God created man in his image
and likeness,” than what follows, “in the image of God he created him”? In Hebrew it is םלצב
םיהלא. And to be created in the image of God, is to be constituted like a certain God. Whence,
magistrates and rulers are in the Scriptures called םיהלא: that is, “gods” and “mighty ones.”
And this image of God granted to man does not exclude the internal uprightness of man, which
is so necessary for the former to be retained, that without it a ruler differs nothing from a savage
beast, except perhaps that he employs more subtlety and cunning in carrying out the malice of
his tyranny. This understanding of human dignity, according to which man is made in the image of God, was plainly set forth by Chrysostom in his exposition of Genesis chapter one, and
occasionally by Augustine in his dispute with the Manicheans.
And when the apostle says in First Corinthians chapter eleven that “a man indeed ought
not cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God, but the woman is the glory of man,”
he thus plainly makes a distinction between the man and the woman, saying that the man is indeed made in the image of God, but the woman in the image of man. This cannot be understood
only of internal human rectitude and righteousness, of which the woman is a partaker together
with the man in the Lord, but is wholly to be understood of the authority of rule, which, as is
well known, was granted at once to the man at the beginning, but denied to the woman.
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The putting of Adam in a paradise of pleasure after he was made, a place more excellent and
exceptional in comparison with all other habitations on the whole earth, and that he put names
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�upon all the living creatures, also relate to this dignity of the image of God. For what else do
these things prove than that he was the lord and ruler of the whole earth?
Many other things are disputed concerning the status that our first parents had in paradise, and
what they would have had if they had not sinned, but these things from Sacred Scripture are
more certain and more profitable to students of theology: briefly, to hold, first, that man was
made; second, that he was made by God; third, that he was made from the dust of the earth;
fourth, that he was built with the special care of God; and fifth, that he was made in and elevated to the image of God, so that he is more outstanding in both nature and worth than all other
creatures. If properly considered, these things contain most ample subject matter of Christian
philosophy, and are conducive to this, that through the consideration of our origin we are restored to modesty, and through the knowledge of the uprightness and dignity of our first parents, we understand more deeply what we have lost in them, and what we have recovered, and
not without great gain, in Christ our second Adam, and the author of our regeneration.
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�Bad Dreams - Nadine Bucca
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�“Creating a Community”
An Inter view with Associate Dean
Brendan Boyle
A vision for building community at the
St. John’s College Graduate Institute.
By Stephen Borsum
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�It was what I would call the first cold day of the year when I came to the BBC to meet
Mr. Boyle for an interview. It was cold only in that the rain falling that day was a chilling one, one lacking the distinct warmth that rain has in summer and early fall here in
Annapolis. As I entered, I approached Mr. Boyle’s office to see it closed. Unexpected,
given I was just on time for our scheduled meeting. But he called to me from within the
GI Conference room where he had been taking some calls for the day, and after some
polite banter and the brewing of some green tea, we began our discussion. What follows
has been edited for clarity, and is ultimately a poor reflection of just how engaging a
face-to-face conversation with Mr. Boyle can be.
Stephen:
I’m really curious to hear your thoughts on the role you play as dean. You know, you’re
a liaison to the college. You are a tutor. You’re a family man. You have all of these responsibilities and so, where does worrying about the health of the GI community fall in
the list of priorities?
Mr. Boyle:
I think my top priority is the GI as a community. One thing I realized when I was thinking about this interview this morning is that I’m probably going to be borrowing a lot of
formulations that I heard from Walter Sterling yesterday. And I’m happy to credit him
and you can credit him in whatever way you think is necessary, but I hadn’t really even,
until yesterday, begun to notice that the first statement of the program is that St. John’s
College is a community of learning, and that even if I hadn’t noticed that, I don’t think
I had caught what he drew attention to. Which is that sentence, at least on his construction, is meant to distinguish St. John’s qua community from St. John’s qua institution
like in the first instance. At the same time it might well be an institution. But if it’s an
institution, that description is somehow much lower than the description of St. John’s
as a community. So I do feel like my first responsibility is to the community of learning
and more particularly to the community of learning that is the Graduate Institute now.
And that there’s a new aspect to that community given the fact that the community now
includes persons who are not physically located here, namely low-residency students.
And so, in some sense, I’m the first Associate Dean to inherit this. To walk into a community or to have responsibility of shepherding the community that is not physically in
the same place. It is true that Emily Langston also had that in the latter part of her term,
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�and maybe I’m the first to come into a term for a community of this sort. And that will
present, you know, new different challenges, but those are very much on my mind.
How does one hold together a community that includes a not small number of persons
who are not residents of this place? I’m trying to do some things, reading groups, for
example, that in the past, I think, would be unheard of for an associate dean to have a
reading group that was held online by design. But for me, in having the dean’s reading
group be part of the weekend, I made it online by design because I was trying to be responsive to the nature or shape of the community now. To return to to the formulation
of your question, I really do think that my job is as the steward of the community and
its intellectual health, but intellectual health understood in the most capacious term. I
also want people to be flourishing affectively and interpersonally because, in so doing,
their intellectual flourishing will be still greater.
Not to go on too long — I do want to make this conversation — but I will say one thing
that I really liked about some of the things [Walter Sterling] said yesterday is that it’s
very important for the person in a position of leadership to be physically present. And
I’m trying to keep that at the center of my own mind. Now, I think I can actually do a
much better job of being at ASG on Thursday nights — things like that. I could, in fact
— and should, in fact, do a better job of that. So one of the things that’s important to me
is to acknowledge the importance of the associate dean being physically present here as
much as possible.
Stephen:
I will say, I think the impact of that is already palpable. You and Ms. Langston both
have prioritized that, and I think it’s noted. I will give you the pass on being there at
ASG. You’re here at, you know, eight or nine in the morning. I don’t think we need you
there at 10 p.m. at night. That’s not on you.
Mr. Boyle:
That’s kind of you to say.
Stephen:
That splits off into two things, and feel free to go either direction with these questions.
I do think the gap between the in-person students and the low-residency students is a
very tough one to address and some things are being done like low residency weekends
and I think everyone really enjoys those and it’s hard to require them to come to us
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�more. So I think that solutions like online reading groups are excellent. The other thing
is the relationship between tutors and students seems so vital and, as much as I know,
certain tutors really enjoy the GI but I don’t see them present in some of those additional events. So I think the two main questions there are: Are there other things you are
considering to bridge the gap between in-person and low-residency? And how do we
keep the tutors involved at a greater level?
Mr. Boyle:
Yeah, two hard and great questions. I have some ideas for bridging this gap, and I’m not
sure even if the ideas were put in place and they were successful, I’m still not sure how
much the gap would be bridged.
One of the things that I’d like to do and want to start doing in the near future is just
doing something like a spotlight on a low-residency student, weekly or biweekly, or
something like that, and maybe having a little interview and then putting it up on the
board or sending it around. Just as a way to get the in-person students to know about
the low-residency students who are out there. Would that make intellectual connections? I don’t know. I’m hopeful that something like that, and I don’t know what their
exact right form is, could go some way. Now, to me, it’s still an open question. What
would the best possible outcome look like? How much of a divide would there be in
the best of all possible worlds between the low-residency students and the in-person
students? I don’t think that the answer would be none. But maybe it would be rather
little and I think that’s a perfect question. How do you achieve that “rather little.” The
question about tutors is also a good and hard one. And I think that one of the things
that Emily Langston did really well is integrate the Graduate Institute into the larger
life of the college, and I think that she would say that that was an important part of her
own work. I think that she would also say that it’s probably not yet finished, and it’s
my job to, if not finish it, then hopefully advance it. But it’s also true that we haven’t
really found a way to bring more tutors to the GI. I feel like there’s a somewhat small
subset of tutors, and the faculty who are teaching in the GI and we haven’t yet found
a way to broaden that subset. There are some restrictions, like untenured faculty can’t
teach in the GI seminar. OK, leave that to the side. I would like to find a way, and I’ve
begun to speak with [Annapolis Dean] Susan Paalman about this to find a way to bring
in mid-career tutors beyond the current subset of regulars into the GI, because I feel
like that problem is related to the problem that you’ve said of getting tutors to just be at
other co-curricular or curricular-adjacent events.
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�They seemed like separate problems, but I think they’re related in that if people think of
the GI as a regular part of the academic life of the college tutors, that is, they will see GI
events — be they ASG or (Campus) Convening weekend or what have you — as much
more of a piece with homecoming weekend or just general college events that they go
to with some regularity, even if they’re not teaching in the GI in that particular semester. So, that’s an aim of mine, and I think it would be good for the GI to have greater
circulation of the faculty through it. And I think that some of the GI students even like
the fact that there a subset of tutors who are especially dedicated to GI. I think there is
something to be said for that, but it would be nice for that subset to be larger, and then
I think we would have that circulation which would be good for all parties.
Stephen:
I think all of that addresses another question I have. It seems that It’s hard to build a
community with busy adults when you only have four segments to do so. And I know
that’s how the program is built and marketed, but do you see that as a hindrance to a
sustaining a community? Are there inclinations you have on how to address that other
than GIs coming back to do precepts and audit classes later?
Mr. Boyle:
Can I first ask a question in response? Is it somehow a corollary of that question that the
MALA could or should be longer than four segments?
Stephen:
It certainly could be. And I’m thinking of the four semesters and particularly how I hear
it marketed in some ways where you could do summer or fall, spring, summer and be
done in a year, and you can hardly form a friendship in a year regardless of your lifelong relationships.
Mr. Boyle:
That seems that seems fairly said. On the one hand, I think that the MALA is by most
Master’s standards long. Most other programs speak in the language of credit hours.
This Master’s program, seeing as it takes, let’s say, two academic years, generally is
more time for students to form community than I think a lot of other Master’s programs
have. I’m not entirely sure that the time component is works against us. I do agree that
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�when the program is marketed, or at least described, as a program that you could finish
in a year — summer, academic year, following summer — then the question of how
to put that frame together with the emphasis on community is a hard one, and maybe
even might sound a little bit disingenuous. As in, how can you promise the creation of
community in one calendar year? I would respect that criticism. I don’t actively talk
about the program as one that should be done in a single calendar year. When people
ask if they can do this, I tell them that of course they can, and I recognize that some
people have a year off of their job or a sabbatical that is just the calendar year, and we
want them to be able to do this in that in that single calendar year and I guess we’re in
some sense crossing our fingers that the intensity of the program will generate some
sort of community and lasting friendship that is typically brought about by time. It
might be important for me to think about those persons who have done the program in
a year and calendar year and whether they as a distinct group feel connected or not to
the college now.
One other open question for me is: does this segment structure itself work against community? That wasn’t precisely your formulation, but I wonder if you might endorse
it? And I say that because it’s not as if students move through the program together.
You’re in a segment with somebody one semester and then they’re in segment X in the
spring semester, but you’re in segment Y spring semester and you just don’t see each
other or aren’t reading the same texts any longer. Does that work against community?
Maybe it does. It’s certainly true that the undergraduates, you know, don’t have that
experience. So that’s something I may have to give some more thought to, but maybe I
could just pause for a second and ask you, do you think that segment structure works
against community? Insofar as the person with whom you are forging a deep friendship
now this fall very well will not be in the same class with you next semester, let alone in
the same segment.
Stephen:
I do think this type of thing plays out in ASG. And I haven’t seen enough evidence to
say that it’s positive or negative, but it is interesting to see the... I want don’t use the
term “clique” because it’s often so loaded, but it’s the most apt word. Cliques will form
in ASG often, and if they’re not people who are already established friends they will
form because of the shared texts. And those are bright and vibrant conversations, but
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�at the same time, there is such a genuine interest in what everyone else is experiencing
that I think it overcomes itself, so I don’t think the segment structure is necessarily a
hindrance. I would be curious to know, and this is more of a general question, if there
is a perceived issue, how even flexible is the structure of the GI? It doesn’t seem like it’s
something that can change on a whim.
Mr. Boyle:
Definitely not something that could change on a whim. But the GI structure has changed
a lot, even in the short time that I’ve been at the college. For example, the decoupling of
the preceptorials from the segments. At one point, not during Emily Langston’s associate deanship but back in Jeff Black’s deanship, it used to be the case that the preceptorials were in a pretty strong sense pegged to the segments offered that term. So, if you
take this term for an example, Math and Natural Science, and Literature. The preceptorials offered would be two Literature preceptorials and two Math and Natural Science
preceptorials. Instead, what we actually have this fall is Canterbury tales, Galileo, three
modern poets, the Greek, and Plato. And yes some of those may fit the themes of the
current segments, but that seems to be circumstance, not designed.
I think in years past one might have said that Plato’s Republic somehow belongs to
Philosophy and Theology. So I do think that there is some kind of openness for the
structure of the GI to change, and you might hear people around the halls talk about
other paths to degree that the GI might pursue. Maybe we decouple — and I’m not
endorsing this, I’m just reporting things that I’ve heard — decouple the seminars and
tutorials. And it’s no longer the case that one needs to take four seminar-tutorial pairs
plus four preceptorials, but one needs to take four seminars, four tutorials and four preceptorials. And they can be somehow mixed and matched. That could not be changed
on a whim and I’m not sure that that’s even a good idea. I would say I do think that
the relationship between seminar and tutorial in the GI is unique and it’s not like the
relationship between seminar and tutorial in the undergraduate program. Insofar as
it’s unique, I can imagine people in the future thinking about different ways forward
to the degree that may not abandon the segment structure, but might actually in some
sense alter it because one would be no longer bound to these seminar-tutorial pairs.
Again I’m not endorsing this. I’m just speculating on things that I have heard, and I’m
of two minds. As you might recall yesterday, Walter Sterling talked about the GI as be
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�ing a place for experiments, and I think that there’s definitely some truth to that. Now,
one needs to be cautious about imagining the GI as just some kind of laboratory where
one can try a bunch of different things, because that’s a deep disservice to the Institute,
as an institution with its own coherent program. It’s true that it’s more amenable to experimentation, new offerings, new MALA segments than with the undergraduate. Well,
obviously it might be amenable to new offerings than undergraduate programming is,
but one needs to be very measured about how one goes about doing such a thing.
Stephen:
I think this discussion of the structure of the GI program raises a question that ties the
conversation back to the relationship between the GI and the broader college community. I think the first thing I want to just hear your input on is, there is such a difference
in how the GI and the undergrad programs are built — and this might get at the heart
of the issue — do you think GIs and undergrads graduate from their programs prepared to have the same conversation with each other? Is there something inherently
true about the structure either way that creates that unity?
Mr. Boyle:
I think there’s enough overlap between the texts that are at the center of the GI. I want
to say that at the center of the GI are the books and at the center of the undergraduate
program are the books. It just so happens that we have kind of carved them up into segments for reasons that might be related to the unique position that a number of persons
who are coming to the GI find themselves in. That they’re organized by segments to
me will always remain a secondary fact about the about the Graduate Institute, and the
books on the lists will always remain the absolute center, and insofar as there is great
overlap between those lists and the list for the undergraduate program. I do think that
the two sets of graduates, GI and undergraduates, go out ready to talk to one another,
and the places in which they differ, it’s probably the case that undergraduates know
about and wish that they could have read things that are in the GI program and vice
versa. For example, the entire history segment. GI’s have ready ears to hear about things
that are in the graduate program but not in the undergraduate one, and seem genuinely
curious about the undergraduate experience and what it offers that they may not see
in the GI. Labs are a terrific example there. Music, by and large. But yeah, there’s a nice
amount of overlap. But with the possibility for growth because the overlap is not total.
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�Stephen:
Absolutely. Well, I only have two more quick questions for you. I’m curious to hear
your take on what it is that makes the GI community so unique amongst the polity or
even in the world. And then the last question is just a question on your background and
what got you here. So I guess you if you want to take the GI community question first
and then we can jump into the other one.
Mr Boyle:
This is where I’m definitely going to steal from Walter yesterday because I thought it
was so moving of him to have said that. In some sense, the GI is most reflective of what
it is that is at the heart of St. John’s College. Insofar as, people come to the graduate program, people do not drift into the Graduate Institute in the way that 18-year-olds can
drift into the undergraduate program or be helped along by their parents into the undergraduate program, directed by their parents say, into the undergraduate program.
It’s not a knock on anybody, it’s just a recognition of that’s how life is. One at 18 is still
not quite in charge of one’s own life. But when one decides at the age of 25, 55, 75 to give
of oneself one’s time and one’s finances to intellectual inquiry, that is a demonstration
of the true choice-worthiness of the undertaking that we do here. That characterizes
the work of the college. And yes, it will always be the case that the undergraduate program is at the center of St. John’s. No one, no one is doubting that. But I thought that
Walter really highlighted a way in which something about the presence of persons who
have made a very considered and deliberate choice, in something like the middle of
their lives, to undertake this mode of inquiry through conversation is the best possible
endorsement of it. So, I found that very, very moving. And in some sense wish all GIs
could have heard that. It helps me even think about what I find so moving about seeing
a 25-year-old, a 55-year-old, a 75-year-old here together learning from one another. I
see in them hunger for a life of learning with others and in community with others but
also, recognition that that hunger is one that can be met by this distinct community, the
institution of St. John’s College. So, their presence here in the Graduate Institute is in
some sense the greatest endorsement of the institution as a whole.
Now, how did I get here? Again, I’m going to borrow a little bit from something that I
heard Walter say in a different meeting. I’ve been a tutor for 10 years, more or less. And
at some point along the way, I think I felt some sort of calling to take on a role in the
college over and above my work and the working of the classroom, which is, I believe,
the most important work at the college. But I thought that I might have had one or two
administrative talents that are in some sense very minor virtues like staying on top of
87
�things or keeping some things organized, that I felt like I could put in the college’s service. I Won’t be in this position forever and look forward to returning to the classroom,
but as I felt like I had these minor virtues I wanted to share them with the college. And
so when they asked me to do this, I was very glad to do it. And I came into the role with
the GI in a great position and hope to leave it in a still better one.
Stephen:
Building on your journey to this position I have one last question is and then we’ll get
you out of here. I saw in your background in classics is what led you into this world
of inquiry. But clearly, just even having a couple of brief intro or Campus Convening
Weekend seminars with you, there’s a vibrancy in you about educating itself. So I’m
curious, does that drive to be an educator come before the passion of the classics, or did
the passion of the classics inspire the drive to be an educator?
Mr. Boyle:
Can I do the thing that interviewers hate and just reject the terms of question?
Stephen:
Be my guest.
Mr Boyle:
I think I might have at one time thought of myself as an educator, but I’m very grateful
to St. John’s because I don’t any longer really think of myself as an educator. But I feel
like I can passionately model being a student, like I just love learning and I love learning
with others and I think I’m not bad at it. I think I know how it goes well, and what in
what conditions it goes well, and what conditions it goes somewhat poorly. And I think
I can model that for people. If I’m educating them in that regard, I’m happy to, but I’m
definitely not filling their minds with any theories.
88
I’m grateful to St. John’s because to be perfectly honest, before I came to St. John’s I
did just want to be filled with facts that I could report, but not really own as my own.
St. John’s, as I think it’s true for many tutors, marked a real new beginning in my own
intellectual life. What I could say if I have to start again from nothing and say, almost
all of what I take myself to know I know in only the most attenuated sense because it’s
so mediated. It’s been handed to me by so many other persons that I have never really
taken any ownership of my own education, and I think I was able to do that when I
�became a tutor and I hope I’m showing people that they can do that, too. And you can
start at any time. It’s available to anybody to just take ownership of their education.
And insofar as I’m showing people what that might look like, I may consider myself an
educator, but in the main, I’m just a student.
Stephen:
Well, it’s certainly palpable and thank you for taking some time with me today
Mr. Boyle:
It was a pleasure, glad to.
89
�Thank you to all our contributors
90
Austin Suggs
On Creation
Chris Macbride
Old Dog
Cynthia Crane
The First Postulate
John Harwood
Before the Blank Stare
Kyle Reynolds
The Creation of the Self
Louis Petrich
Children of That World
Nadine Bucca
Visual Art
Noah Vancina
The Nature of the Pilgramage
Sam Hage
Corruption at the Symposium
Shirley Quo
The Galileo Affair
Siobhán Petersen
How to Read Well
Stacey Rains
Forbidden Fruit
Stephen Cunha
On the Creation of Man
Sydney Rowe
Mimi
Sylvie Bernhardt
My Mind’s a Dark Forest
Yonas Ketsela
A Dialogue with Descartes
�COLLOQUY
St. John’s College, 60 College Avenue, Annapolis, Maryland
Volume 13: Fall 2023
Editor
Stephen Borsum
Editorial board:
Sarah Ritchie, Paul Harland-White, Shirley Quo, Stuart Williams,
Kyle Reynolds, Sylvie Bernhardt
With thanks to: Kashya Boretsky, Associate Dean Brendan
Boyle, and the Graduate Student Council
.....
Colloquy is a biannual publication of the Graduate Student
Council and St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland. The journal is free of charge. Address correspondence to Colloquy, The
Graduate Institute at St. John’s College, 60 College Avenue,
Annapolis, Maryland, 21401. Or email to colloquy@sjc.edu.
Students, tutors, and alumni of St. John’s College and the Graduate Institute are encouraged to submit their manuscripts in PDF
or Word format by email to colloquy@sjc.edu . The journal also
accepts submissions of poetry, original art, and photography.
Please include your name, contact information, and the title of
your work with your submission.
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in the journal do
not necessarily reflect those St. John’s College, the Graduate
Council, or Colloquy.
91
�92
�
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Colloquy
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92 pages
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Colloquy, Fall 2023
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Volume 13 of Colloquy, published in Fall 2023. The theme of the issue is On Creation.
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Borsum, Stephen (Editor)
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
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English
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Colloquy_Fall2023_Online-Copy
Graduate Institute
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https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/6051e173ba55e71286335555b5353a91.mp3
388289a2a19563cd6f26542ec1f952dd
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
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St. John's College Meem Library
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Santa Fe, NM
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Second Thoughts about Shakespeare's As You Like It
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture given by Grant Franks on June 14, 2023, as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. The Graduate Institute provided this description of the event: "As You Like It is a much-loved fixture in the Shakespearean canon, generally staged as a joyous woodland rom-com. However, if one dares to look a little more closely, – as the sophomore seminar that I co-lead did recently – doubts begin to surface. The seeming frivolity of action is dogged by questions. Why does a light comedy include patches of morose darkness like those in Jaques’s much-acclaimed “Seven Ages of Man” speech? Is Touchstone really a “touchstone” in any genuine sense, or is his suggestive name just meaningless fluff? In the romantic Forest of Arden, populated by shepherds speaking blank verse, why do Rosalind and Orlando conduct their offbeat courtship entirely in prose? Most importantly, why is the major plot tension of Act I – namely, the murderous sibling rivalries of Orlando and Olivier and of the two dukes – virtually ignored during the middle of the play and then casually, almost carelessly, disappeared in Act V?
This lecture will not explain everything, but it aims to outline some interesting ways to puzzle over As You Like It.
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Franks, Grant H.
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St. John's College
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Santa Fe, NM
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2023-06-14
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Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616
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English
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SF_FranksG_Second_Thoughts_about_Shakespeare's_As_You_Like_It_2023-06-14
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/8fb595d9b86cd6c5bc71e28ae91715e4.pdf
d809f11a2bd35c833ebd091045e8f6c3
PDF Text
Text
Colloquy
�A Note from the Editors
Contents
On Being a Stranger 12
On Play 20
Translations 30
Memoria 46
List of Works 59
Acknowledgements 60
The Graduate Institute is St. John’s Wild West. We’re not nearly as old as the rest
of the College, and we’re not as tightly bound as the undergraduates. We come
into the College from very different situations, and we have jobs and families to
attend to. We feel that one role Colloquy must take is to be a place where we can
grow closer together. We’re hoping Colloquy leads us all to reach out across the
program, not just the seminar table.
Colloquy is still so new a publication as to admit trial and experiment. Our first
issue was spring 2017. In this eleventh edition, we continue to preserve, as we
did in the first issue, the end of the semester toasts to the students and tutors.
We include the précis for Kelly Custer’s Master’s essay to recognize its successful
defense, and to offer a model for future candidates to have some sense of how to
go about writing them. We invited all the G.I. to submit brief pieces on the topics
“On Play” and “On Being a Stranger” to carry on St. John’s democratic tradition of
dialogue. We received submissions from alumni, including the founding editor of
the journal, Bonnie Naradzay. We are proud to include a Latin, Spanish, Russian,
and Arabic translation. We hope you appreciate the thought and labor that went
into this edition of Colloquy.
Most of all, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to Emily Langston,
Kashya Boretsky, and Diana Villegas for all their assistance, as well as the Graduate Student Council and the alumni for their continual support of the G.I. community. And of course, we would like to thank our contributors.
Abdullah Wadood and Jesse Clagett
Fall 2022
1
2
�Reflections of the Revolution in Britain
Benjamin Crocker
Like periscoped sheep, the palace hordes startled back and forth, lunging
the gates, devices bobbing - flopping above the fray into which they all tumbled.
They scuffled to meet, but mostly just to prove-their-meeting-of, the new King.
By chance, I had been working in Wiltshire the day before, Thursday
September 8 - the day of Queen Elizabeth II’s passing. Mid-conference at an old
Wiltshire estate when news of Her Majesty’s death broke, my first observation
was that no one quite knew what to do.
That would be good, I thought.
But down there at Buckingham it was a dog show indeed. Those journalists stampeding like marked cattle. The sheepy public surging forth to wherever
fear of missing out and royal opportunity might intersect.
And when the standard went up, and out he came, stooped and sartorial,
to meet his public, he might have had cause for bewilderment
At dinner that evening the staff stood to attention, some silence was enforced, a vigorous shout of ‘Long live the King’ rang out, and esteemed colleagues
made fine, concise addresses of tribute and remembrance. A wonderful young
couple seated opposite me had hurried to buy black. I was relieved.
For Charles III more often than not shook the hand of a mind tethered
not to royal affection, but to its own demented voyeurism. The King looked not
into the warm eyes of the old empire, but to the cold glass lens of the new one.
But the milieu was otherwise unshaken by the day’s earthquake.
This was mourning as spectator sport. Which of course isn’t mourning at
all. Only one in a hundred, nay, maybe a thousand, had the decency to wear black.
The liquor flowed as on any other night. The conversation was light, serious, silly, and profane by turns - as on any other night. ‘I feel a deep sadness’, a
wise colleague had the decency to say, in private, amidst the oblivious bonhomie.
And through it all, the BBC - and every other Tom, Dick and Harry with a
microphone - kept vigil. Vigil in the way a hamster keeps vigil at its wheel. Constant, monotonous, unchanging, dumb.
Our coach to London the next day took neither longer nor shorter than it
should have. No one was flocking to the capital to grieve in public. But it seemed
no one was staying home to grieve in private, either. I was dismayed.
There were some flickers of hope. Two American flight attendants had
hurried down after their shift, pinned their wings to a rose and moved diligently
toward the fence to pay their respects. “That’ll end up in landfill, love” - it didn’t
take long for the locals to burst their bubble…
On every billboard between Heathrow and Whitehall her face alternately
shone with youth or glowed with wisdom. Westfield presents Queen Elizabeth in
Black and White. Surreal.
Arriving at the hotel, I scoffed down whatever was in sight and hurried
across the road to the Palace. What were the odds that I would be here, on that one
day out of 35,000 others in the span of the second Elizabethan Age?
I could have the privilege of mourning - not just for the Queen, but for
the spectre of grace and diligence that emanated from her reign. For my Grandfather, who served in her Army, played the piano bequeathed by her family, and
migrated between two of her realms. For the people for whom she meant more
than I could ever know - the war wounded and widowed, the people who tied
3
ribbons, baked cakes and trained dogs for shows, who dressed smartly and hung
her portrait proudly in dusty halls on dusty plains, in dusty farming towns, in the
dusty country I grew up in.
Another beautiful young woman dressed in black strode stoically through
Green Park, fighting the tears that burst forth regardless. And though I caught but
glimpses of them, I can say that those women knew how to mourn.
But I’m not so sure about the rest of us.
I’m not sure we knew what clothes to wear, what posture to hold, what
pace to step, and what manner to speak in. I’m not sure we understood that solemn pageantry and sacred ritual are to be more experienced, less packaged into
clips and discussed over dinner.
4
�
In the span of the Queen’s reign, and contra her steadfast grace and majesty, what remains of her Empire has indeed undergone a profound revolution.
The Romantics
Lest that revolution in Britain not be conspicuous for any speed or
bloodshed, it shall ever be for the sake of propriety slowly surrendered, for decorum gradually lost.
Ten-thousand daffodils along the margin of a bay
would in my time have all ceased to decay,
and Daisies become a worthier flower to adorn
an epitaph desiring that we mourn;
for if my Words have any worth at all
then perchance they would outlast us all.
But times being as they are, I think I’ll write
only for myself, and no distant reader’s delight.
Melissa Moore
No modern master Taylor could possibly hope to weave
prettier patterns of discarded themes,
nor any serious painter withstand not being privy
to such a place as Kubla Khan decreed.
It was a painted poem, upon a painted canvas
that first set in motion things outlandish
and though it was quite beautiful and refined,
in the end it took a lifetime to wash away the brine.
Though the crystal chill overcomes the burly winter birch
—coats with downy flake limbs where songbirds perch—
though all this world should be condemned to fire and to ice,
I doubt that either Burns or Frost suffice.
Beware, young friends: Tam O Shanter’s good mare’s
advice, a red red rose with thorns, ensnares,
for she is long gone, and yet here you stand
for all the world a much luckier man.
The past is filled with beauty – this truth no one will deny –
and the future appears stark before the nostalgic eye,
but words do not belong to those who say them best
and life spent lost in memory is life best laid to rest.
Though in this race the many may surpass me
and though their words through many ages may outlast me,
I’d rather turn my words to wind during the run
than become Swift only to be called Donne.
5
6
�
He’s This, She’s That
Louis Petrich
Can he be rhymed off straight from facts—writ pat?
Can she be rhymed off straight from facts, stared stone?
In love with seas, curled brains, dared skin, pink wilds--
Her friend long-haired, longed tame, with dog she keeps.
“I have love for you, friend,” she pares, “that’s it.”
Yet love dared pick him and pertains, phone-laired.
As clouds paint skies her evanescent smiles
(Her dog would like him more, licked treat to treat.)
subscribe words lit from distant hands, stealth lips,
Legs chickening, fingers satiate, spell out
for don’t bit stars do infinite of black?
fools’ fated fallings in across hearts’ hacked
Her missives vibrate overtones and sips
divide. How quaint quilled perks do punt all doubt
of overtures that salve somewhat heart’s rack
of cursive character: see!
and spur his plenty done more jointed years.
unstop her soundings, scored not his who fears!
Not fooled enough, still wet, issues grotesque,
for schooled she goes in art of raising cheers
girl-curious t’anoint boys amouresque.
He might as well be spinning silk to straw.
Imagination cleaves to jewels that claw.
7
couplings blacked
Core falling yearnings turn parts mortal-tasked
and creasing bent to pleasing master mirrors,
equipage buffed to bluff dusk, youthful masked.
“Life’s flash I steal, my wares achieve!” she rings.
Imagination husbands armful things.
8
�9
10
�| On Being a Stranger
11
12
�on being a stranger
you can spend your whole life chasing authenticity and find out you don’t know
the meaning of the word
a stranger in your own skin; not at home in yourself
you can’t see yourself in
five years
(or in love)
(or as a parent)(or happy)(or not in pain) when
you can’t see yourself
in a mirror
there’s a fog over everything. it’s hard to realize you’re the only one who can’t see
right
things look different from that perspective
you don’t know what’s wrong but
you’ve always felt like an alien
(ever at arm’s length)(your ways are strange)
every movement: like in a nightmare, trying to run
your limbs feel Wrong
untethered
the world bends away underneath you
there, but not there
you get very good at losing yourself to survive
staring too long at the flames would mean acknowledging you’re on fire
no one else sees it
you can’t explain it
all you can do is look away
the easiest place to lose yourself is in other people
sometimes, they’ll let you
sometimes, they like it
(they like You)
13
14
�it’s as addictive as anything else you can lose yourself in completely
a total abnegation
disintegration
you’ll swear it’s transcendence
there’s a special brightness in the eyes when the fog clears
an appreciation for how much there is to see
and a thirst to see it anew
how do you share what you learned on the other side? merely having been there,
it’s alienating
how can you explain what it is to feel Wrong to those who have always felt
right?
(always belonged?)
but you’re trying You on for size
feeling your weight under yourself
and it feels good
like every grand journey, it’s about finding the way home
Siobhan Petersen
It must be said that every evil in some way has a cause. For evil is the absence of the
good, which is natural and due to a thing....
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, First Part, Question 49
I went to San Antonio to collect a writing award recently. TSA treated
me with contempt. As I saw the lights of D.C. (my only home) from up above, I
wept for a reason I do not know why. I asked an older gentleman if I could sit next
to him while I waited for the connecting flight. He agreed. As soon as my butt
touched the seat, he got up and left. When I arrived at San Antonio at noon, the
woman at the hotel counter told me check-in was at three. I wasn’t welcome, her
stern stare scolded. So I walked to a Whataburger without a sidewalk in sight. All
my belongings were on my back. I didn’t want to be mugged. I hoped that someone would pick a fight with me just so I would be noticed, but I didn’t even get
that. This city is made for metal and rubber, not flesh and bone. I hid behind a
pillar of an abandoned building to get out of the sun and out of sight. A homeless
man had the same idea. The soles of my shoes began to reek of hot tar. The crosswalks are spaced out in twenty-minute intervals. Ten-lane highways separate
the sidewalks the width of my thumb. Every building is an island surrounded by
asphalt seas. A haggardly man passes me by on a bicycle, the only other pedestrian. He told me a word of wisdom, but he went by too fast in an accent I couldn’t
understand. The sun began to seep into my clothes and turned into sweat. I need
some sleep. I need to rest. I returned to the hotel disheveled and waited for an
hour in the lobby. The woman at check-in eventually acknowledged me and
apologizes profusely. I pretend that it is no big deal. Earlier that week I learned all
my old friends have been excluding me. I couldn’t hold my grief much longer. So
I searched for someone to talk to. I called my younger brother and asked him if he
was free. He opened his lips to inhale. I wept. God is stretched very thin here.
Abdullah Wadood
15
16
�Ex Cathedra
By Mephibosheth
Today started like any other day for Jay: he got up early and sat around on
his bed playing on his phone or turning on the TV to watch some of his favorite
shows. By all accounts, he was just like any other young man, that is to say that
he was lost and yearning to find a purpose in his life, bouncing from interest to
interest, job to job, and major to major as he attempted to strike out on his own,
away from the ever-scrutinizing eye of his parents.
Unlike his younger counterparts, however, Jay had something which
set him apart from all others, he had a disability—not just any disability, but one
which required the use of a bulky power wheelchair. Being that his condition had
been with him since birth, he knew no other form of transport, and had easily
come to accept both the chair and side effects of his condition. Although he was
occasionally taken by bouts of loneliness and alienation due to the limits his chair
imposed on him, it would not be an exaggeration to say that he and the chair were
one in spite of all this.
As he waited for his nurse to arrive, Jay began to turn over a myriad of
thoughts about his life, his future, and the problems that he caused his family
as a result of his disability. Usually the television assisted in drowning out these
thoughts long enough so that he would not be consumed in sadness, it helped,
but not for very long—his mind always returned to the ever-present conclusion
that he was a burden; the conclusion that all of his studying, all of his attempts
at work, his phobia of the outside world, would lead to life passing him by as he
stood inept and cowardly staring it in the face.
You see, Jay cared very much for his fellow human beings, but because his
condition limited him so severely as to the enjoyment of various natural things
which do not particularly concern those who do not suffer from physical disability he had grown to hate nature. It reminded him of everything which separated
the cripples from the non-cripples, the invalids from the valid. He preferred the
cold, calculating world of electronics and technology. This world was, to him at
least, more relatable, especially since he depended on that world to live his daily
life.
So it was, then, that after turning over all of the questions of the universe
and existence inside his head that Jay’s nurse finally came. Her routine was simple: she would change Jay, help him put on his leg braces, help him put his clothes
17
on, pivot him into his chair, and finally strap him in so that he would not fall over
while sitting. After this their routine would continue as most others’ would: he
would have breakfast, brush his teeth, and decide what to do for the day.
Everything seemed to be going well until Jay suddenly felt a sharp pain in
his back, almost as if someone had stabbed him. It wasn’t unusual that he would
rub up against the back side of his seat or catch his shoulders on the metal backplate of his chair, so he had initially thought nothing of it. As the day went on,
however, his motion became more and more restricted, and he noticed that the
chair was slowly and painfully enveloping him within itself.
What is going on? There must be something wrong with the chair or me. It shouldn’t be
this way. This shouldn’t be happening.
But try as he might Jay could not escape the inevitable and he was eventually completely subsumed by his own chair. He could feel that he had been enveloped by total darkness, but as far as he could discern he was able to speak normally and without impediment. Around this time late in the evening was when
his nurse would come back in order to serve him dinner and put him to bed.
When his nurse finally came he wasn’t exactly sure what was going on,
so when she opened the door he greeted her as he normally would “Hi, Catie, it’s
nice to see you again today,” Jay said.
“It’s nice to see you as well, Jay. Are you ready for dinner?” replied Catie.
“Yes, I’m super hungry,” responded Jay.
Catie didn’t seem to notice what had happened to Jay. She acted as if
nothing was wrong. It was just as if it were any other day.
Jay noticed that although he was surrounded by darkness he could still
see outside of his chair and move his hands just enough to drive to his room to
await his food. As Jay ate, the material enveloping him within his chair would
recede as he raised the spoon up to his mouth, only to re-envelope him in its
darkness when he put the spoon down. The same thing happened as Catie gave
him his daily sponge bath. Jay was really beginning to question his reality. This
was made all the more worrisome for him as Catie proceeded to lift his entire
chair and place it in his bed.
Jay was very distressed, but he never actually said anything to anyone
18
�because he was afraid that he would inconvenience those around him and add
to his status as a burden. He lived out all the rest of his days invisible to himself,
but treated as if he were still there by others. It was this fact that really made him
wonder whether he was right all along to think that his feelings of alienation
were, in fact, correct. In the end, however, it didn’t really matter if Jay had actually become one with his machine, because society saw him simply as his machine
and nothing else.
He was doomed…
| On Play
19
20
�21
22
�23
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�“On Play”
Ansley Green
Oh to play… All I want to do all day is play! The fresh outside air, the endless
possibilities, it is hard for mom to get me back inside. The imagination runs wild
with possibilities, nothing is off limits, the world is huge and for the exploring.
What would make me want to stop all this play?
Time does not stop for happiness. The play no longer is free. Consequences come
into play. Competition clouds kindness, but also spurs on greatness. Keep playing
and you can make it big. Keep playing and you can be famous. Keep playing and
you can be rich. Can’t you?
I see the young women play, who have dedicated all the years of their life to excel.
They gave up lighthearted playing for a fierce competition and love of sport. They
have made it to the level all other little girls dream of. They are on the big stage,
playing for an audience now. They play exactly the same amount as the men, the
yellow ball zinging back and forth at speeds no slower than the others. They play,
rackets flying when anger comes in. They play, tears streaming over stretched
smiles when the victory comes. They play, but for what?
They play so they can have a prize purse 1/3 of what the men’s is. They play so they
are rewarded at a fraction of what their friends are rewarded…for the exact same
play. There is no lack of money at the upper levels. The tournament organizers are
not broke. They have just broken the system. Playing is no longer fair. Playing is
no longer full of limitless opportunities. The air is less fresh here. The system is
broken. The play is over.
The little girls realize that this is not uncommon. This unequal reality is not
contained to one game. If tennis was called golf was called basketball was called
surfing was called skiing was called soccer was called hockey was called wrestling
was called boxing was called running….it is still the same. Keep fighting, they
say. Look, we have equal pay now, they say. What was the cost? Why was the battle
so steep? Who will stand up for the others?
Who will keep the girls in play?
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26
�Anne Carson translated this fragment 286 from Ibykos, an ancient Greek lyric poet, and then proceeded to use the structure of the fragment (on the one
hand….. on the other hand….. nay, rather….. ) to experiment with other texts,
including pages from Kafka, the FBI file on Berthold Brecht, two pages from
the owner’s manual for her new microwave…. See: Nay Rather (Volume 21)
(Cahiers) Paperback – February 15, 2014. For one I experimented with Plato’s
Meno and for the other Schrödinger’s What is Life? - Bonnie Naradzay
Aporia
Ibykos fragment 286, using only phrases from Plato’s Meno
The torpedo fish?
I am quite perplexed.
On the one hand,
anyone who touches it feels numb.
On the other hand, the human soul is immortal:
at times it comes to an end, which they call dying,
at times it is reborn, but it is never destroyed,
and one must live one’s life
piously.
Nay rather,
the statues of Daedalus run away if not tied down.
But now the time has come for me to go.
27
What is Life?
Ibykos Fragment 286, using only phrases from the epilogue of Schrödinger’s What is Life?
To say “Hence I am God Almighty,”
on the one hand,
sounds both blasphemous and lunatic,
the closest a biologist can get
to proving God and immortality at one stroke.
On the other hand, in the Upanishads,
Atman equals Brahman
in perfect harmony, mystics
somewhat like the particles
in an ideal gas.
Nay rather,
in a gallery of mirrors,
like the way Gaurisankar and Mount Everest
are the same peak seen from different valleys,
I see my tree
you see yours
obviously only one tree.
What the tree in itself is,
we do not know.
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�| Translations
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30
�
إن األعلى من األسفل واألسفل من األعلى
IPA: /innəl ʔala’ mən as su’ful was su’ful mənəl ʔala’/
“Lo and Behold! The highest is from the lowest, and the lowest is from the
highest.”
The phrase is found in Islamicate hermetic texts, most notably the “Emerald Tablet” and the “Secret of Secrets”. The first word, /innə/ , doesn’t translate
to anything in particular in English. Usually it’s translated as “Indeed”. In Arabic,
it is used as an intonation or particle attached to the subject to emphasize what’s
being said. “Lo and Behold!” does not usually translate well when using /innə/
since /innə/ can be a very everyday word, but this particular line is describing
something beatific so I thought it was fitting. I think also the simple affirmation
“Yes!” could work, but that is too literal. The next word, /al ʔala’/ means “The
Highest”. It is usually translated as “The Most High” but I think that is clunky.
The Islamic tradition attributes ninety-nine names for God. /al ʔala’/ is one of
them. Arabic doesn’t have copulas (“to be” words) in the present tense. They are
grammatically implied. /mən/ is a preposition meaning “from”. /wa/ is the conjunction “and”. And /as su’ful/ means “The Lowest”. I have used the apostrophes
in the IPAs to indicate a sound short of a full glottal plosive.
Abdullah Wadood
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�In the last two lines of his Ode on a Grecian Urn, Keats writes:
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know”.
I found these lines so formidable that I decided to try to translate them
into my mother tongue: Spanish.
Here is the result:
“Belleza es verdad, verdad belleza. En la tierra
Sólo esto llegáis a saber y no necesitáis saber nada más”.
Now, two comments. In Spanish, a definite article—la, el—always precedes the noun in order to link its meaning with a referent, unless it is a proper
noun1. In this case, I omitted the articles before the nouns belleza and verdad even
though, strictly speaking, the poet did not present them as proper nouns. This is
incorrect in academic or formal writing, and awkward in informal conversation,
but it is not unheard-of in poetic forms. I chose to omit the articles because they
would somehow steal the attention of the listener. I think Yeats would want us to
focus on the nouns.
On the other hand, you may notice that I used vosotros instead of ustedes to
translate “ye”—hence, llegáis and necesitáis instead of llegan and necesitan. Vosotros
and ustedes are both second-person, plural, personal pronouns. In Spain, the
former is used in informal contexts and everyday parlance, while the latter is
mostly used when speakers are total strangers to one another. In Latin America,
however, ustedes is the standard usage in both informal and formal contexts, and
no one uses vosotros either in everyday conversation, nor in academic or professional environments. But there is one place where vosotros still lives: Catholicism.
The Bible uses vosotros throughout and in Mass the priest addresses the congregation with vosotros. Vosotros conveys an ancient and awe-inspiring tone which is
how I believe Yeats’ Grecian Urn would speak.
And that is all ye need to know.
Luis Sánchez
1 In “María no vino a la fiesta”, the proper noun is not preceded by an article while in “el
cartero llegó tarde” the definite article proceeds the noun.
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�Молюсь оконному лучу—
Он бледен, тонок, прям.
Сегодня я с утра молчу,
А сердце—пополам.
На рукомойнике моем
Позеленела медь.
Но так играет луч на нем,
Что весело глядеть.
Такой невинный и простой
В вечерней тишине,
Но в етой храмине пустой
Он словно праздник золотой
И утешенье мне.
I am praying to the window light—
It is pale, thin, and straight.
Today I am quiet since morning,
And my heart—it is split in half.
The copper of my washbasin
turned green.
But light plays on it there,
So fun to touch.
So innocent and simple,
In the evening silence,
But in this empty temple
It is a golden holiday
And it is solace for me.
Анна Ахматова, 1909
“Из книги Вечер”
Anna Akhmatova , 1909
From the book “Evening”
I chose to translate this poem because its mood and feelings it evoked were
relatable to me. The praying to a morning light with a broken, or perhaps just a
confused, heart gives an idea of a new beginning taking time for adjustment. The
speaker finding joy in a golden evening ray reinforces that change takes time,
despite initial and underlying feelings of loneliness and despair. There is comfort
and beauty to find after time has made things change, depicted by the light which
dances still on the copper of the basin which has turned green. The days still pass,
time goes on, and peace can replace despair. I focused on meaning rather than
keeping true to meter for this translation.
Ansley Green
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36
�Seneca, Ad Lucilium Epistulae Morales
Seneca, Moral Epistles for Lucilius
CXII. SENECA LVCILIO SVO SALVTEM
Letter 112. Greetings! To my dear Lucilius, from Seneca,
Cupio mehercules amicum tuum formari ut desideras et institui, sed valde durus capitur; immo, quod est molestius, valde mollis capitur et consuetudine
mala ac diutina fractus.
Volo tibi ex nostro artificio exemplum referre. Non quaelibet insitionem
vitis patitur: si vetus et exesa est, si infirma gracilisque, aut non recipiet surculum aut non alet nec adplicabit sibi nec in qualitatem eius naturamque transibit.
Itaque solemus supra terram praecidere ut, si non respondit, temptari possit
secunda fortuna et iterum repetita infra terram inseratur.
Hic de quo scribis et mandas non habet vires: indulsit vitiis. Simul et
emarcuit et induruit; non potest recipere rationem, non potest nutrire. ‘At cupit
ipse.’ Noli credere. Non dico illum mentiri tibi: putat se cupere. Stomachum
illi fecit luxuria: cito cum illa redibit in gratiam. ‘Sed dicit se offendi vita sua.’
Non negaverim; quis enim non offenditur? Homines vitia sua et amant simul et
oderunt. Tunc itaque de illo feremus sententiam cum fidem nobis fecerit invisam
iam sibi esse luxuriam: nunc illis male convenit. Vale
I want1, by Hercules, that your friend be formed, as you desire, and educated2; but he, as someone very hard, is stuck3, really, what is more troublesome,
he is stuck as someone very soft and broken4 by a consistent and bad way of life.
I want to refer you to an example from our art. Not just any vine supports
a scion;5 if it is old and consumed, if it is weak and thin, either it will not receive
the shoot, or it will neither nourish it nor apply itself to it nor will it cross over
into the quality and nature of it. And so we are accustomed to cut it off above the
earth, so that if it doesn’t respond, a second chance could be tried,6 and, again,
the second attempt7 would be sown under the earth.8
This man, concerning whom you write and enquire, does not have the
strength9; he indulges his flaws10. He wilts and grows stiff at the same time. He
is not able to receive argument11, he is not able to nourish it. “But he wants to12.”
Don’t believe that. I’m not saying that he’s lying to you; he thinks he wants to13.
For him, excess makes appetite14; Quickly, he will return to favour with it. “But he
says he is put off15 by his life.” I wouldn’t deny that. For, who is not thus put off16?
Men at the same time both love and hate their flaws. And so, we will judge17 him at
that point when he shows18 us that excess is now hateful to him. But right now, for
them the matter is poorly agreed.19 Farewell.
Walker Rogalsky
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�Endnotes
1
It is not Seneca’s desire or Lucilius’ desire that makes Lucilius’ friend
unable to be bettered.
2
Educated here is institui, in meaning ‘in’ and stitui being from statuo
meaning ‘to set something’ which is where English gets statue and status. This
means primarily ‘to set something in.’ It’s where English gets institute or institution from. But it takes on two very interesting secondary meanings for this letter.
It can mean ‘to plant’ and ‘to educate.’ That is, the same way knowledge or virtue
is ‘set in’ someone, a plant is ‘set in’ the ground. I‘ve kept the Latin word order
here because it is telling that Lucilius‘ desire is between the friend being formed
and educated. It seems like Lucilius’ desire is ‘set in’ the possible passive activities of his friend.
3
This is the passive form of capio - ‘to take.’ The subject is the friend; the
friend is seized and the durus is in apposition to the implied subject being the
friend. This is an interesting use of capio. It implies two things, namely that the
friend has been seized, very much like our word seize which implies the no longer
functioning of a mechanism as in ‘seized up.’ It is also the word a Latin speaker
would use, as in English, to say a plant has ‘taken root.’ Thus foreshadowing for
our upcoming plant analogy. But both of these meanings together along with the
durus (hard) being in apposition to the implied subject make me feel as though
his friend has grown stuck, but by his own agency. Indeed we do not have any
agent in the ablative for the passive verb in these clauses that contain capitur. But
it would not be out of the question to say that the consuetudine mala ac diutina
could be used as the agents for not only fractus but also capitur. This only further
corroborates the fact that this friend has taken root or been seized as very hard or
very soft by his own agency.
4
Broken here is fractus. This is a nominative thus is playing the same
grammatical role as durus (hard) and mollis (soft.) It is fascinating that he is
seized as something not only very soft but as something broken too. It is strange
to think of something very soft as being broken because typically very soft things
are malleable and thus not easily broken. This is not so in the case of the friend.
This strangeness implies that the state of softness and brokenness of the friend is
not physical. His character is soft i.e. it cannot endure pains, and thus broken by
his consistent choices which form his way of life i.e. his (mala) consuetudine. This
is also foreshadowing for the luxuria which is the friend’s exemplary fault or vice
39
which is a result of his being soft and thus not being able to endure pains.
At first Seneca thinks him very hard which means unchangeable or recalcitrant in
his error. But then says he’s very soft which has a common moral meaning of not
being able to endure pain. The alternation between very hard and very soft seems
to mean that he is unchangeable because he is very soft and thus unable to be
formed like water or clothing. This all seems to be an allusion to Aristotle’s Ethics
wherein hardness and softness concern moral character in relation to enduring
pains; it doesn’t seem that Lucilius’ friend has attained the mean between hardness and softness; Aristotle at 1150b calls luxury a certain kind of softness.
5
Here the vine (or root plant) is Lucilius’ friend. I do wonder if the scion
(the cutting that is being grafted on to the base plant) is Lucilius. In order to
understand this analogy, we should first look at what grafting is: “Grafting is a
technique that joins the tissues of two plants together so they continue to grow as
one plant. In viticulture this technique allows grape vines to express the desirable varietal characteristics of the scion (upper part of the joined plant) in the
fruits, while developing or keeping the root system of the rootstock (lower part
of the joined plant).” So, the new plant seems to be an image of the friendship
between Lucilius and his friend. The scion is Lucilius and the root plant is Lucilius’ friend. This is probably the case because if the grafting is successful i.e., the
friendship is possible, then Lucilius’ friend, the root plant, will be able to take on
the desirable characteristics of Lucilius, the scion. This is very well corroborated
by Seneca‘s idea of the exemplum wherein virtue is achieved by being close to and
imitating someone virtuous. This is most clearly articulated in Letter 6. Also, any
grafting needs to be done between organisms of the same species, so it seems
likely that Seneca is talking about two people here, not one person and some
abstract qualities.
If Lucilius is the scion and his friend is the root vine, we might wonder
whether Seneca is the gardener. It may be “their art,” but it could be theirs in
different ways.
6
The Latin here is temptari possit secunda fortuna. Temptari, the passive
form of temptare, is where English gets ‘to tempt.’ It has a fairly broad, though
consistent, semantic range. It means roughly ‘to test,’ ‘to prove,’ ‘to try’ but mainly by touching, that is, by direct experience. It can be used not only as in, ‘to try
one’s enemy in battle,’ but also ‘to feel the pulse of.’ This is an excellent word for
the sounding out of character through friendship that this analogy is depicting.
Secunda fortuna is the subject of the complementary infinitive temptari through
possit (is able.) Fortuna on its own means ‘chance,’ ‘fate’ or ‘fortune’ but with
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�secunda it means ‘good fortune,’ but also ‘second chance.’ Secunda means literally
‘second’ but also means good, a carry-over from a second i.e., following wind
being always a good one for sailing, so secunda came to mean good especially
with things determined by chance like the wind. Here it means most prominently
‘second chance,’ but can also mean good fortune is able to be tried again. Another
interesting possibility for secunda fortuna is ‘a following state’ because secunda
can mean ‘following’ and fortune can mean ‘fate’ or ‘state’ or ‘condition.’ Thus
if at first the root plant doesn’t have a following condition, it’s possible to try a
following condition. It’s quite possible Seneca means all three possibilities for
secunda fortuna.
7
Second attempt here is repetita which is where we get ‘repeat.’ It comes
from re, which means ‘to do again’, like English, and peto, which means ‘to seek,’
but especially to make an attack. This agrees very well with temptari in bringing home the harsh, if not violent nature of sounding out someone’s character
through friendship. This is not a pleasant experience for either the root plant or
the scion, although it does seem like it can be beautiful. This corroborates the fact
that the friend is soft, that is his character can’t endure pain.
8
There is some ambiguity here concerning whether the cutting will be
grafted to the root plant below the earth or simply sown as its own plant in order
to root itself. ’Sown’ is inseratur which can mean either ‘to graft in’ or ‘to plant in.’
The purpose of growing grapevines is for the grapes. Grafting allows the variety
of the cutting (scion) to produce fruit more quickly than if simply planted in the
ground. But if the root is no good, one can just plant the cutting in the ground on
its own, and although slower, it will produce fruit. This is opposed to if the root
vine is old and weak, in which case no fruit will be produced. It seems likely that
Seneca is saying here that, after the first attempt, if the root is no good, just plant
the scion directly and throw out the root. That is, if the new plant is the friendship of Lucilius and his friend and we can assume the fruit is virtue, then if the
root is bad and won’t take the favourable qualities of the scion which means that
the friend is of a sufficiently bad character to not take to the friendship of Lucilius, then it is best to let the friend go if virtue is the goal. This letting go also seems
like it would be painful for both.
9
‘Strength’ here is vires which can also mean ‘vigour’ or ‘virtue,’ it is
derived from vir which means man and it is where English gets ’virile’ from. It
is plural which seems to imply there are many qualities his friend is missing in
order to accept the graft. This can also mean, although grammatically unfeasible,
41
’you are green‘ or ’you flourish’ from the Latin verb vireo which is derived from
the word for green viridis.
10
Flaws’ here is vitiis which is most directly translated as ‘vices,’ but ‘vices’
implies a kind of Christian meaning that I don’t want to invoke. A vitium is any
quality in a particular thing that gets in the way of a that thing naturally tending
toward its end.
11
‘Argument’ is here ratio where English gets ‘reason’ and, you guessed it,
ratio from. I didn‘t want to use ‘reason’ because it brings to mind a kind of Enlightenment era notion of the activity of the intellect. Argument is a better notion
although it sounds worse. Because of his poor moral state, it seems like Lucilius’
friend is not able to accept any argument or reason, let alone to live according to
it and nourish it in his life.
12
’Want’ here is cupio. It is the word that begins the letter, although Seneca
is speaking then, not Lucilius’ friend. Seneca says that he wants that the friend be
educated but that the goal of the desire is impossible. The friend says he wants to
be educated but the goal of the desire is impossible, and it is impossible for the
same reason as why Seneca‘s desire is impossible; namely because the friend‘s
moral state doesn‘t allow the desire to be chosen.
13
Here we can see that Lucilius’ friend’s desire and reason are not in accord, that is, he is ignorant of his desires, but he doesn’t know that he is ignorant
of them.
14
Stomachum illi fecit luxuria, translated literally is ‘luxury makes the
stomach for him.’ Luxuria is where we get luxury from but they are by no means
semantically identical. Luxuria means literally the rankness of trees or plants.
It is that strong smell that comes off vegetable matter. But figuratively it means
moral decadence. A very apt word! This phrase is difficult. It should be taken in
two ways. First, it is as when one eats too much and is disgusted with food because
of the discomfort. Yet as soon as the excess leaves the stomach, the disgust will
return to desire. Secondly, it implies that the excess, the expression of the flaw
in character, produces the whole unnatural process of excess enjoyment, disgust,
excess enjoyment, etc.... His character makes his actions, and his actions make
his character because he is unable to accept reason which is the only thing capable of presenting with him an alternative to his vicious cycle.
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�15
’Put off’ here is offendi it means literally ‘to be hit.’ This is frequently
used to describe military action and goes well with the harsh and violent language Seneca gave us when describing the grafting process. This seems to imply
that pain will be part of life regardless of whether one is stuck in viciousness or
becoming virtuous and thus cannot be a good reason for choosing either.
16
This seems to mean that anyone, should they think back on their life, will
recall some cause for pain and regret. Thus it is not sufficient reason to believe
that someone wants to become virtuous, for all people feel this way, both those
who do and those who don’t want to become virtuous.
hard and soft, soft and broken at the same time, he loves and hates his flaws. He
is feverish, and it’s his soul that is sick. Only by choosing to become virtuous, and
the pain that comes with that can he begin to come back to health. But he must
choose pain in this instance rather than just feel it, because there will be pain either way. By choosing he will begin to exercise his reason, and thereby be able to
accept arguments and nourish them in conversation with Lucilius. But right now,
he is stuck, so it seems the gardener recommends that this root plant not be used
for grafting.
17
’We will judge’ here is feremus sententiam. This idiom means literally ‘we
will carry opinion’ but it has a very particular usual meaning. It is used for voting,
and especially voting in the comitia, where the people would vote on who should
be magistrate. They would vote twice with time in between, so that the magistrate
would be able to change his way of life or not based on the first vote; see Cicero’s
On The Agrarian Law 2.11. This is very similar to the way Seneca describes the
grafting process having two chances.
18
’Show’ here is fac fidem which means literally ’make faith.’ Normally this
means to convince or persuade, but with an object clause it means to show or
evince. That is, with an object clause the proof is more obvious and less subject
to interpretation. This is similar to how temptari, used earlier, requires a kind of
experience for proof. So it seems like Seneca and Lucilius will need the friend to
start living as though excess (luxuria) is hateful to him rather than just saying it.
This seems to require a choice on his part.
19
This is a difficult phrase to translate. The Latin is: nunc illis male convenit. Convenit is where English gets ’convenient.‘ It comes from con which means
‘together’ and venio which means ‘come.’ The ‘them’ is the friend and luxuria.
The issue in translating this phrase is that it is impersonal, so the subject is the
situation. The impersonal meaning of convenio means: ‘it is agreed upon,’ ‘there
is unanimity with respect to something,’ or ‘the matter is decided.’ Also, it is not
a simple negation; the adverb is male which means ‘badly.’ This phrase seems to
put the friend and the faults on the same level, as if they are to agree to something
together. This is strange because they are his faults, to put them on the same level
indicates that his faults have as much agency in his life as he does. This is absurd
because his faults are him how could they not agree? What this likely means is
he is not in agreement with himself. He wilts and stiffens at the same time, he is
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�| Memoria
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�Students at the Graduate Institute who elect to write a Master’s Essay undergo an oral examination upon completion of their essay. Each examination begins with the student reading a précis
of their work. This fall Kelly Custer successfuly defended his Master’s essay titled Following the
Logos of Plato’s Phaedo.
Following the Logos of Plato’s Phaedo
October 5, 2022
Kelly Custer
In my undergraduate years, I worked in a restaurant, during which time
the most frequent question asked of me was what my major was. Immediately
after my answer that I was a philosophy major followed the question, “What are
you going to do with that?” My response was always, “Prepare for death.” While
I cannot recall how many people pushed me to answer just what preparing for
death entailed, it was no doubt only a few. The lack of follow-up questions was
favorable for me as it is doubtless that whatever stumbling and blush accompanied response I might have given was as unmemorable to me as it must have been
for anyone else.
Philosophy as the preparation for death and itself the practice of dying
and being dead is the dominant theme of Plato’s Phaedo. Who could not help but
share in Simmias and Cebes’ initial perplexity and outrage upon hearing such a
definition of philosophy? Socrates’ first task in the Phaedo involves his explicit
answering of how philosophy is akin to dying, which sets the stage for the ensuing
speeches and arguments of the Phaedo. One of the primary contentions of my
essay is that it is equally in Socrates’ treatment of his young friends, his attending
to their souls through philosophical speech, and his attempt to persuade them
to spend their lives taking care of their own that we see just what philosophy as a
preparation for death consists of – the care of our souls. And as all great endeavors that bear the balance of life and death, the care of our souls is not without
danger.
The primary question of my essay is what such dangers in the Phaedo are
and how Socrates and his young companions follow the logos of their conversation to a place of safety at the dialogue’s conclusion and the end of Socrates’ life.
But before discussing my essay with those at this table, who are the first recipients of my gratitude for the time you have taken to read my essay and are now
prepared to spend with me as we enter our own dialogue guided by the richness of
Plato’s Phaedo, I would like to offer a few words of thanks and dedication.
To Mr. Kalkavage for the guidance of my writing and thought as you
patiently encouraged me as I started and stopped, often fumbling with awkward
hands in the attempt to pick up and follow my logos throughout the completion of
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�this essay.
To my parents John and Julie who never once asked a young and confused, but albeit, earnest philosophy major, “What are you going to do with that?”
but always trusted and had faith that there is no greater task than the care of one’s
soul.
To my wife Martha who shares my soul and whose love and patience
never wavered as she often disproportionately shared me with the Phaedo among
many other books, the seminar table and those who sat around it, and the conversations that never end.
And last and in no way least, to my son, Yohannes, to whom this work is
dedicated. In the brevity of your nine weeks of life, your every movement, facial
expression, and sound reminds me that you have a soul and that it is in my care
but more importantly, that the art of fatherhood is to persuade you to become
master of your own.
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A Toast to the Tutors
May 22, 2022
Andrew Graney
Should we do this at Galway?
It’s hard to believe my time here at St. John’s is coming to an end. What
is the “end” of St. John’s College? Is it our happiness? I think Aristotle would be
happy if it was, as long as that happiness was in accord with virtue and right reason, whatever that means. And while I chuckle to myself a little as I say, “whatever
that means,” I think it gets to the heart of something important about St. John’s. I
heard that phrase with some frequency during my two years here— from students
and tutors alike. After one person asked what a particular author was saying, or
trying to say, another might offer up a passage he thought would be helpful, read
it, and then, realizing he might not have actually understood it, would say that
three-word phrase. This, I find, has been a way of keeping the conversation both
light and serious. It’s funny, but it also shows an openness that is key to education
at St. John’s.
We all came here to ask questions and read books in conversation with
one another. When done right, it’s a remarkable thing. The books are in conversation with one another, and we, with one another, are in conversation with those
books. That funny phrase, “whatever that means,” reveals how we actually want
to have those conversations. We do not come to the texts, or each other, with premade answers, but instead have genuine interactions. We all go by our honorifics, including the tutors, because we are all trying out figure out what “it” means
together. We help one another, guide one another, wrestle with the texts together.
Instead of being told what something means, we have a conversation about what
it might mean. We listen and have our minds changed. It’s no small thing to have
one’s mind changed, and sitting at the St. John’s seminar table graciously grants
us that gift.
You can risk yourself here. You can say, “I don’t know.” You can ask questions that have been on your mind for years or questions you had never thought
of before, of concepts entirely new to you. Through conversation, we grow. Our
minds, like knives against a whetstone, become sharper, more penetrating. We
have a chance to come into hard to reconcile complexities and revel in them
without reducing them. As I said earlier, we say, “I don’t know,” but that “I don’t
know is not an “I don’t care,” nor is it a throwing up of arms and giving up, (even
if we might want to sometimes). It’s not a stagnant “I don’t know,” but a moving
50
�one—in every sense of the word.
We laugh, we agree, disagree, get confused together, and perhaps even enlightened.
Thank you, tutors of the GI, for cultivating this environment, for allowing all of this to happen. Thank you for guiding us in our confusion, for giving
us room to be confused. Thank you for letting us think for ourselves but not by
ourselves. As Aristotle said, “man is by nature a political, [i.e. social], animal.
Through hosting the big questions of life, you, the tutors, help us to come into our
very natures, become more ourselves. Keeping your minds (and hearts) open,
you open us.
So, friends, please join me in raising a glass.
And here’s to the tutors: thank you for all you do.
51
A Toast to the Master’s Degree Candidates
May 22, 2022
Louis Petrich, Tutor
A few weeks ago I took the pleasure of reading some poetry of Robert
Frost in the company of my seniors. Despite the middle portion of their college
careers having been muddied by Covid, they made a clear, joyous end of it in
American poetry. That got me wondering how character keeps buoyant, avoiding nausea, while crossing rough seas to rocky shores. What follows are some
thoughts of mine offered apropos of your new characterization as masters of the
liberal arts—the wonder of it, given the contrary winds that blow. “Thoughts
of mine” warrants this note: as always when I rise to speak I owe my would-be
height to the authors I have been reading of late with you—Emerson, Thoreau and
Whitman, Melville and Nietzsche—and with students like you—Baudelaire, Flannery O’Connor, and always Shakespeare. Much importing we have done. Their
voices stand out or blend to make my present solo a chorus. Let that suffice what
is owed, so as not to appear a smuggler.
You chose this college. You might have spent somewhere else your many
hours, and somehow else your means to live. You maintained a bright and forward disposition when even the offspring of Whitman were given to cranky sighs
at life’s unaccountable swings. I can’t chalk this up to youth, as I might with my
seniors, for not all of you are young, unless, as they say, “in spirit.” That’s a word
we have much encountered together—spirit: in the eagled flight of aphorisms,
while dancing the dialectic, or feeling massaged by expert rhetoric. Right now, as
fits our poignancy, let spirit appear as poetic stressing in those final feet of Frost’s
“The Road not Taken”: I took the one less traveled by,/ And that has made all the
difference.” With legs young or old you took that road, you seekers of knowledge,
and on it your spirits altered. You learned how to listen and speak to the ever-living questions, booked lonely and communal, invisibly active, resolutely cheerful,
unpretentious, patient; living dangerously, like an endangered species in this
angry culture that hastens to harpoon and drain, Ahab style, whatever offends its
fragile members. But as for your style, you players with lightning, let your future
comportment manifest all the difference this road (open to many) makes to its
few faithful takers. So may your faces impress the many, when they see how sympathy, generosity, and courage give you looks of readiness to expand your days,
your moments towards eternity.
Isn’t it remarkable (speaking of readiness) when the lines we were given
to read in high school (our salad days, green in judgment) come readily back
in adulthood so transparently good? For it’s often the reverse case: we return
52
�to youthful occupations or pleasures and ask: “how could I ever have liked this
stuff?” This prompts me to ask if a confession of this kind will ever be encountered over the books you have been reading on the Program? The sighing of such
words would have to issue from a depleted kind of character, not yet heard without gainsay among your predecessors. That being so, don’t be afraid to look back.
It won’t send your Eurydice to hell or turn you to a pillar of salt. It is part of our
convalescence and manifesting of health, that while bound to the perils of life we
go on conducting the air-born music and grounding the fires of the sky. As water
cuts into rock, let life’s learning cut into life’s hardness—silently, subtly—shaping
the very character of the times we inhabit. So does an open road, overgrown with
waiting, admit the impression of our cultivating passage.
In my fall preceptorial with you, I looked back at my first literary heroes
to see how well they would hold up to my autumnal needs. I was met by my Eurydice, face to face and accompanying me upward still, after forty years. Although
the American “enterprise” (Thoreau’s favored word for it) was approaching the
abyss in the 1850’s, he and his fellow transcendentalists sang—then as now—of
shining dawns and springs, of love for their fellows rooted in love for themselves,
and even as an assassinated president’s coffin toured the states, they conducted
stars earthward and flowers they sentenced rising—for all time. And that’s not
just me succumbing to fine words, for one who tried to put on the attire of Emersonian idealism but couldn’t make it fit man’s cannibal-fed fierceness—Herman
Melville—even he found a good use for a cannibal’s coffin, carved with the tantalizing possibility of heaven and earth’s mutual design: that use being to keep one
calling himself “Ishmael” alive to tell the incredible true story of Moby Dick. Why
should we in our preceptorials harken back to the tellings of Moby-Dick, Walden,
or Song of Myself, unless the tellings have like uses as that carved coffin?—to keep
us well-sounded, ready to be picked up on the dark seas by bereft sailors searching for characters manifestly buoyant, however much alone, possessed of speech
able to name things forever current, though not in purchase, yet much in need.
And as for that great white whale pursued by Ahab, who went lining the
oceans with questions untallied: is their finding each other on the open seas so
incredible, when today we find ourselves lingering on high scenic old roads, not
at all the current effacing efficiencies plotted for all on the plains?—when we hear
our latent words come from what depths of undiscovered country to breach the
surface between our facing infinities? The little things we’re made of can do what
we most long to do. Isn’t that remarkable? And so here we are, where we most
long to be. We have taken the most signal ways across the wanderings of our kind
to arrive here and measure up. Like that German philosopher, canvassed behind
a big mustache, who says, “Let us color our own example ever more brilliantly,”
you too have stepped aside from the ugly, the accusatory and reproachful, the
partial improvers and punishing equalizers, to paint your canvass as one whole,
53
and to make it beautiful. Remember well the practice, how to draw aside from
incessant clamoring to color your example by attention to the exemplary. Whether whaling or sitting by the fire, there’s a line tightening around the neck, but
remember how life’s breath, made aware of what’s out there, would fasten in its
finitude only on what’s tasteful and terrific. A familiar paradox obtains here, of
looking away in order to be looked at, of stepping aside from the world in order
to come back to the world—still having to live, still having to think—of saying “no”
to make room for a vast encompassing “yes.” Let that character obtained as yours
be bold to manifest its inherent case for treading today’s less traveled road of the
liberal arts.
Like that fellow treader, Parker by name, trying to know himself in one
of Flannery O’Connor’s late stories (boy did she ever know about that line!), his
entire body he covers with random tattoos; but God—because Parker asks for God
when all he has left unpainted is the blank skin of his back—God comes in answer
to color the whole of his back in a tattoo of brilliantly byzantine design. Well, you
asked for it when you took this road, and in brilliant color and design it’s got your
back now. Whatever grumblings or fears may front you piecemeal, we’ve got your
back now—wonderfully looking, masterfully reaching ahead.
Let us then raise our glasses, and in reach of these towering trees that
give us back breath enough to hold out against wind and rain, let us drink to
the brilliant masters of the Graduate Institute, class of 2022, manifestly goodly
different.
54
�A Toast to the Tutors
Summer 2022
Chase Waller
As I have reflected on the past four summers which I have spent at St.
John’s, the big question, which I and probably my classmates have been asking is:
What did I get out of this? What have I gained from my time with these amazing
tutors reading these texts? Plutarch credits Solon with the following words:
“The future that bears down on each of us is variable and determined
by unknowable factors, and so we consider a man only happy when the
gods have granted him success right up to the end of his life. However, to count anyone happy while he is still alive and faced with all the
uncertainties of life is as unsound and valid as proclaiming an athlete the
winner and crowning him while the contest is still in progress.”
So I guess, by Solon’s calculations, I can’t thank the tutors for making me
happy. Hopefully, the gods will grant me success up to the end of my life, but that
privilege seems reserved for a small percentage of people. And I will corroborate Solon’s claim further by saying that St. John’s, in one sense, has not brought
me happiness. I am more confused now than I ever have been in my whole life.
“About what?” you may wonder. About everything! About justice, and love, and
education, and history, and parallel lines, and God, and everything. It’s chronic!
It never stops. St. John’s has effectively ruined certain things for me. I feel like
I haven’t answered a question in four years! When I drive down an open road I
see a Lobachevskian parallel and have to pull over and take a nap. I have grown
to be tepid– I struggle to assert anything because I feel so lost in the vast world of
wisdom and knowledge and story. This state is not happy. Sometimes it’s angry.
I feel like Thrasymachus, barging into the dialogue and demanding that people
listen to what I am saying, even though what I am saying falls apart so quickly.
And yet, in another sense, St. John’s has brought me some of the greatest
happiness in my whole life. I have made friends every summer I have been at St.
John’s. I have cried every summer I have been at St. John’s. I have laughed every
summer I have been at St. John’s. The list goes on, but the full range of emotions
has been readily available, and I have embraced each of them openly with others.
What else can you do when presented with truth and beauty?
So, to answer the question, I would like to thank the tutors for what I feel is the
most important thing that I have received from St. John’s (and that which might
55
cause me to disagree with Solon): simply the ability to listen.
Every time I sit in class I look at the tutor and wonder to myself: “how can
they listen to this conversation, having themselves read and re-read the text so
much more than me, having themselves so much more background information
about the text, having themselves thought so many more years than I about these
things, having lived so much more life than me?” How did you, tutors, listen to
my confused attempts so patiently? Why do you reject time at the beach during
the summers to sit in a classroom and continue the dialogue? It is an act of love,
and I am so grateful. You taught me how to listen carefully, and to dignify every
person by that very act. It is tremendously profound.
I hope, like you, the tutors, to be able to willingly enter confusion and
difficulty over, and over, and over again with excitement, and generosity, with
an ear for everyone (including the authors) and with the extreme compassion to
listen.
Furthermore, by your example, I have learned how to listen to and thereby love myself. When I came here, I was in a crisis. I didn’t know what to do. I
used to berate myself for every little mistake I made. I still don’t know what to do,
and I am still in a crisis. But now, thanks to my tutors and my friends, I know that
I am not alone, and I know that I don’t have to beat myself up for not knowing.
Not knowing is part of the fun. And just as I want to be like the tutors in loving
others by listening to them and valuing what they say, I want to learn how to do
the same for myself. Just because I don’t necessarily come to any grand conclusions, doesn’t mean the ideas in that pursuit are worthless.
I will conclude with this: when I first read Notes on Dialogue, the strangest
precept to me was that we were not to take notes. I thought it strange because I
wanted to remember the ideas in the conversations we had. But in my time here,
I saw that it was actually extremely profound to fully listen to someone, without the distraction of trying to write anything down, making full eye contact. It
makes sense to me how full attention to someone’s words will give you a much
deeper appreciation for their ideas. And though I might not have a record of that
idea on paper, what I do have is an intimate experience with the person, having
given their words due thought, and having let them convince me. In that sense,
the ideas become more a part of me when I encounter them in this way than they
would have had I recorded each and every one of them on paper. Every conversation was a relationship; every conversation changed the way I think in some way.
I don’t need them all on paper because I think for me that would just be a temptation to return to the ideas and use them for something other than what they were
meant for. Perhaps, it is better to just listen, and in so doing, to love.
So, to the tutors, here’s to you for teaching us how to listen and to love.
May we follow your example and thereby learn how to embrace confusion, argument, paradox, and complexity for the sake of perhaps seeing something true.
56
�A Toast to the Master’s Degree Candidates
Summer 2022
John Tomarchio
As God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden of paradise, so we gather
here today as you cast off from this our island of misfit toys, to finish out your
intellectual life among infidels and barbarians, some your nearest and dearest.
And when you propose to them to spend 2 hours some Monday night after work
discussing a 17th century metaphysical poem on the vanity of erotic desire; or
a geocentric account of the solar system; or the arguments of an ancient Greek
drinking party for and against pedophilia, they will think you a misfit for even
asking, and they will be right.
So, what will be left for you to do but retreat to the secret chamber of
your soul where your heavenly Father alone will see what becomes of the seeds
that Holy Mother College, like a good sower, has scattered there. True, some of
those seminars fell on the hard parts of your soul and were devoured forever by
the birds of pride and prejudice. Other seminars fell on the shallow parts of your
soul and sprung up quickly, even eagerly, only to wither before searing rays of
cross-examination. Still other seminars were choked by the thorns and thistles
of daily cares, for the G.I. Johnny does not live on Seminar alone! BUT, some of
those seminars have fallen on good soil, and taken root, and if cultivated, will in
time yield fruit 30-fold, or 60-fold, even 100-fold.
And if then you should remember us, your Tutors, send a check earmarked for Tutor compensation, for Tutors can’t live on Seminar alone either.
So, please raise your glasses, my fellow Tutors, to those about to brave life after
Seminar: may it never befall us!
57
58
�List of Works
Cover
Midnight in the Studio
Jesse Clagett
Digital transfer of 16mm cyanotype
59
Acknowledgements
Pl. 24
A winter afternoon in Kentucky IV
Jesse Clagett
Black and white print
10” x 8”
Cover, Jesse Clagett
jesse.clagett@gmail.com
6 Melissa Moore
27 Bonnie Naradzay
bonnie.naradzay@gmail.com
Pl. 9
Capulin Volcano, NM, I
Aschely Vaugh Cone
Oil on panel with hard gesso surface
10” x 8” x 1”
Pl. 25
The Gyre
Jules Spiese
Color pencil on paper
7 Louis Petrich, Tutor
29 Jesse Clagett
9 Aschely Vaughan Cone
https://www.aschely.com/
31 Abdullah Wadood
Pl. 10
White Arch I
Aschely Vaugh Cone
Oil on panel with hard gesso surface
10” x 8” x 1”
Pl. 29
Thinking Pre-Socratic
Jesse Clagett
Digital transfer of 16mm photogram
Pl. 11
Cast Fossil and Carson Cover
Aschely Vaugh Cone
Oil on panel with hard gesso surface
10” x 8” x 1”
Pl. 45
Capulin Volcano, NM, VI
Aschely Vaugh Cone
Oil on panel with hard gesso surface
10” x 8” x 1”
Pl. 21
Found at 4000 ft. in the Appalachians
Jesse Clagett
Black and white print
11” x 14”
Pl. 47
White Arch II
Aschely Vaugh Cone
Oil on panel with hard gesso surface
10” x 8” x 1”
Pl. 23
And if it’s cold enough
Jules Spiese
Color pencil on paper
Pl. 58
A winter afternoon in Kentucky III
Jesse Clagett
Black and white print
10” x 8”
3 Benjamin Crocker
25 Jules Spiese
26 Ansley Green
10 Aschely Vaughan Cone
33 Luis Sanchez
sanchezmo.luis@gmail.com
11 Aschely Vaughan Cone
35 Ansley Green
14 Siobhan Petersen
37 Walker Rogalsky
rogalsky.walker@gmail.com
16 Abdullah Wadood
abdullahwadood.com
17 Jose Gabriel Coronado-Flores
gabecoronado66@gmail.com
21 Jesse Clagett
22 Jesse Clagett
23 Jules Spiese
https://www.jspiese.com/
24 Jesse Clagett
45 Aschely Vaughan Cone
47 Aschely Vaughan Cone
48 Kelly Custer
50 Andrew Graney
52 Louis Petrich, Tutor
55 Chase Waller
57 John Tomarchio, Tutor
58 Jesse Clagett
60
�
Dublin Core
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Title
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Colloquy
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A journal for the Graduate Institute Community of St. John's College in Annapolis, MD.
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Annapolis, MD
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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pdf
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31 pages
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Colloquy, Fall 2022
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Volume XI of Colloquy, published in Fall 2022.
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Clagett, Jesse (Editor)
Wadood, Abdullah (Editor)
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2023-02
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St. John's College owns the rights to this publication.
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text
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pdf
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English
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
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English
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Colloquy_Fall2022
Graduate Institute
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c1e2075a0aaf60f1e0b0cd3e605106f9.mp4
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Dublin Core
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Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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Zoom video conference
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00:37:59
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Reading and Teaching the Constitution
Description
An account of the resource
Video recording of a lecture delivered on June 29, 2022, by Steve Steinbach as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. <br /><br />Mr. Steinbach was a partner at a law firm in Washington, D.C. before leaving the legal profession for teaching. He is now the chair of the History department at Sidwell Friends, and is the author of <em>With Liberty and Justice for All?: The Constitution in the Classroom</em>. <br /><br />Mr. Steinbach describes his talk: "Is the Constitution of the United States a 'great book' in the St. John’s tradition? How might the document be read, taught, and understood intelligently, whether in the nation’s classrooms or our wider civic discourse? The lecture will explore the Constitution’s continuing relevance by focusing in part on two critical 'constitutional moments' from the past: the Alien and Sedition Acts controversy and the Dred Scott case."
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Steinbach, Steven A.
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2022-06-29
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moving image
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mp4
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Education, Humanistic
Alien and Sedition laws, 1798
Scott, Dred, 1809-1858
Constitutional law
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Langston, Emily
Language
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English
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Steinbach_Steve_2022-06-29access
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College. During the Fall and Spring semesters, lectures are given on Friday nights. Items include audio and video recordings and typescripts.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a href="http://www.sjc.edu/programs-and-events/annapolis/formal-lecture-series/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">St. John's College website</a></strong>. <br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Formal Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=5">Items in the St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.<br /><br />A growing number of lecture recordings are also available on the St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures podcast. Visit <a href="https://anchor.fm/greenfieldlibrary" title="Anchor.fm">Anchor.fm</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/st-johns-college-annapolis-lectures/id1695157772">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy84Yzk5MzdhYy9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw" title="Google Podcasts">Google Podcasts</a>, or <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6GDsIRqC8SWZ28AY72BsYM?si=f2ecfa9e247a456f" title="Spotify">Spotify</a> to listen and subscribe.
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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St. John's College Formal Lecture Series—Annapolis
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formallectureseriesannapolis
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Zoom video conference
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00:36:49
Dublin Core
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It’s Just Talking: Legal Advocacy and the Vital Role of Listening
Description
An account of the resource
Video recording of a lecture delivered on July 6, 2022, by Gabriela Quercia Kahrl as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Ms. Kahrl is the Associate Director of the Chacon Center for Immigrant Justice at the University of Maryland Carey School of Law.
As part of the partnership between the Annapolis Graduate Institute and the Carey School of Law, Ms. Kahrl speaks about liberal education and the role of listening in legal advocacy, reflecting on the nature of conversations, oral advocacy as a kind of conversation, and why and how listening is a vital legal skill. Her lecture draws from texts/authors, including Simone Weil, the Bible, and Plato, and includes examples of legal practice.
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Kahrl, Gabriela Quercia
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2022-07-06
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Education, Humanistic
Communication in law
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Legal assistance to immigrants
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Langston, Emily
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Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
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�Editor-in-Chief
Olivia Braley
Editorial Board
Leith Daghistani
Andrew Graney
Charles Green
Diana Villegas
�Table of Contents
Letter from the Editor
Olivia Braley, Annapolis
Purple Freckles
Toni Lambert, Annapolis
"I Feel, Therefore I Am?"
Kayleigh Steele, Annapolis - with artwork by Bucca, Annapolis
Toast to the GI Graduates
Louis Petrich, Annapolis Tutor
Annapolis Bells
Joshua Laperche, Annapolis - with artwork by Jesse Clagett, Annapolis
Genesis
William Braithwaite, Annapolis Tutor
Pap and Me
Judith Wrenn, Annapolis - with artwork by Bucca, Annapolis
A Conversation with Brandon Wasickso
Charles Green, Annapolis- with art by Bucca, Annapolis
“Equality” and the Tyranny of the Majority
Drew Maglio, Annapolis
The White Man Burdened
Dimple Kaul, Annapolis - with artwork by Jesse Clagett, Annapolis
Holy Sonnet XIV
Vita Kudryavtseva, Annapolis - with artwork by Jesse Clagett, Annapolis
About a Letter
Louis Petrich, Annapolis Tutor - with artwork by Bucca, Annapolis
Prize-winning Tutorial Essay: Meno
Andrew Graney, Annapolis
Prize-winning Preceptorial Essay: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Anthony Meffe, Annapolis - with artwork by Jesse Clagett, Annapolis
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�Letter from the Editor
Olivia Braley
Dear Members of the Graduate Institute Community,
As another semester comes to a close, I reflect on these last sixteen weeks with
immense gratitude for our community. Thank you all for your dedication and
commitment to the unique work and relationships we cultivate around our seminar
tables, across our computer screens, and everywhere in between. Thank you
especially to my fellow Colloquy editors, our contributors, and all others who dedicate
their time and talents to helping this publication come to fruition each semester. Due
to your efforts, we can showcase the various perspectives and elements of our
community here. The issue you have in front of you today is a culmination of the
thoughts and efforts of many people and, in that way, I believe is in keeping with the
collaborative spirit of St. John’s college.
The magic of the St. John's seminar is not hindered by distance or time. That is
evident as we bring you an issue composed of past and present graduate students
from both the in-person and low-residency programs. The fact that Prize-winning
Tutorial and Preceptorial papers were awarded to an in-person and low-residency
student respectively is but one apt example of the rigor and integrity that the St.
John’s program requires of its students no matter the circumstances or platform.
This Fall 2021 issue is of particular personal import as it marks my last semester as
Editor-in-Chief of Colloquy and as a graduate student at St. John’s College. Neither
departure is without a bit of sadness— but I am filled with hope for the future of this
journal and the Graduate Institute. To have had the opportunity to integrate into this
community in my two years here is an honor and I know that the lessons,
connections, and questions that I developed during this time will be with me for
many years to come. Let Colloquy be a reminder of these connections and of the
diverse, attentive community in which each of us has a place.
As always, thank you all for your talent, trust, and time.
Sincerely,
Olivia Braley, Editor-in-Chief
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�Purple Freckles
Toni Lambert
Debris.
Debris and remnants
Of the gentle and no-longer-tall giants, Everywhere.
The limbs of these strong beings Show the fresh flesh
Of where they were snapped and torn. They couldn’t stand,
So they flew.
And now they’ve been flung,
Pushed aside,
Out of the way of where people pass By foot or by car.
Inches from where we pass,
But consuming our sight
Of what happened just the night before. Did they catch our gaze,
Or even our glance,
When they remained attached In their proper place
At home in the horizon line?
Not in the same way.
When attached
They represented strength
And growth,
That we can stretch and reach To be just like the humble tree. Now, flung and
displaced,
They represent the terrific
And tragic strength
Of something harder to see.
But what’s that?
Underneath the carcasses
Of the brutal storm,
Purple freckles stand tall.
Mere inches tall,
But exactly as tall as they should be On a warm September day.
They hold strong,
Often over glanced in their simplicity.
These tiny purple freckles
Of flowers show us strength.
Unfazed and perfectly placed
Despite what the storm attempted to do.
Even those standing under
And holding the remains of gentle giants
Hold strong,
Their purple untouched.
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�"I Feel, Therefore I Am?"
Kayleigh Steele
René Descartes, after having divested himself of his body and the sensible world in a
thought experiment in the first of his Meditations, famously declares in the Second
Meditation that he is merely a thinking thing, and that his thought alone can serve as
proof of his existence. He asserts, “It is thought; this alone cannot be stripped from
me. I am, I exist, this is certain” (27). In other writings, he states this central idea
aphoristically as: “I think, therefore I am.” By the end of the Meditations, though,
Descartes believes he has successfully proven the existence of the material world and
has restored his body to himself. This prompts the question of whether we can now
return to the Second Meditation and, with the body and access to sensation intact, ask
if there are other possible proofs of our existence to be found. Could “I feel,
therefore I am” be true?
Intuitively, it seems true that if there is a sensation being felt, that is proof that there
is something here existing to feel the sensation. The proposition does not feel so
different from Descartes’ basic assertion that if there is something here thinking,
there must be something here existing to think the thought. So now, stripped of our
reason and using only our sensations, we test “I feel, therefore I am." Immediately,
the question presents itself: is it possible for a merely perceiving being to form a
“therefore”? It seems impossible that a feeling being would be capable of taking in
sensory data and using it to form a conclusion; reason must be involved in this
process. However, Descartes identifies sensation and perception as a form of
thinking: “I seem to be seeing, hearing, getting hot. This cannot be false. This is what is
properly meant by speaking of myself as having sensations; and, understood in this
precise sense, it is nothing other than thinking” (29). To accord with his cogito
statement, he removes sensation from the body entirely and assigns it to the mind:
“Bodies themselves are perceived not, strictly speaking, by the senses or by the
imaginative faculty, but by the intellect alone, and... they are not perceived because
they are touched or seen, but only because they are understood” (34). With sensation
now subsumed by the understanding, the proposition of “I feel, therefore I am”
effectively becomes one and the same as “I think, therefore I am,” and must be true.
As he works to reestablish the body in the Sixth Meditation, though, Descartes
complicates his idea of sensation as a form of thinking:
I find in myself faculties of thinking in various specific ways – namely, the faculties of
imagination and sensation – without which I can understand myself clearly and distinctly as
a whole. But the converse is not true – I cannot understand them apart from an intelligent
substance in which they inhere (for they contain a certain degree of intellection in their formal
concept). Hence I perceive that they are to be distinguished from me as modes are from a
thing. (78)
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�By identifying sensation as a mode or accident of thinking, he effectively separates it
and makes it nonessential from the business of thinking. He can conceive of a version
of himself existing purely as a mind without requiring the faculty of sensation, but not
as a feeling being without his intellect. After this development in his conception of
sensation, “I feel, therefore I am” cannot possibly be true. Or can it? In making an
argument for mind-body dualism later in the Sixth Meditation, Descartes states:
When I consider the mind, or myself in so far as I am purely a thinking thing, I can
distinguish no parts in myself but understand myself to be a thing that is entirely one and
complete. And although the whole mind appears to be united with the whole body, if the foot
is cut off, or the arm, or any other part of the body, I know that nothing is therefore subtracted
from the mind. Nor can the faculties of willing, perceiving by the senses, understanding, and
so forth be said to be parts of the mind, since it is one and the same mind that wills, that
senses, and that understands. (86)
Descartes contradicts himself here. Where before sensation was identified as
separable from his conception of the self, now it is contained absolutely within the
whole. For “I feel, therefore I am” to be true, it has become clear that both the
faculties of sensation and the understanding must be available to us: the former to
perceive the “I feel”, and the latter to form the “therefore”. Between these two
statements in the Sixth Meditation, Descartes has presented these faculties as either
entirely divisible or muddled together, and sometimes it seems that they may even be
the same faculty altogether. How is it possible to proceed in the face of a
contradiction that makes the proposition to be tested both true and false
simultaneously?
The imprecision of Descartes has revealed itself during this exploration. Because he
does not resolve the inconsistency in the Meditations, it appears we have encountered
an insurmountable obstacle. Perhaps we can look to another, more systematic,
thinker to resolve the confusion: namely, Immanuel Kant. In the Prolegomena to Any
Future Metaphysics, Kant details his conception of the mind and its innate faculties: the
faculties of sensibility, the understanding, and reason. He defines the faculty of
sensibility as responsible for giving form to our perceptions through pure intuitions,
transforming the raw data from sensation into empirical intuitions we understand in
time and space. The faculty of the understanding then uses the pure concepts of the
understanding to form our empirical intuitions into appearances, allowing us to make
inferences and conclusions about the things that affect our senses. Reason, finally, is
the faculty by which it is possible to know a priori, apart from any experience.
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�Artwork by Bucca
Now the roles and limitations of our various faculties are clearly defined. In the
proposition of “I feel, therefore I am,” the “I feel” is now easily understood to
pertain to the faculty of sensibility, and it seems the faculty of the understanding can
use that information to craft a “therefore”. When Descartes states, “I am therefore,
speaking precisely, only a thinking thing...” (27), he declares sensation to be
completely separable from his conception of the self. This prompts the question of
what the newly separated merely sensing self is capable of, and, with only Descartes
to look to, led to the confusion above. In Kant, the question of whether a perceiving
being can form a conclusion never arises because a merely perceiving being cannot
exist within his system. The innate structure of our minds makes it impossible to
separate sensation from the understanding. Nature has implanted within us the pure
intuitions and pure concepts of the understanding. They exist in us prior to sensation;
therefore if we feel, we are able to form an understanding from that sensation.
But can this understanding form a conclusion of “I am”? Kant identifies the
conception of the self, or the soul, as a transcendental idea, or a pure concept of the
reason. These transcendental ideas, he says, cannot be understood empirically; they
exist outside of all experience. “The transcendent cognitions of reason neither allow
what relates to their ideas to be given in experience, nor their theses ever to be
confirmed or refuted through experience; hence only pure reason itself can detect the
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�error that perhaps creeps into them...” (4:329). The idea of the soul, like the pure
concepts and intuitions, exists in us intuitively and innately. Kant states, “Now it does
appear as if we have something substantial in the consciousness of our self (the
thinking subject), and indeed have it in immediate intuition; for all the predicates of
inner sense are referred to the I as subject, and this I cannot again be thought as the
predicate of some other subject” (4:334). This “I am” can be concluded, but never
through sensation or experience. For Kant, “I feel, therefore I am” is, consequently,
impossible.
Kant has proven, through this exercise, the immense value of the precision in his
system for answering the metaphysical questions. When Descartes’ ideas became
hopelessly entangled in the attempt to prove or disprove our proposition, Kant’s
system provided a clear and firm groundwork for continuing the process of thought.
In exploring this question, the ideas of Descartes quickly became a quagmire that one
could not navigate safely out of without the use of interpretation or opinion, which
are far too fickle for good metaphysics. Through Kant, it appears something rare and
unexpected, and welcome, has occurred: we have seemingly discovered a certain
conclusion to our question. While Descartes prompted only more questions, Kant
provided what was sought: an answer.
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�Toast to the GI Graduates
Mr. Louis Petrich
Delivered Spring Semester 2021
Socrates says, some place or other, that it’s good to be refuted--to suffer refutation-because then we cease to think that we know what we do not know. For that’s a
troublesome condition, sometimes dangerous, even over elementary, physical matters.
Let’s say you have to prepare the table for guests, and you think you know how to
size it up or down to fit the occasion. But the table turns out too big or little—once
the guests have come—and then, too late for proper hospitality, Zeus is angry. . .
unless, perhaps, there’s a Socrates among the guests, persuasively game to undertake a
second or third measuring, ever another round of getting to know us things and gods.
Thus it’s fitting for Socrates to add that we should thank our refuters for delivering us
from the human propensity to think we know more than we do. For consider how
much that is, and how dear the objects, how costly the mistakes, when the
accommodation of bodies around the table is for the sake of souls, too.
Prompted by that word, “souls,” which is the real dynamite in our mining
conversations, I would now say “thank you” to the graduates for practicing with my
colleagues and me the soulful art of refutation for a few years, under physical
conditions that have sorely refuted us--I mean our bodies, mainly, less so our souls,
and not much your souls, for I’ve made particular comparisons. Yours have
continued, under mandated refutations, elsewhere debilitating, to take the measure of
things unknown in a spirit of wonder, and with an energy and commitment that
frankly, have refuted me of certain hard opinions I held of the mediating mechanisms
we have all had to depend upon for our fellowship.
The efficacy of your refutation surprised me, for you know how attached a man can
get to his own thoughts, as to his own hands. You got me wondering if, perhaps, I’ve
been wrong all these years about not handling a cell phone. Who knows what new
body parts I’ll acquire in future time, or what strange places we’ll occupy, in company
we never imagined to enjoy, or feared to miss? Life is full of surprises, Emerson
writes, and would not be worth the taking otherwise. Would it be to our present
purpose to recall some recent history of surprises and refutations? After all, they’ve
turned many lives, including mine, around and around again.
Who could have thought, thirty-five years ago, that European and Russian
communism would collapse in a heap, in a moment, with almost no violence? That
surprise led to a decade of newly opened borders, unforbidden books, high hopes,
dancing movements, and the liberalization of learning at much bigger, more inclusive
tables than anyone thought possible. Those closed regimes had been considered
permanent and inhospitable to us. Not so.
Who could have thought, twenty-five years ago, that our proud gleaming towers,
reaching to the heavens, uniting the world in awe, if not aspiration for like endeavors
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�and rewards, could collapse in a heap, in a moment, not from earthquakes, but from
passenger planes, taken over by secreted enemies of our towering powers? That
refutation led to a mighty contraction of the tables of hospitality. Surveying the tables
thence are cameras, ubiquitous and seeming permanent. So it goes.
Who could have thought, two years ago, that we’d be measuring, painstakingly, our
own Johnnie tables, classrooms, this auditorium, fields of grass, body temperatures,
breath components, all that and more, to determine how many embodied souls can
investigate in person, through friendly refutation, the truth of tables?--I mean by that
what’s meet (as Hamlet says) to set down in our tables of memory (“there you are”)
for present and subsequent pursuit; what’s meet to co-discover that lies secretive
underneath the surfaces; what’s meet to venture jointly in towers of purpose that spy
into heavenly, unforbidden things; and what is meet to know that stirs across
continents and seas, around the tables of absent friends and plotting enemies. Our
surprising, painstaking measurements sting the awareness of how meet it is to be here
now, bridging the distances between us with words, gestures, and images, always
grateful for the help we get to cross the divide, by thoughts going out to listeners and
coming back home, never the same, like Odysseus when Athena brushes him up, to
become his best, god-intended, homecoming self.
Many American writers have admitted to doing their best work, going out dressed to
claw their way up cliffs, when life is especially hard, and coming back in a shining
guise. (Tennessee Williams wrote an excellent piece about clawing to success.) Ease
and comfort, as Moses told the Israelites, about to enter the Promised Land, would
make them go slack and forget God, who brought them there, thirsty. So let us cheer
those who are about to enter academic masterdom, for clawing their way up the cliff,
for life has been hard and deserted of late. But let us also charge them to refute those
of the ease and comfort school. For haven’t we learned, from our clawing, that the
convenience and resourcefulness of the medium of exchange is not the message?-For it does not dictate, as means, that mediation itself is to be learned as end. We
thirst for being there, where words and gestures issue ripe from their sources. For we
are proud to be a college of primary sources, and here’s to our looking now upon
some of them, I mean us, who are present, we sources, high on the cliffs!
I shall end my toast by looking to a source I mentioned earlier, on my mind because
of a preceptorial coming shortly, on Hamlet. Some of you have probably heard the
anecdote about the lady who went to see a production of Hamlet, which she had
never seen or read before. When asked at intermission, “Madam, how like you this
play?” she responded, “I’m so surprised at how many quotes it contains!” Yes, life is
full of surprises--and goodly refutations (in her case, let us imagine it kindly
postponed). Yet isn’t it good to know that the words we speak want to go
somewhere, and be recognized sometime and again, even if we don’t know where the
words originally come from? You graduates know a lot better than you did two years
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�ago where many of our best words come from. Knowing that makes the question of
“to be or not to be” much less anxious. For we’ve learned to keep good company,
asking life’s questions, laying open the tables of the mind, expanding their contents
for feasting. Hamlet, as you know, is not given to feasting; he prefers to keep alone,
to talk to himself; in company, he almost always wears a mask (not this kind); for
there’s lots of poison in Denmark; it kills him in the end, leading that lady to report,
when asked what she thought of Hamlet the character, “During the play I kept
wanting him to get it over with, but now that it’s over, I miss him.” Another goodly
refutation there, about endings, after so many words along the way, alone or
accompanied, with still so much more to say, before the final arrest, always ready to
be surprised--by missing you. But there’s more to meet with in heaven and earth than
dreamt of in our seminars and tutorials, which means there’s more for us to
philosophize over at our tables round, and it’s a good thing the soul’s immortal, or
the missing would really be impossible to bear, the “not to be” at our throats.
Imagine our anecdotal lady attending a production of Hamlet knowing that it would
be the last time the play would ever be performed or read, because at the end, it must
all disappear, without a trace. What would that be like? She’d have to remember it,
write it down, talk about it, and make it come back. Remember your time as students
at St. John’s College, and make it come back, full face-to-face, to your unimpeded
liking.
To that end, I propose a toast to the graduates of the Graduate Institute, class of
2021, for the refutations they have turned to goodly account, able hereafter to profess
to the dire and dooming, the being of true minds, and the oneness that comes in
moments--the edges of eternity.
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�Annapolis Bells
Joshua Laperche
Who installed these beckonersthese pardoners of the long day?
Saint Mary keeps continenceEvery hour,
The Prime Hour.
Our Liberty Bell,
Cracked as it is anchored.
It too tolls.
Saint John; his own tune plays.
7:22, he neglects the quarter hour.
In the dark I swear I heard this once.
To the hourTo the RepublicsTo the Soul.
Three Tolls to the regularity of experience.
Artwork by Jesse Clagett
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�Genesis
Mr. Braithwaite
This paper was read September 7, 2021 to some students in my Sophomore Seminar.
The first two chapters of Genesis tell two stories about the origin of Man, humankind, and of the male and female sexes. The first story, in Chapter 1, describes the six
days of creation. The beginning of the second story, verses 4 through 7 of Chapter 2,
is the text for my present inquiry.
I have two questions. What is the relation between the first story and the second?
What do the two stories taken together suggest about the Biblical understanding of
the relation between the sexes?
In Chapter 1, verse 27, it is said: “So God created man in his own image, in the image
of God created he him; male and female created he them” (King James tr.). Is mankind, or humanity, as we might say, one or two; singular or plural? Are we human
beings first and foremost a unity, or a duality of male and female?
As a unity, we are one kind, one species, distinguished from other, different species.
As primarily a duality of male and female, we confront the question whether our
likenesses, as men and women, --or something in between, transcend our differences.
Could our potential for unity and co-operation get us beyond the abrasions among
the sexes which we know from experience? We can observe these problems every day
in the world around us. They spawn endless conflicts, some trivial, others deep and
wounding. Many of these conflicts seem irresolvable. Some are even violent. Very
often, it is women and children who suffer most, along with those who may not easily
fit our deeply-rooted traditional categories.
In Chapter 2, verse 18, it is said: “And the Lord God said, It is not good that man
should be alone; I will make a help meet for him.” In the following verses (19-23), we
are told that Woman was made from Adam’s rib. This account seems to say that
man/male preceded woman/female. But according to Chapter 1, male and female,
man and woman, were created at the same time. Are the two stories consistent?
Another question. In the first story, Man, human-kind, is “created,” as are the two
sexes, male and female (1.27). In the second, man is “formed,” of the dust of the
ground, and woman is “made” from one of Adam’s ribs (2.21). How does “create”
differ from “make”? What does “form” mean, different from “create” and “make”?
In the first story, what God creates, besides man/male, is “female,” not either “a
woman” or capital-W “Woman,” as Adam names her, saying, “This is now bone of
my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” Remembering Aristotle’s Physics—that a maker
needs material, we might wonder what material man and woman, as male and female,
were made from.
The first story does not say. Does this omission signify that the material is less
important than that both sexes are created in God’s image? Later events in Genesis
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�suggest that woman’s god-likeness is shown in her power of giving birth. God
creates, woman pro-creates. In the stories of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the
emphasis on “seed” suggests that the god-likeness of man/male is shown in his
power to quicken woman’s fertility into a living soul.
In the second story, man/male is made from “the dust of the ground,” and
woman/female from a bone near Adam’s heart. Here the materials, earth and bone,
are ready at hand, and God is more an artificer, one who makes by art, than a creator,
who perhaps can bring material into being out of nothing (cf. Gen. 1.1-3).
Adam, the source of the material from which Woman is made, has a different
perception of his new “help meet,” or as we might say, a different experience, than
God, the artisan who “made” them both. To Adam, she is not only “bone of my
bones,” but also “flesh of my flesh” (2.23).
Together, bones and flesh constitute the living body, the primary habitation of every
human being, including each one of us. If our greatest blessing is that we have souls,
is it our greatest curse that our souls must dwell in a body? The question of how the
body and the soul are related, and therewith the question whether the soul survives
the death of the body, is grave enough to occupy the full attention of Socrates and his
companions in the final hours of his life.
The second story begins this way:
“These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created,
in the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
And every plant of the field before it was in the earth,
and every herb of the field before it grew:
for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth,
and there was not a man to till the ground.
But there were up a mist from the earth, and watered the face of the ground.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground,
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;
and man became a living soul.”
It is in this second creation story, in Chapter 2, verse 4, that the word “generation,”
which is related in its root to the word “genesis,” appears for the first time. There is
no reference to “generation” in Chapter 1.
Man, like God, is a “maker”: he makes cities, as we learn in Chapter 4 (v. 17) and tall
buildings, like the tower at Babel, as we learn in Chapter 11 (v. 9). Both God and Man
are also makers of images. Man makes images in stories, such as the Book of Genesis,
about how the world began. In doing this, he may, like Homer, call on divine
assistance or inspiration. Is the poet’s power to make stories that image people and
events akin to God’s power to make human beings in his own image?
Although both God and Man are makers, in Genesis 1 and 2 it is only God who
“creates,” and only Man is said to “generate,” although it is evidently implicit that
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�many or most other living creatures do also. These first two chapters are about the
beginning of all things, but Creation, in Chapter 1, precedes Generation in Chapter 2.
There must first be a world before there are beings who will dwell in it. Some of
these beings are male and female, who by coupling will generate their own kind, “to
multiply, and replenish the earth” (1.28).
As Generation pre-supposes Creation, so Creation anticipates Generation. We see
this in Chapter 1’s references to “seed” and “kind.” “And God said, “Let the earth
bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind,
whose seed is in itself” (1.11). In Genesis, from not later than Chapter 4, “And Adam
knew Eve his wife; and she conceived,” the story begins to leave plants and animals
largely behind, and to focus on the generation of children, especially sons, through
the conjugal coupling that unites the Father’s seed with the Mother’s power of
procreation.
Only one creature, Man, is said to be both “created” and “made.” God’s creating
power is exercised through his speech. “And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light” (1.3). God speaks, and light is. The speech and deed are one with the being
of the thing. Is there some inner communion between divinity and speech and light?
Certainly we know from our own experience that human speech is not always
enlightening. Very often, it is intended to obscure, conceal, or mislead, like the speech
of the Serpent in Chapter 3.
The creation of man, on the sixth day, and the creation of light, on the first day, are
described differently. Light appears immediately upon God’s utterance, “Let there
be.” The creation of man, by contrast, happens in two stages. “And God said, Let us
make man in our own image” (1.26). How is “Let us make” different from “Let there
be”? Does “Let us make” suggest some sort of deliberation? Who is the “us” that
deliberates? Is it God as not “him” but “them,” the duality of male and female?
In bringing human-kind into being, God first announces his intention, “Let us
make,” and then acts, but his action does not exactly follow his announced intention.
“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male
and female created he them” (1.27). The announcement said “make,” what God did
was “create.” What was to be made was “man”; what God “created” was “male and
female.” The thing to be made was one, a unity, a singular; what God created was a
duality, whose coupling is necessary for generating its own kind. Can this unity be
reconciled with this duality?
With respect to other living beings, fish and birds, animals and insects, Man, humankind, is given “dominion” (1.26, 28). But if both male and female are in God’s image,
it would seem that man/male does not have dominion over woman/female. Rather,
the two sexes share “dominion” and are co-prime. Among human beings, among
their own kind, men and women are equals.
In the Biblical account, as in Diotima’s account of Eros in Plato’s Symposium, man and
woman, male and female, lover and beloved, are both needy and moveable. Each of
13
�them lacks, but also needs and desires, the other. “Therefore shall a man leave his
father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.”
This text, verse 24 of Chapter 2, appears very near the end of the second story, and
immediately after Adam has named his new helper “Woman,” observing that her
flesh is his own.
But Woman’s flesh, which in some way yet to be explained is also Man’s, is no longer
part of his body. His body was material for making her body. Is she some sort of
image of him, as Man-kind is an image of God? If a man must leave home in order to
cleave to his wife, it follows that man and woman are at first separate, at a distance
from one another, before, as husband and wife, he can “cleave” to her.
“Cleave” means “stick to,” but also “to cut in twain.” This is what a meat cleaver
does. This double meaning of “cleave” invites comparison of the Biblical account of
the origin of the sexes with the account given by Aristophanes. The least we can say
is that Plato thought the question of Eros weighty enough to compose two dialogues
about it. Is Genesis another account of how Eros shows itself in our lives?
What does Genesis say about how man and woman come together? One element of
this attraction we have already noticed: woman’s flesh beckons man because it is in
some way his own. There is another element, mentioned in the concluding verse of
Chapter 2. “And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not
ashamed.” The Biblical author is here preparing the reader for what happens in the
next chapter. We must begin, then, to parse out what is implicit in this nakedness that
is without shame.
In Chapter 1, God said several times of his work that it was good. The first mention
of any opposite or antithesis to “good” is in Chapter 2, verse 9, “And out of the
ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good
for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of
good and evil” (see also verse 17). What sort of knowledge this is, and of what, is a
question we can examine more fully when we take up Chapter 3.
It is immediately after he commands the man not to eat of this tree that God says, “It
is not good that the man should be alone” (2.18). What does God mean by “not
good”? Man’s solitariness is not said to be “evil,” but simply “not good.” Would
solitary man be neither good nor evil, but something in-between? Could he still be a
human being, yet unable to become fully what a human being can become if he has a
“help meet”?
God brings the beasts and birds to Adam, and Adam names them, but none of them
are found to be a “help meet” for him. In the King James translation I am quoting
throughout these remarks, “help” and “meet” are two separate words, and I take
“meet” to mean “fit.” Why are none of the beasts or birds a fit helper for Adam?
In Chapter 2, verse 5, the plants and herbs are in the earth, but not yet growing
because there has not been any rain, “and there was not a man to till the ground.”
14
�After forming man of the dust of the ground, verse 7, God puts him in the garden
“to dress and keep it” (2.15). The work of the first man is to till the soil. He is a
farmer, not a hunter, one who must shed blood in order to eat.
If man’s solitude, or solitariness, is the reason it is “not good” for him to be without a
fit helper, the help he needs isn’t an ox to pull a plow, or a falcon he can train to hunt
other birds. Not as a farmer is the man in need, but as a kind of being not made for
living alone. Man is a social animal, we might say; Aristotle says “political.” He needs
a being like himself, yet somehow also different.
The end of Chapter 2 spells out what sort of being this is. In three successive verses,
the meaning of “female” is transformed. In verse 22, God made “a woman” and
brought her to Adam. In verse 23, Adam names her “Woman, because she was taken
out of man.” In verses 24 and 25, Woman becomes “wife.” After they eat the apple,
“Adam called his wife’s name Eve; because she was the mother of all living” (3.20).
“Female” is shared by all animals that reproduce by copulating. “Woman” specifically
relates her to “man.” “Wife” relates her, in marriage, to “husband.” “Eve” specifies
her as a woman-become-mother, conjugally joined to a man-become-father, for the
sake of generating their own kind.
Thus begins to come into view the Biblical author’s reason for the phrase “these are
the generations of,” used for the first time at the beginning of the second story.
Thereafter we find the generations of Adam, Noah, of each of Noah’s three sons,
then again and separately, of Shem, the eldest down to Terah, the father of Abram,
who will become Abraham. Later the generations of Isaac and of Esau are given.
These lists are in Chapters 5, 6, 10, 25, and 36. In the Joseph chapters, there are
several different lists of the sons of Jacob.
With this clue, we are able to begin discerning one main thread of the Genesis story.
It is generation, the human act of procreation, the activity of multiplying our own
kind through the pairing of man and woman in the conjugal union of husband and
wife. The pairing of male and female changes us, successively, into man and woman,
husband and wife, father and mother. By duplicate ratio, mothers and fathers become
grandmothers and grandfathers. This continuity in generations, a geometric
progression, establishes the continuity of families, and so also of cities and nations.
From Chapter 4 forward, another main thread of the Genesis story is the murderous
jealousy and hatred between brothers—Cain and Abel, Esau and Jacob, Joseph and
his brethren. Does the sequence of events in Genesis suggest that the disobedience of
Adam and Eve is somehow the primal origin of the rivalries among brothers and
sisters? If the right ordering of the man-woman relation, as husband and wife, is
disturbed, is the right ordering of the next generation also likely to be deranged?
Because Adam and Eve could not restrain themselves, we, their descendants, are now
liberated—and cursed, with the knowledge of good and evil. If it is possible for men
and women to re-discover the innocent nakedness without shame our first Mother
15
�and first Father once had, then we will have to search for it ourselves. The search will
not be easy, or safe, since the place we must look into is that boiling cauldron of lust
and rage—the family.
Both the Hebrew and the Greek poets divined this truth, as we may see from
comparing the stories in Genesis with Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Plato suggests, at the
beginning of the Laws (626 D-E) that the conflicts in the family begin in the
individual soul. Freud proposes, echoing Plato, that the source of unhappiness is a
soul at war with itself. Might our dreams be one portal to this dividedness (see
Aeneid, VI.1211-18)?
16
�Pap and Me
Judith Wrenn
Huckleberry Finn eulogises his father
Pap warn’t much a man.
He’d hurt my mam
when I was young.
He’d hurt me too, plenty,
But what mattered
He was my Pap,
long and the short.
Betwixt a drinking and a whooping
showed me to borrow and cuss.
Reckon a man ain’t more or less
a man, we end up ware we ends.
All we are is what we been
Pap and me and everyman.
Artwork by Bucca
17
�A Conversation with Brandon Wasickso, Associate Director of the
Graduate Institute
Charles Green, Colloquy Editor
Colloquy: What brought you to St. John's?
Brandon Wasickso: I don't remember how I first learned about the college. Looking
back, did I get a mailer in high school? Did a professor mention it at some point? I
really can't remember how I first heard of it, but it was something that I was aware of,
and had always been floating around the periphery as an option, something that
resonated with me. I was working in the D.C. area for several years in kind of
ideological work. It was a very ideas-based sort of work, but at the same time, I felt
that it was not the extent of the world of ideas and that there was some constraint in
having that sort of bias toward action and a narrow, particular way of thinking about
things, and I decided I didn't want to do that anymore. I went to Vietnam and taught
for about a year and a half, and that's where I was when I applied to St. John's.
Something put it back on my radar again. I had this view of the great books as if they
had this kind of like mystical power. I didn't know what any of them said. Of course,
I'd heard of Plato, I’d heard of Aristotle, right? I'd probably come across different
excerpts here and there, maybe even read a few of the books on our list, but I really
had no sense of what they were and just how diverse the kinds of things I would be
reading would be. But anyway, I had this calling, this idea that drew me to the idea of
the great books without again really knowing what the content of them was. I had the
sense that by wrestling with these books I would find answers to some of the big
questions about meaning and purpose and the like. So, one day, I applied and said,
“You know, if I if I get in, great, the decision’s made, I'll move back and I'll do it.
And if not, I'm happy here teaching, eating great food, and riding around on a
motorcycle.”
CQ: It's interesting that you speak of it as kind of a calling, because that’s the feeling
I get when I talk with other Johnnies.
BW: I remember remarking to a friend at the time, or maybe I wrote it in an email,
that I both want to read the books and to be the kind of person who has read the books.
It’s that sense of both the activity and also some kind of transformation that was
supposed to come out of that activity, right?
CQ: Of course. That sounds like a good way to describe it. Can you talk about your
experience as both a student at the Graduate Institute and as an administrator?
BW: Do you mean, what it's like doing both at the same time, or reflecting on each
of them? Or both?
CQ: Can you reflect on both. You were in an unusual circumstance to be both a
student and helping to run the Program at the same time.
18
�BW: That's right. The position opened up quickly and unexpectedly. A few months
before I had had lunch with Ms. Langston through the “take a tutor to lunch”
program. I was curious about her being a tutor, but also an administrator. And she
had written a convocation address at some point called “Life in the In-Between”,
describing how in the GI program, people have feet firmly planted in two worlds:
they're in the program, but they also have their own very full lives, careers, families,
etc. The undergrads, in contrast, are just really so immersed in the program. There's
no other world besides the College that they can occupy for long. So I had I asked
Ms. Langston to lunch because I thought that being an administrator and a tutor was
also kind of like having your foot in two very different worlds. And I was curious
what that was like. My background was in higher ed and nonprofit administration.
And I had an interest in continuing in administration perhaps in another form. So we
had this conversation and a few months later, the job opened up. And I'm in the
middle of my third semester when it did and said, “Of course I'm going to apply to
this. This would be really cool.” And I had some skills I could bring to it. So I applied
and finished out that semester and then took some time to just focus on getting into
the job, doing it well, and making sure I learned what I needed to learn without
having to divide my time too much between that and the classes. I wanted to focus
on making sure I gave each the time they needed and deserved in order to do them
well.
But it was it was a strange transition, and I remember the moment that all the people
who knew me first as a student, as their classmate, when they all started graduating.
And then there's this whole crop of people coming in who just knew me as the guy in
the office, the guy who sends all the emails and tells them “you didn't turn in your
enrollment plan”, or “here's your conference schedule.” So that was a strange
dynamic. Having to navigate the rules around privacy and confidentiality and things
like that while still being very close friends with a number of people in the program,
and having the primary thing that people knew about me be that I was the program
administrator, rather than the fact that I was a fellow GI. So that was strange.
It’s been a blessing in so many ways to be able to remain a part of the college. And of
course, you know, a lot of people say, “Well, if I could just stay here, take another
semester, another preceptorial, wouldn’t that be great?” I say that as well. But a lot of
my education since joining the staff has been out of the classroom, learning as one
does through the experience of the mundane day-to-day of working a job. There are
things we can do better as an institution, and there are parts of the sausage-making
process I’d have been happy not to learn, but at the end of the day this “job” has a lot
going for it that others don’t. The college is first and foremost a community of
learning dedicated to a particular vision of liberal education, and that influences the
culture of the “office.” Employees are not—well, I should say not only—vehicles for
productivity and a means to someone else’s end. The humanity of the program
extends into the workplace.
19
�CQ: I can definitely relate to wanting to stay at St. John’s and the GI. I’ve felt
incredibly lucky to take preceptorials as an alumnus.
BW: Yes, there’s a dedicated group of returners that I’m happy to see every semester.
CQ: I’m curious if since the pandemic and the transition to online learning, you’ve
seen more alumni returning to take courses?
BW: Well, in the middle of the spring semester of 2020, of course, we had to go
online. And I mean, it was an unbelievable moment. Now we're so inundated with
COVID news that it barely makes a dent on the mind. But then we knew nothing.
We had no idea what was going on, how long it was going to last; this is even before
masking was a thing. Everything was just shutting down and cases were popping up.
The College had exactly zero infrastructure for doing anything online, right? There'd
never before been an online class in the history of the College and we had about a
week to get the GI classes up. They extended the undergrad’s spring break by an
extra week to give them more time to set things up. But we had basically a week in
the GI and a lot of the heavy lifting was from our great IT folks. To the extent I
could, I threw myself into the process and it was a “we'll figure this out” attitude all
around. I remember being on the phone with tutors evenings and weekends. I
offered to help serve as a guide to walk them through how to set up Zoom and how
to use it. We had questions about using headphones, and what is muting? I joke that
everyone who graduated that year earned a minor in educational technology, with
honorary degrees for the tutors.
And we did it. I think there were a lot of fears about it, obviously. Partly because
other colleges have had online options for a long time and we hadn't, and it was an
intentional decision not to have it. So there were a lot of fears going into it. And I
think the immediate reaction by just about everybody was, “Oh, OK. It's not sitting
around a table being co-present with others, but it's not this terrible thing that we
thought it was going to be. It actually kind of works. It's actually pretty good.” Your
question was about alumni and folks coming back. I think a lot of people realized that
this was an opportunity. We had people who had moved away because they got a job
or got married or had to leave in the middle of the program. But now, they can do it
from wherever they are in the world, they could finish that last semester in order to
graduate, or they could take a precept. I mean, they're not going to move to
Annapolis or Santa Fe for a semester to take a single class. So there were a lot of
people who really came out of the woodwork and were excited about the opportunity
that it presented. And it's funny the way that a crisis like that can reveal opportunities.
But I think it's often the case that that they do. And there are people who attended,
who otherwise would have never attended, people who graduated, who otherwise
would never graduate. And I think that's a really positive outcome.
CQ: I can say, from my own experience as alumni taking a preceptorial during that
time that transition, it was remarkably easy. Of course, the folks taking three classes
20
�probably had a little more of a transition, but at least for me, given the situation, it
seemed remarkably smooth.
BW: You were taking a class that spring, right?
CQ: Yeah, I was doing Ms. Kraus’s precept on T.S. Eliot.
BW: Four Quartets, right? It's funny, I was doing my last segment that that spring. So,
I'd just done eight weeks of in-person classes before spring break. And then both
getting the classes up and running and then having to go through that experience
myself of adjusting to the online mode of doing things as a student as well, which was
completely different from the administrative side of things. I never really had a
chance to reflect on what I was doing during that first week. It was just, you got to
get this up and running. We’ve got to do it. So it was a week of very intensive work.
And then I finally went to the classes thinking, OK, now I have to actually think
about this and how it changes the experience for me and what's going to be different
about it? It was helpful seeing both sides of that.
CQ: Yeah, that's a really interesting perspective. And I'd forgotten that you were, you
know, that you were finishing up then. Yeah. You got to see both the doing of it and
seeing how it works from the student end. I know for myself, it was nice having that
time on Thursday evenings away from current events and the uncertainty of the
times. It gave me something else to concentrate on, you know. And at the same time,
though Four Quartets felt eerily appropriate. It has the line, “This is the way the world
ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.”
BW: So that’s where that’s from?
CQ: Yes. It was a comfort to discuss the poem with a group of like-minded people
when everything else was unpredictable, even though at times it seemed to be about
the current time.
BW: Well, we always say, the texts are timeless and timely, right?
CQ: Exactly, it was strange and good at the same time. I'm also wondering what’s
been your experience with helping to develop the fully online, low resiliency track at
the GI?
BW: Like I was saying before, the crisis sort of thrust the online aspect on us out of
necessity, but then I think it became an opportunity for us. I really don't think we
would have an online low-residency program today without it. We might have had
one in three or four years. There were other pressures and discussions about doing
that. But we wouldn't have it today had it not been for the pandemic. And like I said,
just the people that we were able to engage with, who were able to have this
experience with the college, making lasting friendships across great distances and
divides. It's been great to see those kinds of results come out of it.
And I guess it's also been kind of doubly strange in a way, in that I'm also remote
most of the time. I'm in Annapolis every other week, but most of the time I'm home
21
�here in Virginia and I'm working with people who are in Annapolis, as well as doing a
lot more work with our Santa Fe campus because we now share the preceptorial in
the online segment. So, Annapolis-based online students are meeting the Santa Febased online ones. Students are taking classes with Santa Fe tutors and vice versa. So
there's a lot more college-wide community building that I think transcends some of
the one campus loyalty kinds of things. So that's very nice. But yeah, being remote
and serving remote students, I experience some of the same challenges that they do
have, and ask some of the same questions, and also see a lot of the same benefits in
working remotely that they see. They’re continuing to do their full lives without
having to uproot things to do the program.
Artwork by Bucca
CQ: I think, the growing interaction between the two campuses, feels like a great
opportunity. I realize I don't really know any of the Santa Fe tutors or administrators.
BW: Right.
CQ: I know Mr. Sterling from when he gave a lecture in Annapolis a few summers
ago. And I appreciated getting to know him better when Santa Fe did lectures online
last spring and summer.
BW: Yeah, you're right. We ended up canceling several of our lectures and Santa Fe
pushed ahead and really quickly transitioned to have a lot of their lectures online. And
22
�I sat in on a couple of those online reading groups they developed, like the all- college
seminar.
CQ: Right, and I think even this past summer Santa Fe had much of their lecture
series online. So that was nice to be able to watch that from Annapolis. Do you see,
you know, any challenges ahead for the College in general or the GI in particular?
BW: Well, by the time this comes out, we'll have welcomed a new President. Not to
say that’s a challenge, but a new President means new leadership. A new direction,
new tenor to things. There are a lot of open questions right now at the College in
general and the GI in particular. As much as I just talked about the benefits of having
this online program, there are a lot of a lot of questions we still have to work out.
And I think especially thinking about how the mix of online and in-person affects the
culture of the GI as a whole, I think is still very much a live question. I’ve been
listening to this podcast that we just produced with David MacDonald, a tutor in
Santa Fe, interviewing Zina Hintz here in Annapolis where they talk about
technology. They discuss the phenomenon of the existence or accessibility of some
new technology making the morality or validity of doing a thing somehow more
acceptable. The example they discuss involves reproductive technology, but in our
case it’s, “well this technology has been thrust upon us out of necessity, so now using
it for other things doesn’t seem so far-fetched.” The idea of an online GI program
even just a year and a half ago was outside the Overton window.
All this is to say, I wonder is there a risk to the life of the campus community of the
GI because of the accessibility of the online programs? Are there people who would
have and could have attended in-person, but choose online instead? Even if it’s, say,
only a 45-minute commute to campus, they think, going online, I could spend more
time with my family, or save on time and money, or keep normal hours at work, etc.
They weigh the tradeoffs and say, as much as I would like to do the in-person, I’m
going to be online, even though I reasonably could be in person and would have been
if the online option didn’t. I wonder to what extent that that will happen. The other
side of that question is how many students would never have been able to come to
the GI if not for this new option? How should the administration be thinking about
the answers to these questions? We really have to wait until the COVID-based
restrictions are done to see what people are actually going to do in a normal set of
circumstances, though.
I’ll say also that there are a lot of nonacademic—by which I don’t mean not
intellectual, but simply not connected to a college—organic, nonprofit learning
communities popping up all over the place that I think are attractive to some people.
People who are looking for an intellectual life, looking for stimulating conversation,
looking to seek truth. They want to be in the world of ideas. These learning
communities are less expensive, they’re more flexible. They’ll create classes and
groups that run the amount of time that’s appropriate for the content; they don’t
have this weird constraint of, “learning must take place in 16 weeks in the academic
calendar,” right? As though somehow that’s the optimal learning arrangement, which
23
�is a little constraining on our part. And it's also, I think, really appealing to people
who don't want or need a degree. That's not their primary motivation. And I think
that's true for a lot of Johnnies, too. For a lot of GIs who come through, the degree
is nice, but that's not why they did it. If they didn’t get it, they'd be equally happy,
right? So I wonder what competition from these other groups is going to look like.
They're not direct competitors in the sense of being other graduate programs in the
liberal arts, but I think they are compelling opportunities that have some good things
going for them. And so I'm curious to see how that plays out and how we might
respond to those potential challenges.
CQ: Definitely. You talked a little bit earlier about, the opportunity that going online
has given the GI. Are there other opportunities that you see?
BW: I definitely see opportunities in the sense that the GI program in particular, I
think, can be a benefit to a lot of people who are thinking about and reacting to
everything that’s happening in the world. You know, like I said before, coming out of
a crisis often helps clarify priorities. People are talking about the relationship of
economic life to the rest of life, they’re concerned about the nature of our so-called
politics, they’re grappling with death and loss. St. John’s, of course, can be one
helpful way of giving shape to and thinking through these questions. And I think
people who have said to themselves, “Oh, I want to do St John's eventually, it would
be great to do that eventually.” Well, they might see that “eventually” is now and that
they now have the opportunity to do it. I'm glad that we have more ways than ever
now for people to engage with us and to join our community.
One of those other things, not directly related to the GI, is a new College podcast,
which I edit and produce. We released our first two episodes in October. So by the
time this is published, there will be three or four episodes of this podcast. It’s called
“Books and a Balance: A Podcast on Liberal Education.” It’s hosted by two faculty
members: Brendan Boyle here in Annapolis and David McDonald out in Santa Fe,
who was previously the associate dean for graduate programs out there. So, it's the
two of them having conversations with people who have interesting things to say on
the topic of liberal education. Our first two episodes that are out now are with tutors
Zena Hitz and Dan Harrell. One with Columbia professor Roosevelt Montás on his
new book Rescuing Socrates is up next. It's an independent intellectual project, engaging
with the contemporary discourse around liberal education, very broadly construed.
Some of the guests that we have coming up are outside of the College, who have
ideas very different from ours about what a successful liberal education would look,
so I think it will be interesting to a lot of people.
It’s an opportunity that I'm really excited for in a couple ways. One is, we are going to
have some folks from the Graduate Institute, graduates and other people who've
gone on to do other things, who will be guests on the show. And I think it's also a
good opportunity for even more people to see the kind of conversations that happen
at St. John's. Because if you listen to them, they're just archetypes of good
conversation. And so I'm excited that that's going to be able to reach an even wider
24
�audience. You know, it's not meant to be a marketing tool, in the sort of cheap
transactional way that we often think of advertising or marketing. It's a substantial
intellectual project that I think is a totally new outlet for us. And I think there are
potential Johnnies out there who, in listening to this podcast, may well have their first
interaction with the College. I expect very soon a number of new folks coming to the
GI from this project.
CQ: Is there a book or an author not on the program that you’d include if you could?
BW: Everyone loves asking this! You know, everyone's got their pet thing of note,
so-and-so needs to be on the on the program. The short answer is, no, I don't have a
book. And the reason is not because there are so many different books that could be
included or excluded, but because I think it's a really hard question to actually answer
in any serious way; it demands such a massive context to really answer that question.
To do so, you would, I think, need a sense of the program as a whole from the
perspective of a teacher. You’d have to say, “I have a sense of the effect of different
readings and the combination of readings on the individual lives of students.” And
with that context, then saying, “I think taking this one book out and substituting
another would be beneficial.” And I don't have that context, right? I don't have the
depth and experience to think about it that way, but I think that’s how you have to
consider it, if you're going to answer that question in a serious way. A lot of times
that question really means is that there’s a particular book that you really like and you
really want to see it on the program. And that's one thing. But the real difficulty of
weighing it is knowing the pedagogical or academic context. And then also asking the
very difficult question of, well, if you're going to add that what are you going to take
away to make space for it? That's the harder question.
CQ: That’s the question I’ve always heard when people propose adding a book: what
are you going to take away?
BW: Really what I think this comes down to a lot of times, and it’s true for me in the
times I’ve said, “why isn’t X on the list?”, is that I’m thinking here's this book that is
very good or maybe even a great book that I want to read with other people who take
reading and discussing books seriously. You want it in the program so you can have
that discussion with other people right now. I invite anyone who has that feeling
about a book to come back and host a study group anytime! But of course the
program can’t contain and isn’t meant to contain everything; it’s the beginning,
hopefully, of a deeper, richer, more meaningful life.
25
�“Equality” and the Tyranny of the Majority
Drew Maglio
I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats
for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of
people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and
good that everyone deserved a share in the government. The danger of defending democracy
on those grounds is that they’re not true. And whenever their weakness is exposed, the
people who prefer tyranny make capital out of the exposure… The real reason for
democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with
unchecked power over his fellows. —C.S. Lewis
What Is Human Nature?: The Anglo-American Perspective
There are two dichotomous views articulated by proponents of democratic
government which the aforementioned passage from C.S Lewis’s essay, “Why I Am a
Democrat,” succinctly conveys. These two distinct camps have been broken down
into many classifications by various authors as early vs. late-Enlightenment or AngloAmerican vs. French/Continental. The former classification, advocates for
democratic government as a makeshift, necessary evil, or least bad option. It holds
and articulates that man is so fallen that no one man--or group of men (i.e.
majority)—should possess such absolute power so as to legislate how others are to
live their lives. The conservative camp, firmly grounded in the way things actually are,
seeks to decentralize power (and production) via many checks and balances because
absolute power corrupts absolutely, as Lord Acton presciently warned. Recognizing
men “are not angels,” institutions and government must be varied and decentralized,
in a manner where one entity is positioned against another with an opposing
institutional interest, in order prevent any one entity from assuming too much power.
J.R.R. Tolkien perfectly encapsulated the “constrained” view (to borrow
contemporary economist, Thomas Sowell’s terminology) of government that is based
on a negative view of human nature that hearkens back to Plato and Aristotle, when
he wrote in a letter to a friend: “the most improper job of any man, even saints (who
at any rate were at least unwilling to take it on), is bossing other men. Not one in a
million is fit for it, and least of all those who seek the opportunity.”
The French View
In stark contrast to the early-Enlightenment, Anglo-American view of human
nature which is firmly grounded in Christianity and owes a great debt to the Medieval
Scholastics like St. Thomas Aquinas, is the Continental vision of democratic
government that manifested itself most notably during the French Revolution.
Without going too far afield, the defining characteristic of this strand of liberalism
(spearheaded by Rousseau), is the rejection of the idea that man is fallen by nature
that had long been held in the West.
26
�Rousseau famously declared that “man though born free, is
everywhere in chains”—he may as well have said “man is born good and is
everywhere corrupted.” In his Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, Rousseau
wrote with impunity,
Allowing that nature intended we should always enjoy good health, I dare almost affirm
that a state of reflection is a state against nature, and that the man who meditates is a
depraved animal. We need only call to mind the good constitution of savages, of those at
least of whom we have not destroyed by our strong liquors; we need only reflect, that they are
strangers to almost every disease . . . to be in a manner convinced that the history of human
diseases might be easily composed by pursuing that of civil societies. [1]
For Rousseau, it is in society that the “noble savage”—Rousseau’s archetypal man,
becomes irredeemably corrupted as his vices are allowed to fester while his virtue
grows weary and lethargic:
"In proportion as he (man) becomes sociable and a slave to others, he becomes weak,
fearful, mean-spirited, and his soft and effeminate way of living at once completes the
enervation of his strength and his courage." [2] In this way, Rousseau may be seen as
the antithesis of Hobbes who held that life in the state of nature—which for Hobbes
was analogous to a constant state of war—is “nasty, brutish, and short.” Locke
contrarily, occupied a sort of mean between the “totally-depraved” Calvinistic view of
human nature that Hobbes held and the naturally benevolent view of human nature
that Rousseau championed.
The Genius of Tocqueville
Hailing from France, Alexis de Tocqueville was simultaneously one
of most ardent proponents and chiding critics of American liberalism as it
was practiced during the 19th century. In his analysis, Tocqueville notes that
Antebellum America was the most fundamentally egalitarian society that he
had ever witnessed, in which both squalid poverty as well as extravagant
wealth were rarities. Tocqueville noted that there seemed to be no great
abundance of either uneducated or illiterate individuals, but on the other
hand, there were few highly intelligent and exceptional individuals. As
Tocqueville conveyed, the overarching motif of Antebellum America was a
pragmatic and practical—if not restless and busy—virtue. Unlike the
founding era that was made possible by the interventions of the learned,
noble, aristocratic (in the proper sense of the term, i.e. in merit not merely
land holdings), the burgeoning America that Tocqueville visited was fast at
work becoming a blue-collar and middle-class republic, in which leisure and
philosophical contemplation took a back seat to industry and action.
Tocqueville feared however—in an increasingly egalitarian and
average society—that a new tyranny was looming on the horizon: namely the
tyranny of the majority, which was manifested not through despotism and
27
�autocracy, but rather by way of the public pressure of opinion and homogeneity: “In
our day, the most absolute sovereigns in Europe cannot prevent certain thoughts
hostile to their authority from circulating . . . The same is not true of America, as long
as the majority has not made up its mind, speech is allowed; as soon as it has
pronounced its irrevocable decision, speech is silenced.”[3]
In this way, a new tyranny of mind exercised by the majority over minorities
began to manifest itself in Tocqueville’s age. Tocqueville argued that this new “groupthink” (as moderns tend to call it),“leaves the body alone and goes straight to the
spirit.”[4] When surveying the contemporary political order (or disorder),
Tocqueville’s pertinent observations have unfortunately and undoubtedly intensified
in magnitude and frequency.
Democracy Changes Neither Human Nature Nor the Nature of Political
Power
Despite being a Frenchman, Tocqueville breaks from Rousseau and instead
embraced Locke’s view of human nature, which holds that man has both the
propensity for virtue and vice: which he shall become is the result of deliberation and
habit. Locke held that the state of nature is not a state of license wherein each is
entitled to everything as Hobbes held, but rather that natural law does not cease to
reign supreme in the hearts and minds of men. Because of the gross difficulty in each
individual protecting his property by enforcing the natural law himself, individuals
(who naturally gravitate towards civil society anyway) contract together for the sake
of the enforcement of contracts, in addition to establishing an impartial body by
which to adjudicate disputes related to trespasses made by one party against
another.[5] All of this must be said, in order to convey that for Locke (and
Tocqueville), civil society neither drastically reforms (as in Hobbes) nor corrupts (as
in Rousseau) the human being: instead, it may do either according to the arrangement
of its structures and institutions which either accord with, or conflict with, the natural
law. In other words, man is still man no matter the political arrangement, generally
speaking.
In this way, Tocqueville rejects both the notion that man is either benevolent
by nature (and thus it follows that society corrupts him) or that man is so totally
depraved that a Leviathan is preferable to a constant state of war that follows from
unimpinged liberty:
Omnipotence seems self-evidently a bad and dangerous thing. Its exercise appears to be beyond
man’s powers, whoever he might be, and I see that only God can be omnipotent without
danger because his wisdom and justice are always equal to his power. There is, therefore, no
earthly authority so worthy of respect or vested with so sacred a right that I would wish to
allow it unlimited action . . . When . . . I see the right and capacity to enact everything given
to any authority . . . I say: the seed of tyranny lies there and I seek to live under different
laws.[6]
28
�Tocqueville put it even more chidingly later in his work, “I believe that in all
governments of whatever sort meanness will attach itself to force and flattery to
power. I know of only one method to of preventing men from being debased and
that is to grant to no one who has omnipotence (i.e. the majority as in the US) the
sovereign power to demean them.”[7]
The Lust For Equality: Mill, Marx, and other “Revolutionaries”
The underlying source of the new tyranny Tocqueville conveyed is
born of the democratic impulse and is the special scourge of democracy, i.e. a
disdain of any amount of inequality. Tocqueville believed this state would create
a condition of lethargy in relation to liberty, as equality became the most
cherished ideal of democratic society (rather than liberty). As Rousseau—and
later Mill, Hegel, and Marx became the dominant political ideologues for
Continental Europe, equality supplanted liberty as the most vital and
cherished ideal for civilization. Mill, for instance, went as far to argue that
“the most happiness for the greatest number of people” should be the end of
government. In this utilitarian view, the safeguarding of individual rights
takes a backseat to “equality” and “progress.”
Marx famously declared that “all history is class conflict,” and
therefore goaded the proletariat class of workers to revolution in order to
achieve greater equality. Marx adopted from Hegel a belief in historicity, or
the notion that social values, standards, and mores are historically contingent
and therefore not absolute and objective but, instead, malleable in order to
suit the needs of any given epoch:
The human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is
the ensemble of the social relations . . . To abstract from the historical process and to fix the
religious sentiment as something by itself and to presuppose an abstract—isolated—
human individual . . . the “religious sentiment” is itself a social product . . . All social life
is essentially practical . . . The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is
materialism which does not comprehend seriousness as practical activity, is the
contemplation of single individuals and civil society. The standpoint of the old materialism
is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity. The
philosophers have only interpreted the world . . . the point is to change it.[8]
The Desire For Equality Will Undermine Liberty
Tocqueville both anticipated and feared the way in which in those
who wished to undermine American democracy could appeal to man’s
insatiable lust for equality in all outcomes, despite the fact that each
individual possesses different aptitudes and abilities which allow or inhibit
them from making the best of their circumstances:
29
�The passion for equality sinks deeply into every corner of the human heart, expands, and
fills it entirely. It is no use telling such men, as they blindly obey such an exclusive passion,
that they are damaging their dearest interests; they are deaf. Do not bother to show them
that their freedom is slipping through their fingers while their gaze is elsewhere; they are
blind, or rather they can only see one advantage worth pursuing in the whole world . . . I
think that democratic societies have a natural taste for freedom . . . but they have a
burning, insatiable, constant, and invincible passion for equality; they want equality in
freedom and, if they cannot have it, they want it in slavery. They will endure poverty,
subjection, barbarism but they will not endure aristocracy.[9]
Tocqueville saw a great danger on the horizon for American democracy, whereby a
general distaste of learning and extreme wealth could and would create conditions of
mediocrity in mind and spirit, i.e. an aggregation of individuals becoming a
homogeneity and thereby silencing dissent through social pressure once the majority
“had made its mind up.” Once equality (and security for that matter) supplants liberty
as the foundation of democracy, it becomes obtrusive and destructive to both
minorities and the individual who have but little recourse or redress:
My main complaint against a democratic government as organized in the United States is
not its weakness . . . but rather its irresistible strength . . . When a man or party suffers
from an injustice in the United States, to whom can he turn? To public opinion? That is
what forms the majority. To the legislative body? That represents the majority and obeys it
blindly. To the executive power? That is appointed by the majority and serves as its passive
instrument. To the public police force? They are nothing but the majority under arms. To
the jury? That is the majority invested with the right to pronounce judgments . . . however
unfair or unreasonable the measure which damages you, you must submit.[10]
Tocqueville feared a sovereign majority—with a blithe regard for liberty and an
insatiable appetite for equality in all matter of small things—could create conditions
which would destroy the human essence, that revolutionaries such as Marx denied
altogether, while simultaneously appealing to the yearning for equality:
It (the tyranny of the majority manifested as a guardian rather than as a ruler) gradually
blots out their mind and enfeebles their spirit . . . It will be useless to call upon those very
citizens who have become so dependent upon central government, to choose from time to time
the representative of this government; this . . . brief exercise . . . of their free choice will not
prevent the gradual loss of the faculty of autonomous thought, feeling, and action so that
they will slowly fall behind the level of humanity.[11]
Tocqueville’s Democracy in America serves as a reminder that democracy is just
as, if not more, prone to abuse than other systems of civil government. In order to
flourish, democracy must be firmly grounded in principle in order to construct
institutions that align with the objective and absolute reality of this world. In order to
remain stable, power must be decentralized and therefore liberty and equality under
30
�the law must be valued over abstract and ambiguous ideals such as “equality”
or “progress,” which are but generalities that amount to little more than mere
slogans. As Tocqueville conveyed throughout his seminal work, liberty entails
duty and obligation and requires a great deal of proper habituation, which
cultivates the wisdom and virtue necessary for self-governance—even of the
practical sort. All of these prerequisites must be met so that democracy does
not devolve into tyrannical mob rule. In our age it seems that few of us have
heeded Tocqueville’s admonition about the dangerous democratic impulse
that is devoid of reality in so far as it fails to recognize the fallen nature of
man and in particular the propensity for those in power to abuse it, which is
most often made manifest in democratic society by the ceaseless, fruitless,
and senseless pursuit of absolute equality which anesthetizes the exceptional
individual in order to bolster the tyrannical majority.
[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Greg Boroson, Discourse On the Origin of Inequality
(Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2004), 7.
[2] Ibid, 8.
[3] Alexis De' Tocqueville, Democracy In America, trans. Gerald E. Bevan (London,
England: Penguin Books, 2003), 297.
[4] Ibid, 298.
[5] Property for Locke was—among other things—both metaphysical as in labor and
the activity of the mind, in addition to physical as in the case of cultivated land. For
Locke, the preservation and protection of private property was the impetus for the
establishment of civil government.
[6] Tocqueville, 294.
[7] Ibid, 302-303.
[8] Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and C. J. Arthur, The German Ideology (London:
Lawrence and Wishart, 1974), 122-123.
[9] Tocqueville, 586-587.
[10] Ibid, 294-295.
[11] Ibid, 808.
31
�The White Man Burdened
Dimple Kaul
While researching British Education Policy and its impact on indigenous knowledge systems, I was
reminded of Rudyard Kipling’s exhortation of The White Man’s Burden! This poem is a
response from a proud member of the community of indigenous people across the world. It is a
reminiscence of pain and an attempt towards collective awareness, acknowledgement, and healing for
harmony. It is also a sensitive caution against subconscious/unconscious supremacy that still appears
to linger; it is not directed against any race or people. As a Hindu, harmony and mutual respect are
intrinsic to my being. Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah!
The White Man burdened —
Set forth the worst of his breed —
blinded sons who were exiled
To serve his crown’s greed;
Plundering, causing heavy distress
On folks he labeled wild —
ill-treated the natives as sullen,
calling them Half devil and half child.
The White Man burdened —
Treating himself to a free ride,
Unleashed vile, violent terror
And reveled in that pride;
Not through stealth but loot simple,
An hundred times made plain.
He sought to make profit,
From our labour and pain.
The White Man burdened —
Forcing us to fight his wars of peace —
Causing full mouths of Famine
And never let sickness cease;
And when his goal was met
His promises came to naught,
He called us uncivilized, heathen
Treated worse than cattle bought.
The White Man burdened —
Usurping the rule of kings,
Through deceit and acting as keeper —
Vaingloriously he sings.
The ports he forced and enter,
The roads he lustily tread,
And made his entire living,
Off our sweat- alive and dead!
The White Man burdened —
And reaped untold rewards:
32
�The lies and fallacies he’d better,
Spreading hate for those he charred —
The cry of hosts, the fake perfumer
Would hide in plain sight —
He sold our people into bondage,
While calling himself just and right
The White Man burdened —
He kept stooping to conquer
And called it an act of civilization
To cloak his wickedness;
Impoverishing us, he did prosper,
By hook or crook,
Through acts quiet and vocal
Denigrated our Gods, reduced us.
The White Man burdened —
Having benefited in myriad ways —
The self- proffered laurel,
The lavish self-praise.
Comes now, to teach us humanity
After all the thankless years,
Cold-hearted ravager of human civilization,
Sits in judgment of us, he dares!
Artwork by Jesse Clagett
33
�Holy Sonnet XIV
Vita Kudryavtseva
Upon reading this poem, I was immediately struck by the wave of angst and tsunami
of violent rage felt in the wake of it. What kind of “holy” sonnet is that? Where is the
Poet’s reverence for Higher Being? Where is humility and trust in God’s wisdom?
Donne opens up with “Batter my heart” - a command or directive, but hardly an
appeal. He marches on complaining that God’s gentle ways, “knock, breathe, shine”
are not effective in helping him, Donne, to “rise and stand” and God’s viceroy
“proves weak and untrue”. Donne’s request to God to “bend Your force” can be
taken as outright blasphemous - merciful Christian God is no help, he calls upon
Zeus the Destroyer, who can “break, blow, burn”. And after giving the account of
God’s multiple shortcomings, Donne sighs - “Yet dearly I love you”. Why is Donne
angry and who is he angry with, are the questions that I seek to answer in this essay.
A couple of immediate observations spring on me - the prevalence of “me”s in the
poem, 8 mentions total, and distinctness of “I” from “me”, as in “imprison me, for
I...never shall be free”. In fact, the famous paradoxes of the last 3 lines - freedom
through imprisonment, chastity through rape - are paradoxes only if “I” and “me” are
conceived of as referring to the same entity. What if, by way of hypothesis, we look at
them as related but separate?
“I” and “me”, being personal pronouns, lead me to take a note of “you”, another
personal pronoun frequently evoked in the poem. While the identity of “I” and “me”
is not yet clear, Donne makes it explicit that “you” refers to “three-person’d God” in
the very first line of the poem. Now that I identified three main characters at play in
the sonnet - “I”, “me”, and “you” - the next step is to examine them individually and
in relation to each other.
“me” in line 12 both rhymes with and is consonant with “enemy” in line 10. The Poet
would like “me” to be o’erthrowen, made new, imprisoned, ravished. “me” is the
troublemaker, the antagonist in the story. Throughout the sonnet, Donne insists on
“me”s distraction or subjugation. Interestingly, the only exception to this narrative
happens in line 7: “Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captiv’d”.
This is also the line in which “me” is stressed twice in a row. Who is it that Reason
has failed to defend “me” from? One potential reading of this line is to go along with
Donne’s poetic logic and to add a couple more “me”s - “Reason, your viceroy in me,
me should defend [from me], but is captiv’d [by me]”. These additions are consistent
with the antagonistic treatment of “me” elsewhere in the sonnet and illuminate the
fact that “me” is not inherently “bad”, rather left to its own devices “me” can
become unruly and dangerous. If the current “me” could be returned to its original
condition, “made new”, “me” will no longer be an “enemy”.
On the other hand, Donne’s description of “you” makes me think of a powerful but
gentle giant, who is slow to act because he is kind and aware of his might. The Poet’s
choice not to capitalize “you”, “three-person’d God”, visually puts “you” on the same
34
�level as “me”, makes it more “human-scale”. “you” is lovable, “you” is unintrusive,
“you” shines. “I” loves “you”. “you”s victory over “me” is also “I”s only hope for
being free, chaste, and loved. “I” pleads with “you” - “Divorce me, untie or break
that knot again, take me to you”. It can appear ambiguous whether “I” is referring to
divorcing “me” from “you” or “me” from “I”. But the presupposed union between
“me” and “you” does not make sense in light of the subsequent request to “take me
to you” and multiple appeals for “you”s distraction earlier. Rather, it is the bond
between “me” and “I” that “I” is asking to be severed - “Divorce me [from I]”! And
we are told “you” have done it before and can “break that knot again”. This tells us
that “you” has both the authority, experience, and expertise to straighten “I”s affairs.
But who is that “I” that is making the appeals?
The first thing we learn about “I” is that “I” is down, not doing well and the cause of
“I”s condition is “me”. Donne’s metaphor for “I” as an “usurp’d town” is echoed
throughout the poem. “I” is “betroth’d unto your [“you’s”] enemy”, making “I” a
potential traitor. “I” wants “me” imprisoned, enthralled. “I” is suffering because “I”
loves “you” but feels unsure of “you”s love - he may be, “would be lov’d”. “I” comes
across as weak, powerless, vindictive, and angry. If the reader can suppress combat
connotations evoked by the imagery of “usurp’d town”, the relationship between
“me”, “you”, and “I” takes the character of a tragic romance story told from “I”s
perspective. “I” loves “you” but is “betroth’d” to “me”. “you” is ambivalent or
perhaps more reserved in his feelings for “you” and “me”. “me”, in the eyes of “I”,
has taken “I” unjustly, by force, but without “you’s” intervention “me” is certain to
prevail.
While I found it helpful to designate “I”, “me”, and “you” as a kind of “stick figures”
for the purposes of elucidating some of the “plot” lines in the sonnet, it is now time
to attempt an interpretation of their meaning. Donne’s use of “three-person’d God”
as an antecedent for “you”, as well as appeals to “you’s” powers throughout the
poem, make it easy to see “you” as divine nature. In contrast, “me” can be thought of
as a human nature - fallible, driven to horrid extremes when not governed by Reason.
But even Reason by itself cannot be relied upon to control these animalistic impulses
and urges. The question of who “I” is both the most obvious and the most difficult.
On one hand, “I” is the narrator, the Poet, John Donne. But with this understanding,
“I”s relationship to “you” and “me”, “divine” and “human”, remains obscure.
35
�Artwork by Jesse Clagett
Donne may have planted a hint to answering this question in the opening line “three-person’d” is clearly a deliberate choice of descriptor for the Supreme Being
that harks back to the Holy Trinity. Drawing attention to God’s multiplicity and
oneness in the very beginning of the poem, Donne sets the stage for the multiplicity
and oneness of “I”, “me” and “you”. The intentional parallelism between the God’s
structure of Being and the Poet’s, “I”s, structure is further strengthened if we recall
Genesis 1:27: "So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He
created him". God’s creation resembles God by design. However, in the context of
the sonnet this correspondence can only be taken so far - it is hard to envision that
“I”, “me”, and “you” are meant to directly correspond to the “Father”, the “Son”,
and the “Holy Spirit”. At a very minimum, the sonnet does not seem to supply
enough evidence for such a direct mapping to be established unambiguously. Thus,
while the multiplicity may be present in Donne’s concepts for both “I” and God, the
relationship between “I” and “me” and “you” requires further clarification.
Because of the prominence of “usurp’d town” metaphor taking over the entire
second quatrain, I was drawn to conceive of “I” as a fortress, a container, a shell
which under ideal circumstances can contain both “me” and “you”, “human” and
“divine”. In the Poet’s case, “me” has overgrown, overflown, subdued Reason, and
filled up "I"s entire interior. Like a cancerous growth, “me” needs to be lacerated to
make space for “divine” to be admitted back into Donne’s being.
36
�An alternative interpretation of “I” occurred to me when I recognized “I” as a
common symbol for a mathematical function, called “Indicator function”. This
function can only have values of 1 or 0, “true” or “false”. It is 1 if a variable is a part
of a given set, and 0 if it is not.
If I substitute “you” for “x” and “me” for A in the above formulation, then an
indicator function equals one if “you” belongs with “me” and zero otherwise. This
conception of “I” better aligns with the extremeness and volatility of feelings
expressed in the sonnet. “I” only has value when there is “divine” present in it,
otherwise it is a mere “me”, a worthless animal. This would explain why the Poet
cannot be loved, as in “valued”, in his current condition and “would be lov’d fain”
only when “you”, “divine” returns to “me”. Donne is facing a stark, binary choice admit “you” to “me” and “raise and stand” as One or continue on as “me”, a Zero.
Did any of these elucidations get me closer to understanding why Donne is angry and
who he is angry with? I think so. Both a “container” and an “indicator function”
concepts of “I” share an important feature - the potentiality for having Divine as a
part of “I”, an internal part. The Poet is making demands of and airing frustrations
not to an external deity but to the Divine within. The angst, the rage, the brutality
Donne summons are both self-directed and self-inflicted. The remedy he seeks for
his condition is not a violent rape but a self-flagellation.
37
�About a Letter
Louis Petrich
Dyed colors eye my star-took tan goodbye,
and harking freckles, islets hitching waist,
my home’s horizon, wane in vesting night.
I hail them back, hot stabs: so bleeds away
a summering care for hale and hearty having.
One letter needs to convalesce, my ache.
Then alphabetic whole, outfielding fate
that kicked me forth her goal, like lightening grounded,
shall sate farmed fires ‘tween legs that compass sky
and sweat such poses, friction-bent, of limbs,
that unquiet hips may cool on capering tongues
that summon sounded midriff world of ends.
And were those aches but featly trials of me
to loose from earth and seas their titled stores
lone Adam’s lips, spontaneous, once sprung?
Go live bedrocked in paradise of questions;
tell good and evil: hang yourselves. You’ll see.
That always ache—it’s butting never never.
With waves unbound around the earth forever,
no breaking reef, sunk shores so answered, be.
38
�Artwork by Bucca
39
�Prize-winning Tutorial Essay: Meno
Andrew Laurence Graney
“Can you tell me, Socrates, whether virtue is something teachable?” Meno
asks at the outset of Plato’s Meno. He continues, “Or is it not teachable, but
something that comes from practice? Or is it something neither from practice nor
learning, but something that comes to human beings by nature, or some other way”
(70A)? Quickly, however, Socrates turns the dialogue away from Meno’s original
question, whether or not virtue is something teachable, and towards the very
definition of what virtue is. Socrates claims he does not know what virtue is, and can
therefore not say, on any solid ground, whether or not virtue is teachable. He states:
I share the poverty of my fellow citizens in this matter and blame myself for not knowing
about virtue at all. And how could I know what sort of thing something is, if I do no not
know what it is? Or does it seem possible to you that someone who has no cognizance of
Meno at all, who he is, could know whether he is handsome or rich or well-born, or the
opposite of these? Does it seem possible to you? (71B)
Therefore, as soon as the conversation has begun, it has taken a turn. It is no
longer, for the time being, about whether or not virtue is teachable, but what the
thing itself is. Still, Socrates’s answer, saying that he does not know what virtue is and
so cannot say whether or not it is teachable, implies that he does at least think that
some things are teachable, that there is such a thing as the teachable thing, and he
simply does not yet know whether virtue is one of those teachable things.
Throughout the dialogue, neither of the interlocutors explicitly claim that nothing at
all is teachable. In 87C, for example, Socrates and Meno seem to agree that
knowledge, at least, if nothing else, is teachable. In this paper, I want to question
whether or not anything it is at all, truly teachable. I am inclined to say yes. But, as
Meno learns in his conversation with Socrates, what I am inclined towards is not
necessarily the truth, for at the beginning of their dialogue, Meno is sure he knows
what virtue is, and yet as the dialogue continues he becomes more and more
perplexed. Therefore, I ask again, is anything teachable?
Another way to ask this question might be: what is the relationship between
teaching and learning? Surely, people do learn things. I could not be writing this
paper had I not learned a multitude of things beforehand. I had to learn my letters,
had to learn how to write, how to form cohesive thoughts, among other skills. How
did I learn these skills? One might say that the obvious answer is that I had teachers
in these subjects. In elementary school, teachers taught me how to read and write. As
I got older, other teachers taught me how to write papers, ask questions, form my
thoughts on the page in a manner that might be compelling to others. This does seem
to be the case. I had those teachers. I learned those skills. But, a problem arises.
When I was a child I had a violin teacher, and yet I never became a skilled violinist.
My teacher had other students that did become quite skilled. From this example I can
only conclude that the fact of having a teacher does not guarantee one’s learning.
Therefore, I return to my question. How does one learn? Is anything teachable?
40
�In their search for what virtue is Meno asks a question that seems to imply
that no one can actually learn anything. Again, from everyday experience, it seems
obvious that people do learn. Still, Meno’s question is difficult a difficult one to
answer. On how Socrates will find what virtue is, Meno asks:
And in what way will you seek, Socrates, for that which you know nothing at all
about what it is? What sort of thing among those things which you do not know are you
proposing to seek for yourself? Or, even if, at best, you should happen upon it, how will you
know it is that which you did not know? (80D)
Socrates responds:
I understand the sort of thing you want to say, Meno. Do you not see how inclined
to strife this argument you are drawing out is, that it is not possible for a human being to
seek either what he knows or what he does not know? For he could not seek for what he
knows, because he knows it and then there’s no need of any seeking for this person; nor could
he seek for what he does not know, because then he does not know what he is seeking. (80E)
This argument, at first glance, might appear foolproof. Socrates has an
answer, however. The soul is immortal, he states, and “Inasmuch as the soul is
immortal and has been born many times and has seen all things both here and in the
house of Hades, there is nothing which it has not learned” (81C). He then supposes
that everything we are supposed to have learned is actually, truly, our souls
recollecting that which they already knew. To illustrate this point, Socrates calls over
one of Meno’s slaveboys. Through a series of questions asked by Socrates, the
slaveboy comes to realize the line lengths that would be needed to double the size of
a given square. Socrates claims that because he asked nothing but questions, this
serves as evidence of the fact that the knowledge of the squares came from within the
boy, from within his immortal soul. One could object that Socrates was asking
leading questions, and that, perhaps, asking these sorts of questions is a way of
teaching. Before starting on my own inquiry, in this paper, on the nature of teaching
and learning, I would have been inclined to agree, and to a certain extent, I still am.
Socrates knew what he was asking. He led the boy step by step, albeit through
questions, through the geometrical proof. The boy could not have come to this
knowledge without Socrates. Nevertheless, as I stated earlier in my example of having
a violin teacher as a child, having a teacher does not guarantee that one learns
something. Beyond Socrates questioning, how does the slaveboy learn the
geometrical proof? That is, what makes him have an “aha” moment, a moment of
realization, a moment, perhaps, of learning?
Socrates’s exchange, if taken at face value that the boy, through questioning,
came to recollect what his soul already knew, does, in a way, clear up Meno’s
paradoxical question of how one can learn anything. That is, one can search for
anything, “learn” anything, if it is simply, (though it may not be simple), a matter of
recollection within his soul. Still, the soul’s immortality does not shed any light on
what makes the ‘aha’ moment happen for a learner.
41
�After this exchange with the slaveboy, Meno and Socrates continue the
dialogue on what virtue is and whether or not it is teachable, and something strange
happens here to Socrates’s argument. Socrates, as I have stated, claims to have not
taught the boy anything, and instead states that “true opinions will exist within him,
which after being aroused by questioning becomes matters of knowledge” (86A).
Again, Socrates’s argument is that the boy is recollecting, not being taught. Still,
Socrates must think some things are teachable. If he thought nothing was teachable,
he need not inquire about what virtue is in order to say whether or not it is teachable.
He simply could have said, “No, it is not teachable. Nothing is.” Strangely enough, in
apparent contradiction to the geometrical proof example with the slaveboy, Socrates
seems to believe that knowledge actually can be taught, and is, among all things, the
only thing that can be taught. He states:
In this way then, about virtue too —since we know neither what it is, nor what sort of thing
it is—let us look hypothetically at it, whether it is teachable or not teachable, speaking in
the following way: If virtue is some sort of thing among those things that have regard to the
soul, would it be teachable or not teachable? First, then, if it’s the kind of thing that is
different from, or like knowledge, is it teachable or not, or, as we were just now saying it, is
it recollectable?—let it make no difference to us about whatever name we use—but is it
teachable? Or is this, at any rate, clear to everyone, that a human being is taught nothing
else than knowledge. (87B-C)
Meno agrees to this, that a human being is taught nothing else than
knowledge, and agrees, when Socrates states, “And if virtue is some kind of
knowledge, it is clear that it could be taught” (87C). The question then becomes for
the interlocutors, is virtue a matter of knowledge?
It might be that Socrates does wobble a little bit here in his argument,
changing from nothing can be taught to knowledge can be taught, but for my
purpose, it would not be productive to quibble with that wobbling. For my question
still holds: How does learning happen? Is anything, strictly speaking, teachable?
For Socrates, if virtue is a matter of knowledge, and can therefore be taught,
there would be teachers of virtue, and one would do well to send his child to a virtue
teacher. In the end, Meno and Socrates agree that there are no teachers of virtue.
Furthermore, they agree that if there are no teachers, there are no learners (96C).
Because they conclude that virtue has no teachers, and is therefore not something
teachable, which, consequently, makes virtue not a form of knowledge, they then
conclude that one who has virtue must get it from “divine dispensation” (100A). I
disagree with Socrates that if there are no teachers there are no learners. One can
learn through observation. One can learn to play basketball by watching professional
basketball players. One can learn to skateboard by doing the same. One can learn to
write poetry by studying the masters. This glaring omission, their leaving out that one
can learn through observation, makes the conclusion of this dialogue, to my mind,
unsatisfying, makes the jump to divine dispensation quite the leap. The more I think
about it, however, the more I think Socrates might be correct.
42
�I still do not agree with him that if there are no teachers there are no learners.
I do, however, think he might be right when he says that learning virtue is due to
divine dispensation. To my mind, his answer as to what is divine dispensation is
actually too limited, for I still cannot understand, if anything is teachable, knowledge,
for example, what makes that ‘aha’ moment possible. Where does it come from? One
might say it comes from intuition, but what is intuition? Could not one say that
intuition might in fact be the soul remembering, and that therefore nothing is
teachable? I was dissatisfied with Socrates’s answer that virtue is bequeathed through
divine dispensation because I thought it obvious that one can learn without teachers,
that one can learn, that is, through observation. But what about this gift of
observation? Where did it come from? Is it all, everything we do and learn, a gift
from God? Could it be that yes, there are teachers; things are teachable, and yes, there
are learners; we do learn things, but it all comes from God, the ‘aha’ moment of
learning, the ability to teach? Many questions arise from this. Does God bestow gifts
equally, but one has to accept the gift? Could this be why some people are virtuous,
others not? What makes one more or less inclined to accept God’s gifts? Why would
God create people who are not inclined to receive his gifts? Does God indeed do
this? But these, perhaps, are questions for another time. For now, though, I conclude
that that ‘aha’ moment that makes learning possible, that might permit me to answer
these further questions, must be a gift from God.
43
�Prize-Winning Preceptorial Paper: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Anthony Meffe
In a note Nietzsche observes that “One generally mistakes me: I confess it;
also I should be done a great service if someone else were to defend and define me
against these mistakes.” (XIV, 318 f.) Nietzsche here admits to the often obscure and
esoteric nature of his writing, an obscurity that must be revealed by later interpreters
and defenders. Walter Kaufmann in his seminal biography of Nietzsche echoes this
sentiment with his refutation of the “Nietzsche legend,” namely the inheritance of
preconceived notions surrounding who Nietzsche was, and what the purpose of his
project was. The benign influence of Nietzsche’s sister Elizabeth was instrumental in
cementing Nietzsche’s reputation as a nationalistic anti-Semite, as poet, or prophet
rather than philosopher, and had led to a situation where, as Kaufmann puts it, “there
is not even basic agreement about what [Nietzsche] stood for.” While the scholarly
horizons for Nietzsche’s work are perhaps less grim today than in 1950, it is still a
weighty task to come to a firm understanding of a philosopher who deliberately
eschewed systematization, and who described the scholarly approach to knowledge as
“cracking nuts.” (Z, II, 16) In cracking a nut you achieve a completeness, a goal, an
end, then discard the scraps and move to the next nut, triumphant. In contrast,
Nietzsche asks us not to ‘solve’ his thought, but to engage with it in a dynamic
motion of mistaken interpretation, defence and clarification.
The emphasis upon motion is a recurring theme in Nietzsche’s work, and
especially in Thus Spoke Zarathustra where the path to the Overman (Ubermensch) is first
described in direct and linear language but quickly develops into cyclical and nonlinear transformations, dances, and songs, that lead to greater understanding and
creativity, but not to any end or telos. Nietzsche, while desirous of eternity, attempts
to achieve it not in any solution that finds a solution, but rather through the eternal
recurrence of the individual, subjective, creative will in the world, this particular
world, the only one which will ever exist and has ever existed. Creation, the act of
God which demands conformity, is distinguished from individual creation that
engenders freedom and creates new values in a world where God is dead. (Z, Prologue,
9) In the death of the Creator, there is an opening for the creative will to find its way
to becoming the Ubermensch, by perpetually moving. But the question remains as to
whether the world outside of the subjective creative will ‘exists’ in a real sense, or
whether it is merely a subjective projection of the whims of new creators. At the risk
of attempting to crack this philosophical nut like the scholars, I will argue that
Nietzsche presents a unified and consistent view of the world, defined by motion,
and against Christian and Darwinian teleology, which demands the kind of creativity
he describes. It is meaningful insofar as it describes reality, the eternal exercise of the
will in relation to the world. Nietzsche’s system that eschews systems then relies upon
perpetual motion which reflects and is faithful to life, or rather living in the world as it
is. This is achieved through eternal recurrence, and can be described reliably as an
objective reality.
44
�The most essential quality of life in Zarathustra is constant motion, whether
simply physical motion or a deeper spiritual transformation. As Peter Behrens writes
in his novel The Law of Dreams, “the law of dreams is keep moving,” and this might
equally be called the law of Zarathustra. (Behrens, 10) Thus Spoke Zarathustra begins
with a movement and transformation: “When Zarathustra was thirty years old he left
his home… and went into the mountains. Here he enjoyed his spirit and his solitude
and for ten years he did not tire of it.” (Z, Prologue, 1) Zarathustra moves to the
mountain, but still finds no ultimate satisfaction: “I am weary of my wisdom… I want
to bestow and distribute…For this I must descend into the depths, as you do
evenings when you go behind the sea and bring light even to the underworld.” (3) He
continues: “Like you I must go down…” (3) Already on the first page we have spanned
ten years, and bridged two epiphanies on the part of Zarathustra, not satisfied with
enjoying his spirit, he wishes to descend and teach. And what does he wish to teach?
It is the path to the Ubermensch: “I teach you the Overhuman. Human being is something
that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him?” (Z, Prologue, 3)
Humanity is one stage, a stage that requires action to be surpassed. While Zarathustra
also uses semi-evolutionary language, comparing the Ubermensch to man as we
compare man to ape, Kaufmann is careful to point out that Nietzsche rejected an
evolutionary corollary to his work. (Z, Prologue, 3) While the symbolism and
comparison here “invites misunderstanding,” Nietzsche himself claimed that only
“scholarly oxen” would interpret his work as Darwinism. The path to the Ubermensch
requires active overcoming rather than passive and deterministic reception of natural
forces to which one adapts. We might find some clarity in Nietzsche’s work on
history, written in 1874 before Zarathustra” where he writes:
For since we happen to be the results of earlier generations we are also the results of their
aberrations, passions and errors, even crimes; it is not possible quite to free oneself from this
chain. If we condemn those aberrations and think ourselves quite exempt from them, the fact
we are descended from them is not eliminated.” (U VI, 3)
He writes further that the attempt to eradicate this memory creates a kind of
second nature as we break from the first, and yet something of the past state always
remains, and the new state is generally feebler than the first. (U VI, 3) By feebler
Nietzsche likely means more contingent and less survivable, even if it is more
complex, as all higher beings are, comparing the complexity and fragility of humans
to the durability of simpler organisms in The AntiChrist. Instead Nietzsche demands
that the path forward be willed rather than accepted, even as remnants of earlier
transformations will endure. Rather than look to change as a cold or mechanistic
reality, it should be understood as a proud action towards a higher state. In The Gay
Science Nietzsche remarks that the Darwinian conception has led, just as in
Christianity, to a “man against the world” understanding of life, wherein man must
give up either reverence or his own being, where both are accorded as nihilism. (GS,
346) Rather Nietzsche seeks a path wherein man and the world are not in conflict,
45
�where what is past, is, and is to come can be accepted with all their warts. But how
does Nietzsche’s conception of motion and transformation eradicate nihilism?
The answer to that question is found in Nietzsche’s conception of life which
is irrevocably tied to endless motion towards without ultimate completion, as well as
his notion of the death of God. Zarathustra teaches not just the Ubermensch but the
path to it: “Mankind is a rope fastened between animal and Overman – a rope over
an abyss.” (Z, Prologue, 4) The ones who know how to be “crossing over” and “going
under” are those who know how to live. (4) But what does it mean to know how to
live? If mechanistic Darwinism is not an antidote, then neither is faith in God, even
as in the revolutionary nineteenth century such a dichotomy seemed to be the nexus
of intellectual conflict. As soon as Zarathustra comes down from the mountain he
meets an old man who has as yet not heard that “God is dead.” (Z, Prologue, 2) The
phrase is one of Nietzsche’s most famous aphorisms, and represents a foundational
principle upon which all his ideas depend, especially in Zarathustra. The one who is a
believer in God is a believer in “a world behind.” (Z, Part 1, 3) God is presented as
outdated, or perhaps more appropriately something which has served its purpose, but
which now retards motion. Zarathustra once believed in this “delusion,” that is the
belief in anything beyond the human. (Z, Part 1, 3) To put faith in a world beyond
the world that one inhabits is to reject life and living, to place the creative will outside
of one’s action, and instead to conform to an invented will without realizing that it
was man that willed it. Thus speaks Zarathustra:
Weariness that wants to attain the ultimate in a single leap, in a leap of death, a poor and
ignorant weariness that does not even want to will anymore: that is what created all Gods and
all worlds behind…The body it was that despaired of the body – that groped with the fingers
of deluded spirit for the ultimate walls. (Z, Part 1, 3)
The deluded spirit longs to achieve eternity and completion, the ultimate, in
one swoop, and to rest upon that victory. God’s corpse erects a wall, an ultimate wall,
that protects against motion, but motion and transformation is necessary to life. In
simpler and more direct words, Nietzsche describes the chief principle of faith in
Twilight of the Idols (written after Zarathustra) as “faith that a will is already in things.”
(G, Epigrams and Arrows, 18) If a will, especially a constant, unchangeable Will, is
imputed into the world, then the human will is once again in opposition to the world.
He must either conform and lose himself, or lose his reverences, just as with
mechanistic Darwinism. We are then presented with two distinct forms of modern
nihilism, both belief in a deterministic world to come, and a religious world that
ought to be left behind yet casts long shadows. By what means then can man find
meaning? For Nietzsche the answer lies in the transformation, the motion, of the
spirit.
We have already heard that mankind is a rope over an abyss, but Zarathustra
goes on to say that “What is great in the human is that it is a bridge and not a goal.”
(Z, Prologue, 4) What is terrifying in humanity is “dangerous shuddering and standing
still.” (Z, Prologue, 4) The bridge, however, like the rope, is a linear image, one may
46
�cross forwards, or backwards, or potentially fall into the abyss. While the abyss itself
may represent a non-linear element, the path is straight. A straight path then must
necessarily lead to some goal, some destination, or some end, unless it is infinite.
Surely then the straight path must lead to death. However, this linear imagery is
developed in Zarathustra’s speech on the Three Metamorphoses, and becomes more
cyclical. The cycle allows for repetition, without a necessary end to motion. The spirit
moves through three transformations, into the camel, the lion and the child, each
providing a necessary means to move beyond the world behind, and the world to
come. The first transformation is that of a camel in whom the spirit can carry the
weight of heavy questions and pondering. (Z, I, 1) Then we encounter the lion in
which man learns to regard the “sacred Nay” to become a “lord in its own desert”
after winning freedom. (1) The enemy of the lion is the great dragon who proclaims
“Thou shalt,” in a rather obvious reference to the Decalogue. (1) Freedom is attained
through rejection of what one should do, “thou shalt,” and in rejection of external
value, of external will in the world. (1) An apex, but not a completion, is found in the
child, the final transformation. (1) The power of the will transforms sacred naysaying
into sacred “Yea-saying,” embracing creativity to build one’s own world of value. The
innocence of the child allows for forgetting, rebuilding, and transforming, much like
in Nietzsche’s theory of history. The purpose of these transformations seems to be a
means to let go of the old values that weigh down the spirit, to reject the world
beyond, and to will it into the world behind through individual creation. As
Zarathustra remarks, “Wherever I found the living, there I found the will to power,
and even in the will of the serving I found the will to be master.” (Z, II, 12) The
dragon says “thou shalt” but the lion says “I will” becoming master over itself and
serving life. (Z, I, 1) Evaluation is transferred from the realm of external discernment
to individual will and creation. There is no indication that this could not be repeated,
providing man a means to stay in motion. Life is then served by killing the Creator,
killing Creation, and moving to become one’s own willing creator in the world as it
exists.
The slaying of the dragon then opens new ports of motion. Nietzsche writes
in The Gay Science of the great joy one experiences at the news that “the old god is
dead” (GS, 343):
At long last the horizon appears free to us again, even if it should not be bright; at long last
our ships may venture out again…all the daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again;
the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an “open sea.” (GS,
343)
What is important is the possibility of movement and transformation, not
any particular course. The sacred Nay opens an ocean of sacred Yea. Yet even this
grand freedom is not without qualification, as Zarathustra remarks “Body am I
through and through, and nothing besides; and soul is merely a word for something
about the body.” (Z, I, 4) The soul is an aspect of the body, as is the spirit. (4) The
transformations enumerated above are bodily and spiritual, insofar as all things are
47
�bodily for mankind. He later expounds on this stating “Since I have come to know
the body better… the spirit is only a hypothetical spirit to me; and all that is
everlasting – that too is only a parable.” (Z, II, 17) Only the perishable body exists as
truly real for Zarathustra at this point. What is important, however, is that Nietzsche
necessarily unifies subjective creation through the three metamorphoses with
reverence for life and nature. The creating will is a function of a new freedom gained
from an awareness of the reality of this world, apart from worlds beyond or behind
that a literal spirit or soul would indicate. One might raise the objection: is this
demand to perpetual motion and life not simply replacing one dragon with another?
Why should the ‘thou shalt’ of nature or of life be any different from the ‘thou shalt’
of God? From the language that Nietzsche uses, however, it seems plain that he
envisions this reverence for life not as something you must do, but rather that this
new way offers man the freedom to behave honestly towards nature, not through a
delusion, nor through compulsion. Zarathustra preaches faithfulness to the earth and
not to invented worlds. (Z, I, 3) The creation of new values is then a function of
nature through our life-affirming bodies. Nature does not demand, but permits. The
image that Zarathustra uses of the railing to the Ubermensch illustrates this: “I am a
railing by the torrent: grasp me whoever is able to grasp me! But your crutch I am
not.” (Z, I, 6) One may grasp the rail or not, but it is there to make use of as one will.
But does life not still end? How does one avoid the obvious inference of
fatalism (that Nietzsche rejects) in these attempts to escape nihilism, or does this
merely cement nihilism as reality? Some clarification and expansion might be found in
the songs that Zarathustra sings in the Second Part of the book where we find the
first murmurings of the eternal recurrence. The distinction between night and day
also features heavily as a kind of perpetual and ongoing motion in the cosmos,
undergirding life.
In The Night Song, Zarathustra looks to the heavens, and finds something cold
and unsettling in their motion. “Many suns revolve in desolate space…to me they are
mute. Oh this is the enmity of light toward that which shines; mercilessly it goes its
orbits.” (Z, II, 9) Later Zarathustra says “Like a storm the suns fly their orbit, that is
their motion. They follow their inexorable will; that is their coldness.” (9) This
inhuman motion seems to unsettle Zarathustra in contrast to the motion of the spirit
which was animating. Words like ‘merciless,’ ‘desolate,’ ‘mute,’ ‘coldness,’ and
especially ‘inexorable’ sound like the language of fatalism and resignation rather than
life, specially when referencing will. Yet life is itself a reverence and honesty towards
nature through motion. Zarathustra is perhaps reflecting on the disjuncture between
the creating will which “wills its own will” and which “attains its own world” while
confronted with a natural world remote to that experience (Z, 1, 1) In the daylight
Zarathustra could preach to the stars: “You great star! What would your happiness be
if you had not those for whom you shine?” (Z, Prologue, 1) Where Zarathustra was
boastful and proud in the daylight, he is now intimidated and alienated from those
same luminous bodies in the evening. What has changed? Zarathustra experiences
“iciness” and “hesitation,” at night, and he seems unable to move while experiencing
48
�a kind of involuntary contemplation of the shining suns that move so inexorably.
Contemplation, or rumination had been an object of mockery to Zarathustra, a
desirable nonsense, but nonsense all the same. (Z, I, 2) Later too he describes
contemplation as “emasculated leering,” to “desire nothing from things” but to lie
before them. (Z, II, 15) The lifeless impasse is broken by adding motion into
contemplation as a passive corollary to the dynamic creation of the day time.
In The Dance Song, Zarathustra comes face to face with life itself in the form
of a dancing girl while strolling at night with his disciples. Life is dancing, and it is in
that motion and transformation of nocturnal dancing that Zarathustra finds a means
to rehabilitate concepts he had dismissed to make them serve life. His first words to
life are “Do not stop dancing” referring to the dancing girls as “light ones.” (Z, 2, 10)
He finds life before him, in the evening, motioning in a manner that is not alien the
way the movement of the stars was. He says to life:
Into your eyes I gazed recently, oh life! And then into the unfathomable I seemed to sink.
But you pulled me out with your golden fishing rod; you laughed mockingly when I called you
unfathomable.” (10)
Unlike the distance between Zarathustra and the night-time suns, life is here
personified, and speaks to Zarathustra directly, breaking any delusion of distance or
disjuncture between the human will and the natural world. To look at life and
understand it is not then a rumination, nor a flight from life, but part of a parallel
structure of nature of which the creative will is one part, along with the
acknowledgment of the natural world. Creation of value is necessarily parallel with
nature, not disrespectful to it. But while nature’s existence is objective, creation of
value is not, for how could you march from summit to summit if you had found and
rested upon the real truth? (Z, II, 7) Rather it is an objective response to the freedom
conferred by the non-existence of objective values in nature that is itself an objective
reality. This is why life dances, because these two necessary aspects participate with
each other in the constant motion that is, for Nietzsche, life, itself mirrored in the
transition from daylight to evening. In the dance we can imagine the constant flow of
transformation, from camel, to lion, to child, or from day to night, in a constant flow
of motion, that is to say in concert with nature.
It is not surprising then that it is those moments of crisis for Zarathustra
when he has forgotten how to walk, that he has also lost sight of the path to the
Ubermensch. (Z, II, 22) But why does Zarathustra continue to experience moments of
stillness and lifelessness even after his encounter with life? He has still not sufficiently
conquered one final ‘end,’ specifically permanent death, a permanent end to motion
that he refers to as ‘the spirit of gravity.’ Zarathustra describes life as “A dance and a
mocking song to the spirit of gravity,” the spirit that rules the world. (10) Zarathustra
mentions this spirit only once before in the first Part, “And when I saw my devil,
there I found him in earnest, thorough, deep, somber: it was the spirit of gravity –
through him all things fall. (Z, I, 7) The spirit of gravity is the essence of fatalism, for
what goes up must come down, what lives must die, what begins must find an end,
49
�even if that end is neither a religious nor a mechanical world to come, nor a world
beyond. In what then can a creator take solace other than nihilism? The dancing god,
life, provides a clue in the names men give her: “profundity or fidelity, eternity or
secrecy.” (Z, II, 10) Eternity is the name that men give life, but eternal life is a
concept that Zarathustra has derided as the life-denying philosophy of the despisers
of the body and the preachers of death, whose conception of eternal life is a goal that
distracts from life as it is in the world. (Z, I, 9) What life tells to Zarathustra is that
life itself, life as it is, is eternity, and this is the lightness that Zarathustra perceives in
the dancing girls, their liberation from the spirit of gravity without any final end to
their dancing.
This liberation also provides for a liberation of the will, as well as a further
unity of the subjective creating will with the objective natural world. In The Gay
Science, Nietzsche claims that “Faith is always coveted most and needed most urgently
where will is lacking.” (GS, 347) Faith is the dereliction of the will, the belief that
there is another will in the world to which one must submit. However Zarathustra
remarks that “I would only believe in a god who knew how to dance.” (Z, 1,7) It
would seem then that the dancing god, life, offers an exception to the rule. Nietzsche
states that there is a correlation between one’s strength and the need to believe,
therefore Christianity, or Metaphysics more broadly, will survive so long as they are
needed. (GS, 347) We know that Zarathustra has proclaimed the death of god,
declaring that all gods are human works (Z, I, 3) and that true creativity is impossible
if there are gods, for how could one create if there were already Creation, if there
were already a will there? (Z, II, 24) Zarathustra tells us that the gods died of laughter
when the God of Abraham declared “thou shalt have no other gods but me,” stating
that true divinity is to have gods but no God. (Z, III, 8) Yet through the spirit of the
lion, and sacred naysaying, God, the dragon that commands “thou shalt,” has been
killed. We are left without gods, and without God, but this leaves a new sea open
once again. If belief is derived from necessity, then the creative will must will belief in
the dancing god, life. The dancing god is man’s reverence for nature which
participates in nature. The created god of nature, the created god of the will, steps in
concert with the world as it is, and is united with it. Man gives up neither reverence
nor himself. To what one is reverent is their own body united with nature through
the will. This unity is expounded upon by Zarathustra when he addresses the heavens
before sunrise:
Oh sky above me, you pure, exalted one! This your purity is to me now… that you are my
dance floor for divine accident, that you are my gods’ table for divine dice throws and dice
player. But you blush?... is it the shame of us two that made you blush? (Z, III, 4)
Through the will, man can find unity even in the parallel structure of nature,
and divinize the world as it is. Why does the sky blush? Is it perhaps embarrassed by
this union? While still two distinct and separate entities, Zarathustra becomes aware
of the power of the will to unite with the natural world, exemplified by the motion of
the dancing god, life. The necessity of creating new values is reconciled with the
50
�reality of nature in this long dance to become aware of how one’s “own being is
involved in the totality of the cosmos”. That parallel division is never truly eliminated,
however, nor does that seem to be a particular problem for Nietzsche or Zarathustra
any longer.
But there is still the question of the eternity of life, that is to say the question
of perpetual motion. Having reconciled life with the creating will, there is still the
need to defeat the spirit of gravity. As Nietzsche writes in Twilight of the Idols:
The fatality of our essence cannot be separated from the fatality of all that was and will be.
We are not the consequence of a special intention, a will, a goal; we are not being used to
reach an “ideal of humanity”… We have invented the concept “goal”: in reality, goals are
absent… (G, The Four Great Errors, 8)
Nietzsche must then find a way to reconcile the eternity that life has spoken to
Zarathustra with human fatality, without succumbing to fatalism. This is achieved
through the concept of eternal recurrence. As Kaufmann points out, Nietzsche
considered the eternal recurrence his most important idea, even as he offers little to
no proof of it in his works. All the same it is an absolutely necessary aspect of his
thought, for it is his solution to fatalism that respects fatality. The dwarf says to
Zarathustra, “You stone of wisdom! You hurled yourself high, but every hurled stone
must fall!” (Z, III, 2.1) This is the thought of lead that is dripped into Zarathustra’s
ear, which he overcomes with the courageous phrase, “Was that life? Well then! One
More Time!” (2.1) Zarathustra then develops the doctrine of the eternal recurrence:
“See this gateway, dwarf! I continued. “It has two faces. Two paths come together here; no
one has yet walked them end to end. This long lane back: it lasts an eternity. And that long
lane outward – that is another eternity (2.2)
The paths converge only at the gateway called “Moment.” (2.2) Each moment is then
made eternally alive through repetition, without the need to look forward or
backwards or towards any goal or telos.
From this gateway Moment a long eternal lane stretches backward:
behind us lies an eternity… And if everything has already been here before,
what do you think of this moment, dwarf? Must this gateway too not already have
been here? And are not all things firmly knotted together in such a way
that this moment draws after it all things to come?... For, whatever can run… must
run it once more! (2.2)
Kaufmann calls this the supreme “suprahistorical” expression, wherein all
striving beyond is extinguished in the exaltation of the moment, whether that striving
be Darwinian, or Christian. Each moment resounds in eternity not as a stepping
stone, but as a stepped stone, always present, and past, and future, and therefore
always in perpetual motion. The finitude of earthly existence is transformed into an
eternal faithfulness to the earth that Zarathustra preached from the beginning. (Z, I,
3) With each moment separated from a final goal or end, the will is free to say to
itself “One More Time!” (Z, III, 2.2) This is what it means for the will to create its
51
�own world, because it creates the world as it is, one’s own eternity which is eternity,
and that is life. With the eternal recurrence Zarathustra is free to say “This is my good
and evil.” (Z, III, 11) The recurring will makes for itself eternal values not by appeal
to another world, but in this world that will always reemerge. “All joy wants eternity,
wants deep eternity,” says Zarathustra, by which he means that willing ‘yes’ to life is a
will to its totality, night and day, pain and happiness, all ensnared together as one
bottomless dancing eternity. This is how Nietzsche solves the problem of nihilism as
a reaction to the world as it is, through life as eternal motion which relies heavily
upon the eternal recurrence to achieve coherence, and also how he reconciles the
subjective will with objective nature.
The project of Nietzsche can then be described as the attempt to reconcile
his rejection of nihilism with his beliefs regarding what reality is. Whether he
succeeded or not is a difficult question, and one to which many will likely come to
differing conclusion, however what seems clear is that Nietzsche offers in Thus Spoke
Zarathustra a circuitous and roundabout enumeration of the demands of his
conception of reality. The creating will that emerges from the corpse of God is not
merely subjective, but rather subjective in accordance with the reality of the natural
world where there exists a gap in objective value. While Nietzsche never fully unifies
the two, he does posit a parallel unity where each is faithful to the other, even if they
are not fully united to the other. This faithfulness to the earth as it is what is objective
for Nietzsche, the earth that is eternally alive and in motion, where every subjective
value is elevated in each moment of eternity. Through eternal recurrence, and the
creating will, Nietzsche sustains his central notion of life as motion in a way that, at
least internally, fulfills the objective of faithfulness to the earth as it is (according to
Nietzsche), while providing an escape from nihilism that rests on no assumptions that
contradict his own conception of reality. The joy that Zarathustra experiences
towards the end of the work is the joy of reconciliation and unity, achieved on his
own terms. The conception of the world as described by Zarathustra can then be said
to be objective, and even further, that the distinction between subjective and
objective breaks down in the eternal recurrence. Whether it is correct is another
question for another essay, though there are suggestions of the necessity of faith for
some of the concepts here enumerated, particularly the eternal recurrence. Whether
this is a true victory over nihilism is perhaps still left to the reader, but all things
considered it was a heroic and consistent attempt.
52
�Artwork by Jesse Clagett
53
�
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Colloquy
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Colloquy, Fall 2021
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Volume IX of Colloquy, published in Fall 2021.
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Braley, Olivia (Editor-in-Chief)
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Text
�Editor-in-Chief
Olivia Braley
Editorial Board
Leith Daghistani
Folke Egerstrom
Andrew Graney
Charles Green
Gavin Laur
Diana Villegas
�Table of Contents
Letter from the Editor
Olivia Braley, Annapolis
Colloquy Constitution
The Editorial Board
Three Poems
Andrew Laurence Graney, Annapolis
Excerpt from Argos’ Odyssey – Lost Years
Winston Elliott, Annapolis - with art by Elizabeth Janthey, Annapolis
1
2
6
9
Dialogue and Understanding in the Seminar Oral
Courtney White, Annapolis
“Therefore etc”: Bang or Whimper?
Jeremy Sheeler, Annapolis - with art by Jaime Marquez, Annapolis
Why I Am Here
Bonnie Naradzay, Annapolis
A Conversation with Louis Petrich, Annapolis Tutor
Charles Green & Jaime Marquez, Annapolis
The Pandemic and the Iliad
Will Harvard, Annapolis - with art by Neha Gaddam, Annapolis
Excerpt from The Molting Eagle and the Shedding Serpent
James Wheeler, Annapolis - with art by Jaime Marquez, Annapolis
14
Vico’s Poetic Morals: Forced into Philosophy?
Akayla Lewis, Annapolis
Nostalgia in February
Kelsey Hennegen, Santa Fe - with art by Neha Gaddam, Annapolis
On the Benefit of Virtual Learning for Our Community
Leith Daghistani, Annapolis
Uncovering the Lost World of the Black Classical Tradition
Dr. Anika Prather, Annapolis Visiting Lecturer
37
16
20
21
29
33
42
44
48
�Letter from the Editor
Dear Members of the Graduate Institute Community,
May 2021
I’ll begin by thanking the whole of our Graduate Institute community at St.
John’s: your unique presence enriches our program and the work we set out to
do in our seminars, be they at a table or through a screen. I want to especially
thank the members of the Colloquy editorial board, our contributors, and other
community members who made possible the issue you have before you. I’d like
to thank Ms. Langston for her commitment to providing Colloquy with the
support we need for success, and Ms. Kraus, my mentor, for her guidance and
encouragement throughout the semester. It’s an honor to be your Editor-inChief, but this title doesn’t encompass the totality of people that are essential to
this process. Through our collective efforts, we have put forth a diverse and
compelling issue of work that we can all be proud of.
This semester, I had an eye towards the future of Colloquy. With collaboration
from the board, we developed a Colloquy Constitution and other materials that
formalize our processes and procedures. I do this in hope that Colloquy can
continue to showcase the impressive work of our GI community long after my
tenure at St. John’s. We also endeavored to solicit a broad range of submissions
from students on both campuses and studying online. Each of us brings a fresh
perspective to the program and our voices and ideas should be highlighted. It is
my hope that these perspectives will develop as Colloquy grows. Regardless of
geographic location or class format, we are united by the work that we do in this
program. Let us celebrate that unity here.
As we continue our studies from various places and slowly work towards a return
to, or reinvention of, normalcy in many aspects of our lives, I hope Colloquy will
augment the sense of community that is developed through our time at St. John’s
and serve as a reminder of the strength and diversity of our polity.
Thank you all for your talent, trust, and time.
Sincerely,
Olivia Braley
Editor-in-Chief
1
�Colloquy Constitution
The Editorial Board
Preamble
The mission of Colloquy is to curate a diverse journal that mirrors the unique work of the
Graduate Institute community.
The vision of Colloquy is to provide a space for all members of our community to continue the
conversation. We will showcase the great breadth of the Graduate Institute’s work: our content
will highlight the cultural elements and ideas of the Graduate Institute, such as visual art,
creative writing, and personal essays that do not always have a natural place in our classroom,
alongside our most attentive and compelling academic work.
1. Editorial Board
Article I
Staff
a.
Editorial board membership shall be open to all students and alumni of
the Graduate Institute.
b. Editorial staff are responsible for electing the editor-in-chief, spreading
awareness of the journal’s calls for submissions, reading and reviewing all
submissions, providing consultation on final publication pieces, and
reviewing final drafts before publication.
c. More specific roles, titles, and responsibilities may be granted to editorial
staff as necessary in consultation with the editor-in-chief.
d. Editorial staff may be removed by the board for misconduct following a
motion and subsequent vote of no confidence.
2. Editor-in-Chief
a.
The editor-in-chief position shall be held by a degree-seeking student
currently enrolled in the Graduate Institute. If there are no degreeseeking students on the editorial staff, the editorial board may elect any
enrolled student or alumnus of the Graduate Institute to hold the
position in trust until a degree-seeking student joins the board.
b. The editor-in-chief shall be elected by the editorial board each year.
c. Tenure for the position is two semesters and there are no term limits.
i.
There may not be vacancies of any length for the position of
editor-in-chief.
ii.
The editorial board may allow single-semester terms for editorsin-chief when suitable.
2
�d. The editor-in-chief is responsible for recruitment to the editorial board,
submissions management, board meeting management, journal
administration, and publication and dissemination of the journal to the
Graduate Institute community.
e. The editor-in-chief shall ensure that geographically disparate editorial
staff have access to board meetings and decision-making processes.
f. The editor-in-chief may be recalled and removed by the editorial board
for misconduct following a motion and subsequent vote of no
confidence.
3. Internships
a.
Funded internships for students are occasionally offered by St. John’s
College to students for positions on Colloquy staff. Coordination of
internships is managed by the Office of the Dean of the Graduate
Institute.
b. The college shall identify a member of the faculty to serve as a mentor
for the intern.
c. In order to maintain student control over the journal and preserve a
competitive internship application process, the board’s election process
for the position of editor-in-chief and the college’s internship application
process shall be mutually independent.
d. Interns may concurrently serve as editor-in-chief if separately elected to
that position by the board. For the semesters in which these positions
are held by separate individuals, roles and responsibilities may be decided
as appropriate between the editor-in-chief, intern, and faculty mentor.
1. Constitution Review
Article II
Administration
a.
The constitution shall be reviewed by the editor-in-chief every semester
and disseminated to the editorial board at the beginning of each
publication cycle.
b. The constitution may be edited as necessary by the editor-in-chief in
consultation with the editorial board. Consultation with the Office of the
Dean of the Graduate Institute is required only for changes relating to
Article I Section 3.
3
�2. Submissions and Publication
a.
Submissions shall be accepted from current students, alumni, and tutors
of the Graduate Institute. Other submissions from associates of the
college may be solicited and accepted at the discretion of the editor-inchief.
b. Calls for submissions and deadlines shall be established and disseminated
to the Graduate Institute community by the editor-in-chief for each
publication cycle. The editor-in-chief may determine the nature, scope,
and type of media called for each semester.
c. Published material shall align with the mission of Colloquy. In general,
content which was created for a different academic institution, Graduate
Institute admissions essays, and submissions which are not reflective of
the work of the Graduate Institute may not be considered for
publication.
d. The editor-in-chief shall consult with the editorial board in deciding the
final disposition of all submissions.
i.
All submissions will be made available for review to all members
of the editorial board.
ii.
Submissions will be made anonymous by the editor-in-chief
before presentation to the editorial board for review.
iii.
Following consultation with the editorial board, the editor-inchief retains final authority in selecting which submissions may
be published.
iv.
The editor-in-chief shall coordinate timely individual responses
from the editorial board to all submitters following publication
decisions.
e. Graduate Institute prize winning essays shall be automatically eligible for
publication in their entirety within the journal released immediately
following selection of the prize winners.
i.
Submission of prize winning essays shall be coordinated
between the Office of the Dean of the Graduate Institute and
the editor-in-chief.
ii.
The editor-in-chief shall obtain permission to publish these
essays from the prize winning authors prior to publication.
f. Publications shall be released at least twice a year, one each at the end of
the spring and fall semesters.
g. Publications shall be made available to the Graduate Institute
community in hard-copy and electronic formats.
i.
The editor-in-chief shall coordinate funding for publication with
the Office of the Dean of the Graduate Institute.
4
�ii.
iii.
The editor-in-chief may select the press for hard-copy
publication each semester.
Electronic copies of the journal shall be made publicly available
on the internet.
3. Documentation of Processes and Turnover
a.
The editor-in-chief shall be responsible for maintaining and updating the
codified processes of the journal such as financial processes, press
contacts, dissemination lists, formatting guides, social media, and any
other information deemed necessary by the editor-in-chief.
b. Codified processes shall be maintained separately from the constitution,
and may be updated and disseminated by the editor-in-chief when
required.
c. The editor-in-chief shall meet with their replacement as necessary to
conduct a turnover of the codified procedure materials and ensure a
seamless transition of the role and associated responsibilities.
5
�Creative Writing
Three Poems
Andrew Laurence Graney
Stand-up
I wake up down because the woman who gives me gooseflesh
didn’t call me back,
then walk downstairs and am surprised to see my
mother’s not at work:
Your MRI shows signs of MS in the brain.
Oh-kay. Finally. After all
the fucking blood-work taunting me with negatives, pure diagnosis
comes as a gift. Something physical
to rip me out of swirling dark and back into
daylight. Finally,
a concrete reason for my dizziness, my numbness, and my limp.
Something I can name.
Scars in my brain.
New material for my stand-up:
my blood’s got so much work done it deserves a raise.
If you know anyone looking for scars, I got multiple.
So she didn’t call me back... George Carlin said death is
caused by swallowing
small amounts of saliva over a long
period of time.
Meantime, every swallow is
a blessing. I’ll stand
up until I don’t. Eventually,
love must call.
6
�Creative Writing
On Having to Take Daily Medication
Because it makes me feel robotic,
this blue-green capsule, which keeps my nervous system
settled, unsettles me. I realize
robots wouldn’t take pills, but the thing’s not food or drink,
and yet, to function, I have to have it.
Twice Daily. I could go longer without water. That can’t be
human. But it works. I haven’t
had a relapse since the first attack, when I learned what MS means:
my nervous system fights itself.
Now that’s human. Like it’s confused or mussed up with blues.
If I could speak to my addled system
I could say, I feel you, man, and it could fight fright with a joke,
When they named me Nervous System,
what did they expect? Foolish, I know, this exchange, but it helps
to imagine my nervous system is just
a friend who misses signals, mixes up the ones he does catch,
who tries his best to keep me on my toes
and says, Dude, MS drugs could win the ‘Most Improved’ award
in Medication School, and you
complain they turn you robot? Oh, the humanity.
What’s really got you wrinkled?
This medicine, in keeping me well, reminds me I am not
in control,
every time I swallow the blue-green pill.
7
�Creative Writing
Boarding a Redeye in Phoenix, I Hear a Man Talking on his Phone
- after Alexander Long
He sounds tired, deflated. Still, he leaks
hope, like he’s just discovered a sort of air
pump for his spirit:
I had such a good time
with her today. She said, ‘Papa, are you
gonna be able to play hide and seek with me
again?’. I told her, ‘Yes, when I get back
from my trip’. She said, ‘Papa, you hide
and I count’. I said, ‘okay’. So.
May he return
to his child, may his home always be hers,
may they laugh and laugh and laugh before
and after problems inevitably rise again
like vapor to form clouds over their common
ground, may hide and seek be, once and for all,
only a game, may she find him wherever.
8
�Academic Essay
Excerpt from Argos' Odyssey - Lost Years
Winston Elliott
Odysseus was once like the young Argos. He was a noble boy who was trained
to hunt and expected by his family to be strong and swift. We know this from the
story told of Odysseus’ naming by his grandfather Autólykos and the boar hunt,
where Odysseus wins the famous scar used to identify him when he returns home
(Fitzgerald, Bk. 19, 460-550). This story shows that Odysseus, like the dog he bred
and trained, was a hunter from his early days.
With hounds questing ahead, in open order,
the sons of Autólykos went down a glen,
Odysseus in the lead, behind the dogs,
pointing his long-shadowing spear (Fitzgerald, Bk. 19, 508-510).
Of course, Odysseus was in the lead. This is his “pup” training analogous to the
training he gave Argos. But he is also “behind the dogs.” This is the life he and
Argos would have enjoyed if his allies had not called Odysseus to Troy. Even as a
boy Odysseus is strong and resilient:
“Odysseus…had the first shot…but the boar had already charged under the long
spear…he hooked aslant with one white tusk and ripped out flesh above the
knee…Odysseus’s second thrust went home…and the beast fell” (Fitzgerald, Bk.
19, 520). This character began early his telling of tales, for when he returned home
his parents wanted to know how “he got his wound; so he spun out his tale,
recalling how the boar’s white tusk caught him when he was hunting on Parnassos”
(Fitzgerald, Bk. 19). Odysseus was always full of skill and luck, taking impossible
risks and doing remarkable things. This is the Odysseus who was lost to Argos, to
Telemachus, and to Ithaka for twenty years.
In the absence of computer data bases and DNA testing, the people of Ithaca
relied on other incontrovertible means of identification. Eurykleia recognized the
scar, before she “saw” her master. Odysseus could not dispute it, but to guarantee
success of his mission, he demanded her silence with threats of death (Fitzgerald,
Bk. 19, 550). Eurykleia also uses the scar as proof of Odysseus’ identity in her
conversation with Penelope, saying, “But there is one sure mark that I can tell you:
that scar left by the boar’s tusk long ago” (Fitzgerald, Bk. 23, 80). Odysseus proves
9
�Academic Essay
his identity to Eumaeus with “a sign that you can trust me, look: this old scar from
the tusk wound that I got boar hunting….” (Fitzgerald, Bk. 21, 240) Finally, Laertes
is shown the scar by Odysseus:
“Oh, Father, I am he! Twenty years gone, and here I’ve come again to
my own land!”.... “If you are Odysseus, my son, come back, give me some
roof, a sign to make me sure.” His son replied: “The scar then, first of
all” (Fitzgerald, Bk. 24, 350)
Here the tears may flow, finally, after all the disguises and lies are put aside. These
tears need not be hidden, as they had been for Argos. Odysseus’ adventure with
the boar hunt as a boy shows us the true identity of Odysseus-- born to be
Odysseus the adventurer, the master strategist, taker of risks, and man of courage
beyond all measure. He was brave, skillful, and perhaps reckless enough to need
luck, or the help of Athena. This scar will prove to be the only certain way to
identify Odysseus, even for those who know him best.
How remarkable, then is the single glance of “knowing” that is all Argos will
need to recognize his master, despite all the years that separated them. But Argos
ran out of luck when Odysseus left for Troy, and Athena apparently did not come
to him on her visits to the household. And yet, twenty years is a long time for dogs
to live. Athena’s blessings had been showering down on Penelope and Telemachus,
and perhaps a few sprinkles reached Argos to extend his life until Odysseus
returned. Argos’ story is linked to the story of Odysseus, for Argos owes his very
existence to Odysseus. After all, Odysseus bred Argos. Odysseus wanted Argos to
join him on the great hunts to come so he bred a dog that would be strong and
swift. Argos would never lose the scent of the prey because he was a fine dog who
had been trained by a skillful and wise master. Surely Argos was meant to be at
Odysseus’ side.
For Ithaka, Penelope, Telemachus, and Laertes, Odysseus did finally return.
We are left with hope that Ithaka will be reunited and once again have its King. A
loyal wife will once again be with her beloved husband. Our young prince is now
guided by Athena and his father. A father is reunited with his long-lost son and
may now rest in true peace. But Argos has no future with Odysseus, only a “last
look, and having seen him, dies; So closed for ever faithful Argus’ eyes!” (Pope) I
wish that Odysseus had let his guard down long enough for this to happen:
10
�Academic Essay
My master takes my head in his hands and looks deep into my eyes.
“Can it be that you still live? Truly the gods are good….
Now you may let go of your duty to me and hunt the wild stag and the
fearsome boar on Mount Olympus. They wait for you on the other side,
most loyal of all creatures.”
This passage is not from any of the translations of Homer’s Odyssey I consulted. It
is from a novel I recently discovered (Argos, Ralph Hardy, Harper Collins, 2016).
This is the ending moment Argos deserved. Why wouldn’t Homer write this ending?
I think for the same reason Odysseus doesn’t throw his arms around Telemachus,
Penelope, Laertes, or Eurykleia. It does not fit Odysseus’ plan to be recognized
before he is ready. Is this selfish or merely hardheaded realism? With Odysseus it
is a mixture of both.
In a way, Argos is like Simeon, who had waited many years for a glimpse of
the baby who would be the savior of the world, which he had been promised.
When the promise is fulfilled, he can die in peace. When the child was brought to
the temple for a blessing, overjoyed, Simeon uttered these words, which were his
last:
Lord now lettest thy servant
Depart in peace, according to thy word
For my eyes have seen your salvation
That you have prepared
in the presence of all peoples. (Luke 29:31)
This man waited for years, longing for the arrival of the promised one who would
put right in the world all the things that are crooked. Finally, justice and goodness
would arrive and reign with equity. Is it too much to say that in a secular sense,
Odysseus was to be the “salvation” for his beleaguered wife, his endangered son,
and lawless Ithaka? In this beautiful moment, in the last breath of Argos, he finally
sees the promised one, who will put right all that is not so in Ithaka. And having
finally seen him, Argos dies.
Odysseus, although a mortal, had godlike characteristics that were given to
him when Athena cloaked him in golden splendor, making him taller and younger,
11
�Academic Essay
with hair like hyacinth blossoms. In crucial moments in battles, Athena deflected
spears that would have killed Odysseus. At critical junctures she appeared in the
guise of Mentor, to guide him with divine wisdom. Although Odysseus was a
mortal, he had encounters with the divine often enough to reliably seek and find
divine solutions. And Odysseus definitely had people who “believed in” him, in
the sense of relying on him and trusting his capabilities. Penelope was one, robust
enough in her faith to hold on for twenty years without a single letter or message,
without news from people who had seen him or his men. Nothing. That is
extraordinary faith. And Telemachus, although he remembered nothing of his
father, and wasn’t even sure of his parentage, wanted to believe. When he finally
talked with the war heroes who knew his father and recognized Odysseus’
characteristics in him, Telemachus became a true believer. And of course, there
was Argos, who needed no proof whatsoever to “know” Odysseus, who believed
that his master would finally come home.
Homer’s Odyssey is a marvelous story offering exciting tales of goddesses,
giants, six headed monsters, grand victories, and deadly defeats. In the midst of the
epic adventures of the wily Odysseus, Homer artfully paints the doubt, despair,
and disorder, which plagues a leaderless land. Those who are left behind for two
decades pay a heavy price. Argos’ story is a delicately painted miniature offering
the reader of the Odyssey a vibrant portrait of life in Ithaca without a master, a king,
a father, a son, and a husband. Athena always aided Odysseus when he needed her
most. Penelope never failed her husband. Telemachus, empowered and
encouraged by Athena, grew to be a prince. Eumaeus remained steadfast. Argos?
He was touched by greatness in his youth as he was bred and trained by the
transformative spirt of his master. When Odysseus was gone, Argos was forgotten,
abandoned, and cast away in disordered Ithaca. But Odysseus never left his heart.
In the end, Argos was reunited with Odysseus and a salt tear from his beloved
master quenched his parched spirit, as Argos sailed off on his final journey. May
we, like Argos, always keep Odysseus in our hearts.
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"Here, Cyclops...now drink some wine" Odyssey, (Emily Wilson) Book 4. 345
Mosaic floor, Villa Romana Del Casale, Sicily photographed by Elizabeth Janthey
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�Personal Essay
Dialogue and Understanding in the Seminar Oral
Courtney White
When I think of good opening questions, “What's the point of it all?” is not
one of them. That might be considered a question worthy of existential
philosophy, but I chose it as my opening question for my literature seminar oral
with Mr. Townsend. This type of question is generally thought of as too broad.
In my previous orals, I brought an opening question that was specific, and
prepared by looking over the texts, assuming that the conversation would be
directed in specific ways. Despite all the preparations, the tutors seemed to take
the conversations into unknown territory where I felt like I was hit by a torpedo
fish. What led me to ask this question?
I never quite understood the draw of literature, so I chose to take the math
and science segment first, followed by the history segment. The scientific proofs
invigorated me and the specificity of geometry gave an illusion of clarity in a
chaotic world; this kind of analysis carried over well to the history segment.
Emboldened by my newfound knowledge of ancient philosophy and Greek
history, I felt ready to take on the literature segment, which was always a weak
area for me. I read Homer through the lens of Vico, and Shakespeare through
the lens of Plutarch. I attempted to analyse the texts with the same specificity of
math and science, but literature resists such scrutiny. After some time, however, I
was able to shed my need for finding historical accuracy, through being drawn to
the emotional portrayals of the human experience.
Still, despite being sympathetic to some of the various characters, I was
repulsed by the horrible actions of pretty much every one of them. What values
are these texts teaching us when we read that Achilles drags Hector's dead and
bloodied body around? What are we supposed to believe when we read that
Dionysus puts a spell on women who not only dance and drink but tear animals
to pieces with their bare hands? I kept asking myself as I read, how do we know
what a virtue worth pursuing is? Who sets the standard? Is it the gods or is it
man? Who is a virtuous man? Can we justify revenge or murder for the sake of
honor? Can we justify lying for the sake of storytelling? As a Christian, I take to
heart when St. Paul says to dwell on whatever is good, noble, and pure. The
content of the literature we read made me question if there was anything in it that
was good, noble or pure. As my oral approached, I still had not gotten the
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�Personal Essay
illumination I was seeking. I was also starting to despise the texts we were
reading. There really wasn’t a more honest or more pointed question for the oral
than “what’s the point of it all?”
With two semesters under my belt, I knew that the tutors were there to help
me discover and grow. At this point I was grateful that St. John's puts so little
emphasis on grades, emboldening me to take a chance. My question wasn’t
rhetorical, rather it was a plea to truly get what I was seeking. Mr. Townsend had
the patience and subtlety to draw out my thoughts and feelings and to expand my
question. He asked me questions as if I were the author of a great book. Like
Socrates, he helped me to discover and to see things in a new perspective. He
was humble, patient, and deeply attentive. He was not afraid to get to the heart of
the issues most people are afraid to broach. Mr. Townsend asked me if I was
looking for a judge to determine what is right, like Athena in Eumenides. That
didn’t seem to resonate with my deeper concern. When he pointed to Hippolytus
as an archetype of a sacrificial figure, I began to see how I could find value in
these texts.
It seemed that my main issue with the Greek texts was that there was no
guiding light of truth. A source of truth was what I was looking for, an
anchor. Mr. Townsend assured me that, even in a secular college, it's acceptable
to come in with my own religious convictions as a compass for interpretation.
One way to look at it, he told me, was to believe that God providentially created
all people in such a way that certain truths can be illuminated through their
actions. So, is there anything good, noble or true in these texts? As I thought
about it, examples flooded my mind: The desire to sacrifice oneself for a higher
cause, in Hippolytus, the desire to forgive in the Iliad, an acknowledgement that
revenge perpetuates violence in the plays of Aeschylus, the desire to conquer
death in Antony and Cleopatra.
Although my opening question wasn’t directly answered, the desire of my
heart was. I wanted to find value in literature, and reconcile my emotional draw
to the characters with my desire for a clear understanding of virtue. I am now in
the Philosophy and Theology segment where I can explore the concept of virtue
in more depth. My next opening question: “Can we even call something good or
bad without evoking an externally derived moral standard?”
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�Personal Essay
“Therefore etc”: Bang or Whimper?
Jeremy Sheeler
I must confess, Euclid just does not speak to my soul. Despite understanding
intellectually why he is so important (both foundationally for mathematics, and
because so many thinkers whom I respect hold him in such high regard), I
cannot help but find him boring. Somehow I doubt the beauty of an elegant
construction will ever move me, nor, as in the case of an affected acquaintance of
one of my classmates, will I ever shed tears of joy over him. I am certainly awed
by Euclid’s god-like powers to create a world ex nihilo from the abyss of
breadthless depthlessness. Yet, this realm lacking space or time, for me, also lacks
life. Though apparently a later substitution by our esteemed translator Heath for
the full re-enunciation intended by Euclid, I cannot think of a better way to sum
up the feeling I get after working through a proposition than the underwhelmed,
“Therefore etc.” Still, I cannot help but wonder to what sort of soul such a
project does speak?
As with Aristotle, there is a dry austerity to Euclid’s procedure: proposition
following upon proposition, piece by piece, step by step, till this rigorously
rational world is created. What I cannot decide, though, is if dry necessarily means
arid? Heraclitus once proclaimed that “To souls, it is joy to become wet;”
however, in his typical self-countervailing fashion, he also admonished, “It is the
dry soul which is wisest and best.” While there is much joy to be found in the
excesses of the Dionysian flood, the more delicate growths of reason and
prudence tend to be drowned in the torrent. Yet so too, it would seem, is the
aridity of the desert an equally inhospitable climate for life.
The Dictionary of Scientific Biography opens its lengthy article on “The
Geometer” by admitting, “Although Euclid is the most celebrated mathematician
of all time, whose name became a synonym for geometry until the twentieth
century, only two facts of his life are known, and even those are not beyond
dispute.” It is postulated, however, that in addition to compiling the Elements, he
also wrote treatises on spheres and cylinders, geometric optics, analytical problem
solving, and, most-contested of all, a mathematization of music. Yet, despite our
lack of any definitive knowledge of his life, perhaps, we could draw out some
aspects of his soul merely from his work. As Nietzsche purports in his Philosophy
in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, “Philosophic systems, even if completely erroneous,
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�Personal Essay
have always one wholly incontrovertible point: personal mood, color.” Though
being far from qualified to judge the efficacy of Euclid’s enterprise itself, I feel at
least slightly more comfortable formulating some hypotheses about the possible
character traits one could deduce from such a painstaking attempt at
systematization.
What drives someone to desire this degree of order and exactitude? Is it
really just for knowledge’s sake—a disinterestedness desire for the Truth, with
uncompromising reason merely seen as the straightest path? It is certainly a noble
image, and the prevailing one we continue to hold of the “Man of Science”
today. But if one peers beyond this façade, there is no man who appears behind
this scientist—only method. Euclid, the man, disappears in his work, no more
material than the world that he has so carefully constructed. Still, there must be
something there, something to this need that Euclid felt. For though a perfect circle
can never actually exist, nor will a straight line ever sit at a perfect right angle
upon a plane, there must be some sort of connection to the “real” world.
But what if my inability to appreciate him is not simply a matter of personal
preference, but instead a personal failure? If the effusiveness of so many of my
colleagues is any indication, not only is the solemn reverence that I have so far
managed to muster warranted, but a genuine excitement is possible. Their
enthusiasm, however, seems to stem from two entirely different (and conflicting)
sources: either his procedure accords with their nature; or it arises from a selfaware recognition of lack—either they already love order; or they are perceptive
enough to know that they need it. What if Euclid, the man, did not feel the need
to live in his work because the dryness of his intellectual pursuits was actually a
counterbalance to the joyous overflow of his actual life? While unfortunately the
details of his biography have been lost to the sands of time, there is another
figure that perhaps can be justifiably put in his place to judge the soundness of
the project.
The renowned historian of mathematics Thomas L. Heath was born in 1861,
in the small English village of Barnet-byle-wold. His love of the ancient world
began early in life at the knee of his father, a farmer with a penchant for the
Greeks, and would eventually lead him to a degree in both mathematics and
classics from Trinity College Cambridge. After graduation, Heath became a civil
servant in the national treasury, but his desire to continue living the “life of the
mind” never faded. When not engrossed in official duties, he engaged in
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�Personal Essay
independent scholarship, and, despite never holding any academic position, is
now revered as one of the leading authorities in the history of mathematics. Yet,
in addition to these staid and scholarly pursuits, he was also an accomplished
pianist, literature and train enthusiast, mountaineer, as well as a loving husband
and father. Indefatigable to the very end, he climbed his last mountain at the age
of seventy and left behind an unfinished work on Aristotle’s mathematics when
he died suddenly of a stroke in 1940.
Now this is hardly the image of a man living apart from life, rather of one
engaged in all its fullness and multifarious offerings. He seems to be the very type
of individual whom St. John’s wishes to midwife into the world: one who not just
knows arête, but practices it; one not just locked away in a sterile laboratory,
creating impossible worlds, but using the knowledge gained there for this one.
Euclid’s imaginary world is then perhaps not in parallelity to life, but in harmony
with it. But as Heath so acutely recognized: it is a means, not an end.
In his essay The Abolition of Man, a reflection on the disintegration of the
human soul under modern philosophy theories, C.S. Lewis contends that there
are certain “qualities” in the world that “demand” certain responses from us—
that is, whether we like it or not. To illustrate this, he admits that, although he
does not particularly enjoy the company of small children, he sees this as a defect
in himself, instead of a mere personal preference. The goal of his essay is to show
that there are standards—goods—in this world that, by necessity, transcend an
individual’s subjectivity—which if we lack, then there is something fundamental
missing in our lives. He calls this sort of judgment, “Speaking from within the
Tao.”
Perhaps my failure to appreciate Euclid is of just this sort of deficiency.
Perhaps, it is a refusal to become whole, an attempt to instead hide away as a selfcontented half-man. Yet so too would this be the case for the those who love
Euclid simply because he comports with their inner nature—but for the opposite
reason. The tallest growths, it would seem, flourish only in flush environments.
But lucky for us humans this does not depend solely upon the lottery of birth or
accident of location: it is a choice we are all given to create for ourselves.
So, then, to attempt to answer my titular question: Is “Therefore etc,” as an
end to Euclid’s propositions, a bang or a whimper? Maybe it is neither. Heath
was just too busy living his life to tell you what you already know.
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�Personal Essay
The Eternal Kingdom of the Triangle by Jaime Marquez
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�Creative Writing
Why I Am Here
Bonnie Naradzay
Ibykos fragment 286, translated using only words from Martin Luther King’s Letter from the
Birmingham City Jail (After Anne Carson in Nay, Rather)
In Birmingham, on the one hand,
early Christians,
being willing to face hungry lions
where a higher law was involved,
while white mothers
screaming
on television
were seen.
On the other hand, for me
an unjust law distorts the soul.
Nay rather,
like a code
inflicted on a minority,
creating with unjust methods
parading without a permit,
on its face,
nothing
wrong
man’s tragic separation.
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�College Ephemera
A Conversation with Louis Petrich, Tutor
Charles Green & Jaime Marquez, Colloquy
Colloquy: How did you arrive at St. John's?
Louis Petrich: That’s a long story. How far back should I go? I think the
intellectual seeds for becoming a tutor were sown in college, by diverse studies at
Northwestern University.
I started out in “the integrated science program,” an intense curriculum for kids
very strong in math and science, who did not want to major in any one science,
but preferred to study all to become interdisciplinary researchers. I did that for
two years. Almost all my classes were physics, chemistry, biology, and
mathematics. But I took an elective my sophomore year, a survey of Western
literary classics, most of which we read at the College. I fell in love with the great
epics, dramas, poetry, and novels, and felt deprived that I wasn't getting more, to
learn how to express that very love. The sciences do not teach you how to talk
with the beloveds. So I switched majors to English, though first I took off a
quarter to read on my own. (Northwestern is on the quarter system.) I mostly
read the Romantic writers of the American tradition--Emerson, Thoreau, and
Whitman. Students who have done zoom classes with me will recognize the
portrait of Thoreau that hangs in my office.
His book, Walden, had a tremendous influence on me. I went to Concord,
Massachusetts, for a summer to study Thoreau and Emerson, who both lived
there. I stayed in a replica of his hut. I got to know some estimable
“Thoreauvians,” and wrote a one-man show on the life of Thoreau that I
performed locally when I returned to Northwestern. I still maintained my studies
of math and the sciences, by making them my electives. So I graduated college
with (what felt like) a dissonant double background of poetry and science. I went
immediately to the University of Chicago to harmonize that doubleness in the
Committee on Social Thought, which allowed graduates to pursue their own
questions with anyone who shared them. Owing to the influence of one of my
mentors, David Grene, an Irish classicist and farmer, I became more and more
interested in Shakespeare and the theater. I got involved in a local professional
company at the University of Chicago, and I started writing a dissertation on
Shakespeare and performance. This was all in the 1980’s. Then in the fall of 1989,
the world changed as the communist countries in Eastern and Central Europe
collapsed in a heap. The Soviet Union would as well, two years later. I learned
through a friend that the Fulbright Scholar program, under the agency of the
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�College Ephemera
State Department, was having a hard time filling its slots for Romania, which had
a bloody revolution in December ‘89. Conditions were very bad and few people
wanted to risk the rampages of Romanian miners, who were making front-page
news. I dropped right into those alien waters, like jumping off a cliff at high tide.
By that time, I was tired of being in graduate school, preparing for a career in
some American English department, most of which had enthralled themselves to
political and sociological agendas that did not suit my tastes, which as I said were
acquired in the knowledge-driven laboratories of science and the beauty-driven
stagings of Shakespearean verse. So I up and left for Romania as a Fulbright
Scholar to teach American studies--not my field, but that’s what the freed
Romanians wanted. My only qualification--being American--was enough. I really
loved it. The Romanians were very pro-American and eager to read our books,
previously prohibited. If they were taught anything about us, it was through a
Marxist-Leninist indoctrination. Though no one believed in that, they felt
compelled to go along, until enough of them realized they needn’t, and there I
was.
I ended up teaching for ten years in several former communist countries of
Eastern and Central Europe and the Soviet Union--until 9/11. Then the world
changed again, and the borders, newly opened across the once half-forbidden
globe, were closing because of terrorism and overstated fears. The resources that
supported my work in education were redirected to fighting terrorism and
keeping us all safe. By that time I was married and had a son. We were living in
Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, north of Afghanistan, a Moslem country. It was deemed a
precarious situation, though really there was nothing that warranted the closures
and evacuations. I had tucked away in the back of my mind an idea I never
thought would come to pass: to teach in the U.S. at the only College that fully
suited my waywardness, St. John’s. I knew about it because there's a lot of
crossover between St. John's and the University of Chicago. So I applied for a
tutor position. The Dean flew me half-way around the globe for an interview in
January of 2002, and by April the Instruction Committee had decided in my
favor. So if not for Osama Bin Laden and 9/11, I would probably have remained
a happy expatriate, teaching American studies to our former official enemies,
who now number among my best and oldest friends. I do miss that life--the
adventures and freedoms, not to be had now--but of course I’m grateful to tutor
in Annapolis, for as long as the students want it.
CQ: Do you do you notice any differences between teaching undergraduates and
teaching at the Graduate Institute?
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�College Ephemera
LP: I get asked that a lot. I'm not sure why people are so interested in that
question. There are differences, obviously. GI students are older. They tend to be
more settled in their lives than the College kids. They're not living together in
campus dorms like the undergrads. So they are not as dependent on the
community for their well-being, and consequently they have adjusted better to
the online medium than my younger students.
One thing I do miss in the GI is the chronological program of the College. With
any group of undergraduates, I know what they have read before. In the GI,
students take the segments in any order. I'm often tempted to make a reference
to another book in the program, but I can't do that in the GI as I can among the
undergraduates, who share an enlarging common ground for discussion. But the
GI students have chosen to come back to school, after an interim of some years
spent in a world delinquent in the things we do; thus they’re all the more
appreciative of the books and conversations and friendships to be made here, like
nowhere else, they tell me.
I have personal reasons (that aren't so interesting) for teaching in the GI, but I’ll
mention them. I like getting a new group of students each semester. I like that
there are smaller classes in the GI than in the College. And I've gotten to like
being the solo tutor in seminar. I've learned a lot by having to carry responsibility
for the seminar’s questions and conduct. I like teaching a preceptorial alongside
the seminar, for there’s always a book I want to work on for sixteen weeks. So
there are many things to please me in the GI. I’ve also done much teaching in the
College’s continuing education program. A Friday night lecture I gave on
Chekhov had its origin in a weekend community seminar, with people off the
street interested in his stories, still students.
CQ: I'm wondering if you could talk about your Friday night lecture on Falstaff
which you gave in the spring of 2019.
LP: That lecture was a joy. We were trying with difficulty to schedule it in April,
a very busy month, with croquet, Senior Prank, and other activities that cluster at
the end of the year. But it suddenly occurred to me that this would be a great
prank lecture, because of Falstaff, who (among other roles) is a prankster. So I
said to the Dean, “All right, let's schedule it right after Thursday’s senior prank,
as long as certain conditions are met.” These included advertising the lecture so
that people would not know what to expect: something prankish, but nonetheless
serious? The occasion made me push quite far in vindicating Falstaff’s comic
excesses, rooted in the body and a deep longing for dimly remembered paradise.
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In fact I rewrote the lecture with an audience of senior pranksters in mind, who’d
be turning of the College into a kind of Boar’s Head tavern of Eastcheap. You
see it was first drafted a couple of years before, while I was on sabbatical, on the
shores of an island in the Caribbean, my little piece of paradise. Falstaff lays claim
to paradise, in that he doesn't consent to death; he doesn't sweat at labors; he
gardens pleasures and reaps what others sow, without guilt, without trepidation. I
had a lot of fun releasing him as the center of meaning in Henry IV, Part 1. He’s
the one attractive alternative to the ugly politics of Hal's father, and the excessive
honor-loving of Hotspur, who, though beautiful, is too vulnerable to destruction
by the politicians. I tried to offer Falstaff as a third way, whenever life presents
itself in the form of two deadly necessary alternatives.
CQ: What distinguishes Shakespeare's plays from those of his contemporaries,
like Marlowe or Ben Johnson, such that he’s still read and performed today?
LP: Well, if you read a late play of Shakespeare, say Henry VIII, on which he
probably collaborated with John Fletcher, you can immediately hear the
difference between Shakespeare's dramatic verse and his popular colleague’s.
Marlowe is credited with introducing blank verse to the English stage. But his
verse, great as it is, doesn't convince you the way Shakespeare’s does. Marlowe is
more cumbersome and literary. Read the plays aloud and see for yourself.
By the way, an interesting thing to note about Shakespeare is that even though he
knew, along with everyone else, that he was the greatest writer of his time, and
would remain a treasure forever, he didn't succor the kind of pride that forbade
collaboration with others. He was willing to share the creative work, not only
with his own company of actors, but also with lesser playwrights. I think that was
part of his strength--not caring much about possessing and controlling his
creations, his Ariel and Caliban loves. Think about that the next time you read or
see The Tempest.
Also wonderful, along these lines, is that Shakespeare never put effort into
publishing his plays. He left them to chance, or to other people. I think they
were, to him, a kind of ephemera, written one after another (about two per year)
to entertain the high and low of London. And all the while he was reviving and
directing old and new plays by others and co-managing the company. He wasn’t
writing dramatic “literature,” and yet he struck such deep chords that the plays
seem miraculous, such that many seek to assign them to an illustrious author. In
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�College Ephemera
the end, Prospero, the stage master, would have tossed the whole corpus into the
sea. That’s worth thinking about, too.
CQ: Do the techniques of acting and drama translate at all to leading a seminar
or tutorial?
LP: I think in some ways, yes, definitely. Actors must learn to be believable
onstage, by delivering their lines freshly minted, even if they’re as old and
handled as pewter. I’ll never forget an actor’s workshop I attended in London
one summer, in which we were asked, one at a time, to stand up and recite
Shakespeare’s sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” We all took
our turns, but not one of us got beyond the twentieth word or so before the
Anglo-Irish instructor, from England’s top school of drama, precisely
interrupted, “Stop, I don’t believe you just now. You can sit down, please. Next.”
We had to believe ourselves that the words of that sonnet had never been writ or
said before we pronounced them--that they were our original creations of the
moment. In seminar or tutorial, tutors return to the same books over and over
again, making believe, because it’s true, that they never grow old or stale. It
should always be an original moment of creation in discussing them. Otherwise,
it’s time to stop. Participants in seminar, like actors, must listen genuinely, not
robotically, not waiting for the cue to say something expected of them. We need
to appreciate being part of an ensemble, and not just a bunch of solo performers.
Good timing is essential, along with a balanced facility for comedy and tragedy,
something Socrates advocates, for aren’t we all fools, we brave-hardy fallen
equals of the lettered great? In both capacities, a modulating voice that brings out
the shifting meanings of speech is such a help. The books we read come from
breathers like us. Often people forget that. So they don't modulate. Everything is
spoken and heard in a deadly monotone. So having some background in theatre
helps readers become co-creators, as I think they should be, now more than ever,
to thwart the machines.
CQ: Do you think live theater will survive this period of extended closures and
quarantine?
LP: Definitely. There've been plagues in the past and theater has survived their
closures. You know not long after Shakespeare's death, the theaters were closed
by the Puritans for twenty years! The real threat to theater is not disease, but
righteous politics and purifications. Besides, what's the point of saving lives if
you get rid of the things that make life worth living? If we’re going to keep safe,
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�College Ephemera
at least let’s do it Falstaff’s way, rising up to full cheeky liveliness, having
counterfeited death for a while.
You know, I recently streamed a very successful National Theatre production of
Twelfth Night, my favorite Shakespearean comedy. But it's not nearly the same
thing as being there, live. These streamed productions are missing the risk of
spontaneity and contact with human bodies onstage, spitting heart and mind into
the rapt audience. If streaming plays is the future, then we won’t keep funding
theater, we’ll just have film.
CQ: Would it be fair to say, by way of analogy, that streaming a play is akin to
seeing video images of beautiful places, rather than visiting the actual sites?
LP: That's the effect. I find it demoralizing, really, that all these travel companies,
who have found me out, deluge me with cheerful offers of a “virtual travel
experience.” Why should I enable the doctrine of the enemy?
CQ: You’ve contributed many poems to Colloquy over the last several years.
Could you talk a little about some of your poetic influences and favorite poets?
LP: My main influence is blank verse, iambic pentameter, owing to all my
drinking in of Shakespeare. I’d have to make the effort to avoid it, but why? I like
rhyming, but not at the expense of sense, so I’ll often admit rhymes anywhere in
the line, so long as the words say precisely what is wanted. I am fussy about
rhythm. I count syllables and stresses, and fight against lazy irregularities. But
laziness often gets the better of me.
CQ: Can you talk more about the process you go through in writing some of the
poems you’ve contributed to Colloquy?
LP: My process is continual revision. In the morning hours, words that somehow
were found in sleep, sound out and self-select. I’m learning to get out of their
way. From whence they come, who knows? Formerly, the sources were called
“muses,” a useful term still for the faces and voices that get inside you. I regret
the fact that meeting deadlines requires premature parturition, which vanity
assists, and later regrets. There’s much sense in Emily Dickinson’s process: keep
working at your poems until you’re dead; let others see to their publication; and
thereby keep the muses from feeling betrayed by missteps in public rehearsal.
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Another creative “process” I learned from performing in Othello. I’m sure that
Shakespeare felt Iago as deeply as he felt Othello. He does not censure his
capacity for the darkness that owns the light, and that’s a giant part of his
strength. Theatrically and poetically, Iago is a power to be husbanded, as
questions are. They make for a pleasing whole that contributes to knowledge. For
hate knows its objects as deeply as love does, and questions them with like
authority. Something else relevant to writing poetry I learned from King Lear: to
speak from stirred lips that aren’t specific to the owner. Personal experiences are
straw, to be spun into the silk that is simplicity itself. Lear gets there by the end.
Shakespeare’s dark lady sonnets spring from personal experience of betrayal in a
love triangle, but it would be vulgar-minded to read them primarily as
autobiography. His Richard II supposedly drew from Queen Elizabeth the
response that Richard (being deposed) was her; a dangerous identification to
make, but Shakespeare must have trusted that she would not mistake a poetic
character for her own history. It’s discomforting to treat life as scraps for
composition, but each of us does this at night in dreams. Out of vanity we see
ourselves there, though it is merely an elbow that is wanted by the poet, the
dreamer, the lover. I might start a poem with some woman’s elbow, a catchy
saying, a breakfast taste, a spasm of jealousy, but soon these things go roaming
for words that live out there, where Cordelia’s lips have gone, and then I’m free
of my dead-end self, to borrow breath from what’s forever stirring in the air.
We’ve all had that experience, right?—when you read something and say, “That’s
me, and I could’ve written it, if only I knew how to write!” We’re all out there, when
smitten, like Orlando posting love poems on embarrassed trees. The poems I
post may be like the abrupt body of Richard III, sent before his time into this
breathing world, scarce half made up. But let the dogs bark, that hunchback
knew how to get the girl and the crown, though he didn’t keep them long.
CQ: If you could add any books or authors to the Program, which would you
add?
LP: James Joyce. I think his story, “The Dead,” is the greatest short story I've
read. And Ulysses, my God, yes, yes, because there is probably no other College in
America, or the world, that better prepares its students for the amazing feast that
Joyce serves up in that book. I'd like to read more American authors: Frederick
Douglass, his autobiography, I'd want to include with Ben Franklin's. Each of
them solves the problem of life, as it faced him, and each still speaks to the
question of identity that so occupies us today. Augustine’s shouldn’t be the only
autobiography we read. We don't read any dramatists after the 17 th-century. I
would at least add Chekov. His Cherry Orchard is about keeping a good thing
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going in a world opposed to that thing. It would make an apropos final reading
for seniors and their tutors.
CQ: Are there any books on the program currently that you feel are no longer
helpful, that don't serve their purpose anymore? Or that don't excite you when
you enter into them?
LP: That's very rare. Carl Jung’s book on Freud, which we read in the GI, is an
interpretation, and I’d rather read Freud himself and form my own
interpretations. There’s been a fair amount of experimentation on how to end the
senior year. What’s a fitting end to this chronological program of ours? We finish
by going back to the Phaedrus, implying that the end is the beginning. I like that
idea, but not by itself. I got to see, while living abroad for many years, something
you hear said: that civilization, which takes a long time to erect, can be lost damn
quickly. The way to keep it going is to return to the beginning, but with a
conviction of how precarious it is. That’s why I would end with Chekhov, for he
knew the fragility of that cherry orchard, which we hear being chopped down at
the end of the play, to make money. Its caretakers did not take proper care. I
think that’s where we always are in danger.
CQ: What's your experience been leading online classes?
LP: Going into it, a year ago, I felt the dread of exile to Siberia (which I’ve been
to, in winter). It feels to me antithetical to community, humanity, and love. What
we value at the college is learning from each other face to face--in person--getting
energized from each other's actual company. Plato's word for that, as we all learn
to appreciate, is eros. When you're disembodied online, you lose that erotic
energy. This makes learning exhausting, and not much fun, either. Who looks
good online? Whose words are not impeded by the removal of common breath?
Who has not felt the urgent need to chuck the screens into the nearest river? But
I have to admit, nonetheless, that my online GI classes have gone much better than
I expected. Their success makes me want to say, like Polus, “I have to agree with
the argument, but still, I’m not going to live that way.” Lab classes in the College
suffer because there are no practica to perform with one’s own knowing hands.
So lab ceases to be lab, and science becomes more authoritarian. Math tutorial
also suffers, because we do need a real blackboard to give room to the beholding
of truths and the gestural expanding of thoughts--spontaneously. That’s a synonym
for life, you know.
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The Pandemic and the Iliad
Will Harvard
We all can look back on the past year and reflect on how we coped with the
dramatic change and shift that Covid-19 brought to our individual and collected
lives. Zoom became the world in which people went to work; school; even happy
hours and family gatherings. It would be the place I would spend my final
summer before graduating from St. John’s Graduate Institute. Four summers,
this was not how I wanted to end my tenure. And yet, I could not help but think
of the undergraduates who spent even more time than I did at St. John’s and
their loss of a senior spring on the beautiful Annapolis grounds. People lost jobs,
and relationships became strained for many communities living together. Screens
and the information contained on them, be it print, or video, became a lifeline
for a majority of people around the world. And although I count myself as one of
those people, I also craved silence and reflection. Too much screen time left me
fatigued and feeling even more distanced from people. By the end of the summer
I had taught the final two months of the school year on zoom as well as attended
my final St. John’s classes on it as well. I was averaging anywhere from two to six
hours on it: I needed a break, and this break came in the form of rereading an
edition of the Iliad I had had since college.
My initial hope was to reread the epic poem in the original Greek with all the
time I had to spare since most things in my community were still closed.
However, no matter how far I read, I could not help returning again and again to
book one and the opening of the work itself. What started out as a way to take
my mind off the pandemic, quickly turned into a meditation on the world’s
situation as well as the canon at St. John’s. For anyone that has read the poem,
the opening line is one of the most famous in all of literature, “sing, oh goddess,
the destructive wrath of Achilles, son of Peleus.” And while “wrath” deserves our
attention at the outset, since it is what fuels Achilles to return to battle after the
death of Patroclus and has him slay Hector, it was another word a few lines down
that drew me in as if reading the poem for the first time: “χολωθεὶς- having been
angered (ln.9).” This aorist participle describes Apollo and his anger at
Agamemnon for keeping the daughter of Chryses, who is a priest to Apollo, as a
war prize. As a result, Apollo sends a plague in the form of his arrows to punish
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the Greeks on behalf of his priest’s pain at not having his daughter returned by
Agamemnon in exchange for spoils and wealth. Homer describes the result of
this plague as “crowded pyres of the dead always burning (ln. 52).”
Perhaps it is simply the time we are living in with restrictions, a national death
toll, and trackers for those infected, but I simply could not move past this
episode in the poem. It felt as though I was watching this very scene play out
nationally before all our eyes. Here in this instance is Achilles, not the warrior
and vengeful killer, but Achilles, the diplomat, who calls the Greeks to council at
the behest of Hera, to whom the Greeks were so dear. Instead of wielding his
sword, Achilles reasons it is time to return home, or at least consult a seer to
understand why Apollo is so angry with them. Enter Kalchas, the greatest of
diviners, who led the Greeks to Troy, and is described as being able to know “the
things that are, the things to come, and the things that were.” But this matters
not as he makes Achilles swear to protect him, because he knows that he is going
to upset Agamemnon. He prudently addresses Achilles with the following:
For a king is greater when he is angry with a lesser man,
and even though on the same day he keeps his anger from rising,
he still holds back his grudge, deep in his chest, until it is fulfilled. (l.80-83)
And Kalchas is right. Agamemnon is furious with him as he replies,
Seer of evil, never have you spoken a favorable word to me.
Always evil things are dear to your heart to prophesize.
You have never spoken a worthy prophecy, nor has it ever been fulfilled.
(l.106-108)
Despite Kalchas’ prodigious skills, and having his gift of prophecy from Apollo
himself, Agamemnon uses the personal pronoun, “μοι-to me (ln. 106).” It is no
matter to Agamemnon how truthful Kalchas is being or even how skilled he is,
because Kalchas’ words are in direct opposition to Agamemnon’s personal wants
and desires. And we know this because Agamemnon tells the council he prefers
Chryseis to his own wife, Clytemnestra, in looks and work. From here Achilles
fulfills his promise to Kalchas and stands up to Agamemnon. As both men trade
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insulting speeches, it is Agamemnon who gets the final say when he gives back
Chryseis only to strip Achilles of his prize, Briseis. These actions have irrevocable
consequences as this is the reason Achilles abstains from the war and sets in
motion the future deaths of not only countless Greeks, but also that of Patroclus.
Achilles even puts it to Agamemnon that “my hands have managed the greater
part of this tiresome fighting (lns.165-166).”
While it is tempting to draw parallels with the language and reactions between
our country’s leadership with that of Agamemnon and Kalchas, as well as seeing
Achilles as a frontline worker in terms of how much fighting he bore, there is a
larger and more important question to ask: what does this episode mean for the
great books cannon at St. John’s? Indeed, every generation will have its
Agamemnon in one way or another. And time and again each passing generation
of St. John’s students will experience a Kalchas or diviner who sees the truth with
an Achilles willing to defend it. But what does it mean for us readers, those that
have read before us, and for those future generations that will read after us, that
the St. John’s curriculum chronologically begins with an episode of a pandemic,
anger, and the dichotomy between personal and civic responsibility on the behalf
of a king and a goddess born warrior? One may ask, especially of the Graduate
Institute, “but how does this episode stand at the forefront of St. John’s?” While
it is less evident at the Graduate Institute due to the opportunity to study
segments out of order, the undergraduates embark on the Iliad and the Odyssey
their freshman year. Perhaps sections of the Old Testament could be considered
older than Homer, but regardless, St. John’s undergraduates begin their academic
careers with a storyline that predates all the other Greek writers on the reading
list for that year. Achilles’ wrath is so famous that even if one has not read
Homer, she is certain to know it. And yet, before the invocation of the goddess
to sing of Achilles’ wrath, she must first explain the anger of a god, a king, a
warrior, and the balance of self-interest they have for themselves as well as
others.
Just like my time on the Annapolis campus, I am filled with questions more than
with answers. During this past year I have experienced anger, frustration, and
even compassion. While I count myself fortunate not to have lost anyone in my
family to Covid, I have watched as coworkers and family friends attended virtual
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funerals. Reading Book 1 of the Iliad was not therapeutic. I did not feel a sense of
perspective that the idea of a plague and the dissension it causes goes back to one
of our earliest forms of literature. Instead I came to understand the adverb “αἰεὶalways (ln. 52),” as in every time someone reads or listens to Book 1 of the Iliad,
the crowded funeral pyres of the dead are always burning, as if in perpetuum. And
the result will always be the same: an assembly of leaders called forth, the
consultation of an expert, and the resulting anger of those in attendance in
response to the truth. “Always” does not make this epic linear, instead, it
presents the work as continually existing, coming into being every time we pick
up the text to listen to the goddess explain Achilles’ wrath, and to a no less
important degree, a pandemic and its consequences.
By Neha Gaddam
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Excerpt from The Molting Eagle and the Shedding Serpent
James Wheeler
Nietzsche does not give us any tidy answers. Like the Sphinx to Oedipus, he
has presented us with a riddle. But for what purpose? Why not state his position
clearly? One answer might be that Nietzsche, through Zarathustra, does not want
to be understood by everyone. Maybe, he only wants those who read his words
slowly, precisely, and with blood-dripping intensity to be able to unravel the
bandages wrapped around this mummy of Moment. Perhaps he is telling us that
there must be some demonstration of faculties before the keys to the kingdom of
heaven and the gates of hell can be given. In that sense, it seems clear that
Zarathustra’s position on the eternal recurrence is not meant to encapsulate
everyone. Zarathustra is no savior for all of mankind.
If he is a savior at all, he is only so for those who can solve his riddle and
more importantly, once solved, can summon the courage to not wither before it.
Zarathustra’s idea of the eternal recurrence demands, even from himself, a
person unafraid to tie themselves to the tracks while the Train of All-Life hurtles
forever and repeatedly toward their body. The eternal recurrence is the
recognition and celebration of the idea that from those tracks there is no escape.
One cannot free oneself from the moment, that which shackles one in place. The
moment must be experienced in order for there to be a future and a past. Such a
courageous moment-lover also understands that the Train of All-Life cannot
move backward, only incessantly forward along the unalterable Track of Eternity,
a track to be traveled time and time and time again with no deviation.
But does the track proceed eternally in a straight line? Thus, the riddle
continues, and Zarathustra further complicates matters by cavalierly dismissing a
key element to the solution when he admonishes the dwarf for lazily stating that
“All truth is crooked; time itself is a circle.” Zarathustra responds to the dwarf by
stating that he is demeaning the thought of the eternal recurrence by making it
less complicated. That is to say, the dwarf dilutes the entire concept into the
simple, insouciant explanation that time is circular. In doing so, the converse of
the dwarf’s comment provides the linchpin to the entire idea: if time wasn’t
circular, and since it is self-evident that past events cannot be changed by actions
in the present, that is to say that we can’t walk backwards in time, how could
anyone or anything return to the same moment? The answer is that it can only be
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accomplished in a circular manner. As long as time is circular, the past can still
not be changed but it can be experienced again. As such, it can be returned to
eternally.
***
Of course, venturing an attempt at solving the riddle of the eternal
recurrence is only a part of the nut to be cracked, the hard coating protecting the
seed within. As that shell is peeled back, two additional layers are revealed. To
begin with, prior to even hinting at the eternal recurrence, Zarathustra presents as
a statement of fact that God is dead. He mentions it in the prologue while
walking through the forest where so many nuts hang from tree branches or litter
the ground. Interestingly, Zarathustra, that nomadic nutcracker, seems to be the
only person aware of this fact, as even the saint he comes into contact with in the
forest is not aware of God’s death: “Could it be possible? This old saint in the
forest has not yet heard anything of this, that God is dead!”
What, then, does it mean for the Christian god to be dead; and how does that
fact, if accepted as a fact, inform our understanding of the eternal recurrence?
For one, within a group of believers reliant on God’s continued existence, the
factual death of God would represent a loss of faith. No, not just a loss of faith, a
loss of connection to reality, an untethering of the mind. Such a spiritual and
metaphysical unraveling, if recognized as true by all investors in such holy stock,
would be cataclysmic. It would be the apocalypse of the mind. God, as man’s
most cherished creation, the most precious child of the mind of man, is supposed
to be that which is beyond death and gives undying structure to existence.
Additionally, the death of God signals to mankind that even their most
deathless vision can go blind. In such dark fumbling, what are God’s followers to
do? Now given a void, how does man choose the correct soil with which to fill
the hole caused by the absence of the creator of all values and the provider of all
purpose? Zarathustra has the answer: create once more and plant the seeds of
man’s future in the soil of the eternal recurrence. That is to say, in one way, with
his mind man created God; therefore, man, through his mind, is the true god and
the sole possessor of all the power he needs to provide purpose and meaning to
life. He only needs but to harness his creative desire to that end. In other words, it
is a matter of will, of will to power.
Which leads to the second layer of the riddle of the eternal recurrence: if we
stipulate that will in this sense is consistent with desire, what kind of will to
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power is that which Zarathustra advocates? Throughout the book, he regularly
speaks of the relationship between those in command and those who obey the
commanders. In one sense, it is of course easy to conclude that power to
Zarathustra is an imbalance of dominance: the person who wills more power into
their possession than others and who lords that power over any and all who have
less. In another sense, Zarathustra informs us, and therefore might be implying,
that will to power can also take the form of a single-minded obsessive hunt for
truth-knowledge and then hoarding that truth-knowledge so as to be swollen like
a tick, on the verge of bursting with so much knowing and so much truth. In
other words, it is a type of power sought so as to be conspicuously grand among
all the cathedrals of the mind: to have more truth-knowledge than others is to
have power over them due to the vacant pews inside their heads.
Another, and I speculate more accurate, meaning of will to power, at least in
the eagle eyes of Zarathustra, is dependent on the acceptance of the death of
God and the primacy of the eternal recurrence. As previously mentioned, if God
is dead, then there is no defender against the futility of life. If God is dead, then
we are all passengers in a car with no destination. There is no driver at the wheel,
and we have no direction home. However, if we have the strength and courage to
stare eternity square in his endless eye, we would ourselves have the vision to see
that all that can happen has happened and all that has happened will happen
again. While we would realize that our lives have no off-ramp, we would also
realize that we have the power to be the driver of our own car, not some god.
And we would shout in the voice of our highest song, Yes! Give me this
highway, this car, now and forever, over and over again!
Consequently, we are left with a choice: in recognition of the death of God
and the primacy of the eternal recurrence, do we throw our helpless hands up in
the air and become the last men that Zarathustra warns us of; those joyless,
purposeless, kings of emptiness, those owners of vacant, blinking eyes? Or do
we, bodies bristling with infinite exuberance and a belief in the value and purpose
of life that is deeper than the deepest well, infinitely and recurringly shout “Yes!”
to the eternal recurrence? If so, then that eternal yes-saying requires us to desire,
to lustily crave everything in our lives. We must, with our most irresistible hands,
grasp each and every single moment of our lives with a drunken desire and
rejoice in all that has happened, all that is happening, and all that will happen.
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Thus, spoke Life to Zarathustra: “For what does not exist cannot will; but
what is in existence, how could that still want existence? Only where there is life
is there also will; not will to life but—thus I teach you—will to power.” For
Zarathustra, such an acceptance is the most human imperative. It is the definition
of will to power. Our desire, our will to embrace the life we have and spend no
energy or thought on the life we want to have or think we should have had is
where true power lies. A person so equipped is a person as powerful as any god
the mind of man has ever created. Such a thought, were it to take hold of
humanity in a way that Christianity and other religions have, would be
transformative for humankind.
Perhaps the power of transformation is one reason why Zarathustra’s most
beloved animals are the proud eagle and the wise serpent. They molt and they
shed. Their willingness to do so is non-existent because they don’t have a choice.
The eagle and serpent don’t question their molting or their shedding. They don’t
try to fight it, to wish that it didn’t happen or that it would happen differently.
They are in life and such transformation automatically happens in that domain.
Life has deemed it necessary. In the face of such necessity, they focus only on
what life provides and transform when and how life demands. At this, the
serpent with split-tongue smiles, and the eagle, unweighted by the spirit of gravity
soars above us all.
The Geometry of Addiction by Jaime Marquez
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Vico’s Poetic Morals: Forced into Philosophy?
Akayla Lewis
In The New Science of Giambattista Vico, the author, G. Vico, makes a claim that
I found peculiar and interesting. In paragraph 509, Vico says, “for husbands
shared their first human ideas with their wives, beginning with the idea of a
divinity of theirs which compelled them to drag their women into caves; thus,
even this vulgar metaphysics began to know the human mind in God” (509). Of
course, this sentence is in the context of a larger thought, but I think it still
sounds jarring based on the context. Men dragging women into caves and forcing
them to be wives and share in philosophy does not sound like a world familiar to
me, but Vico argues that this practice was the way of the early humans. A few
immediate questions arise for me: What is this idea? Why did this happen? How
do I make sense of Vico’s claims in light of his work being a “history of human
ideas” (6, 347, 391, 424)?
Fear Forces the Hand
In The New Science, one of Vico’s main principles is that human civilization
began with three practices: religion, marriage, and burial. “From all that has been
set forth in general concerning the establishment of the principles of this Science,
we conclude that, since its principles are divine providence, moderation of the
passions by marriage, and immortality of human souls [witnessed] by burial, and
since the criterion it uses is that what is felt to be just by all men or by the
majority must be the rule of social life…” (360). Vico also argues that marriage
and burial precede from the human ideas of the gods. Ideas of the gods (or a
god) is the driving force of the actions of the early humans. Where does this
religious bent come from?
Fear is the beginning of the religious bent for man. “Thus, it was fear which
created gods in the world; but, as was remarked in the Axioms, not fear
awakened in men by other men, but fear awakened in men by themselves,” Vico
says (382). It is the human imagination of divinity that drives man to fear. The
early humans were “children” (187) that did not understand nature or have
reason to govern their views of the world. Vico posits that the human mind
reflects itself on whatever it does not understand. Vico says, “when men are
ignorant of the natural causes producing things and cannot even explain them by
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analogy with similar things, they attribute their own nature to them” (180). Vico
uses lightning and flooding as his examples of how humans reflected their minds.
When lightning would strike and people would fall, the early humans thought
that there was a mind with intention behind this phenomenon which was
perceived as a divine action. According to Vico, man’s natural curiosity put man
on this path; he says “curiosity that inborn property of man, daughter of
ignorance and mother of knowledge when wonder wakens our minds, has the
habit, wherever it sees some extraordinary phenomenon of nature, a comet for
example, a sun-dog, or a midday star, of asking straightway what it means” (189)
Humans are inclined to ask what something means, and this is a very fascinating
claim. The first response of man to something grand or rare is to ask what it
means. There is not an explanation for this other than for Vico to say that it is
inborn in humans. Either way, ascribing meaning to the phenomenon of nature is
how all (gentile) religions start Vico claims this as the universal beginnings of the
gentile world; every nation started this way. “Jove hurls his bolts and fells the
giants, and every gentile nation had its Jove,” (193) Vico states.
Sex Is Not Sexy
The question of how early ideas of divinity fits in with women being clubbed
and dragged into caves is still unanswered. How does religion compel these early
humans to this strange and seemingly backward behavior? Vico says of these
early humans, “Our treatment of it must take its start from the time these
creatures began to think humanly. In their monstrous savagery and unbridled
bestial freedom there was no means to tame the former or bridle the latter but
the frightful thought of some divinity, the fear of whom, as we said in the
Axioms is the only powerful means of reducing to duty a liberty gone wild”
(338). The fear of a great power above is the first step in man restraining himself.
It seems the early men thought they needed to control themselves so that
they would not be struck by Jove’s lightning. “Authority was at first divine; the
authority by which divinity appropriated to itself the few giants we have spoken
of, by properly casting them into the depths and recesses of the caves under the
mountains. This is the iron ring by which the giants, dispersed upon the
mountains, were kept chained to the earth by fear of the sky and of Jove,
wherever they happened to be when the sky first thundered” (387), Vico
surmises. Thunder and lightning drove these men into the caves because they
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concluded that the phenomenon was the work of a god who was enacting
violence against them. To escape this violence and consequence, men took cover
in caves thus restraining themselves.
The early men took this restraint of their bodies to be a moral virtue. Vico
articulates that “moral virtue began, as it must, from conatus. For the giants,
confined under the mountains by the frightful religion of the thunderbolts,
learned to restrain their bestial habit of wandering wild through the great forest
of the earth, and acquired the contrary custom of remaining hidden and settled in
their fields” (504). These early men thought the right thing to do was to restrain
one’s wandering, and thus one’s bodily motion. The motion of the body is under
control of the will which was something that needed to be commanded instead
of the motion of the body controlling the person. It was right to control these
urges to move so that the gods would be pleased. As Vico puts it, “from this
thought must have sprung the impulse proper to the human will, to hold in check
the motions impressed on the mind by the body, so as either to quiet them
altogether, as becomes the sage, or at least to direct them to better use, as
becomes the civil man. This control over the motion of their bodies is certainly
an effect of the freedom of the human will…” (340). The control and direction
of the body through the will is one of the first steps out of bestial living for early
man. From the idea of bodily control, the need to control one’s sexual urges
sprang up. In a very literal sense, sex is bodily motion. The urge for sex usually
drives the motion of men, so the early humans wanted to control this “bestial
lust” (504). Just like other movements were constricted to the cave, sexual
intercourse would be hidden as well.
Violence and Self-Control
The question of why these early men needed to enact violence in order to
practice their self-control is still open. It seems strange that in thinking that
bodily movements and sexual intercourse should be controlled and restricted that
the early men would use violence and force to get and keep these women in
caves as wives. Why did the men use violence to achieve their virtuous end? Vico
does not give a direct reason for this practice; he only says that it was the case.
He does however give a description of the early women when he says
“…women, who in that state must have been wild, indocile and shy…” (369),
and under this description it is possible to understand why the early men needed
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to use violence against these women in order to have them as partners. In order
to propagate, these men needed to obtain these indocile women, but were these
women truly indocile? Vico does not give an explanation of this synthesis of the
early women, and I do not find myself satisfied.
Although Vico does not give a concrete reason for this practice he does seem
to be sure that it was a practice that happened. Vico seems to be convinced by
the ancient fables and their depiction of women in marriage as he states, “the
hieroglyph or fable of Juno hanging in the air with a rope around her neck and
her hands tied by another rope and with two heavy stones tied to her feet, had
signified the sanctity of marriage. Juno was in the air to signify the auspices
essential to solemn nuptials, and for the same reason Iris was made her
handmaiden and the peacock with its rainbow tail was assigned to her. She had a
rope about her neck to recall the violence used by the giants on the first wives”
(514). The ancient fables are the record of human ideas from which Vico draws
his conclusions about the practices of early humans. It is quite possible that Vico
himself thought this practice awful, but he simply describes it as the way the early
humans interacted with each other. Therefore, this notion of the subjugation of
women - a notion in which women lack autonomy and are seen as property - is
founded within the fables, beliefs, and traditions of his time which he recounts.
This belief is still present in some cultures currently.
Forced Friendship
Circling back to my original question: What is going on in the following
statement? “For husbands shared their first human ideas with their wives,
beginning with the idea of a divinity of theirs which compelled them to drag their
women into their caves…” (506). The first conversations were between the man
and woman in the cave, yet she was forced there by violence. What are we to
make of this?
Given the context of Vico’s conception of the world of the first humans and
the consequent traditions and beliefs of ancient nations, we are led to think that
men were unsociable creatures. Vico says, “For out of the passions of men each
bent on his private advantage, for the sake of which they would live like wild
beasts in the wilderness” (133). Thus, in this sketch of humankind, the early cave
dwellers (or those men still living out in the forests) would have no one to share
their ideas with. It follows that these men would commune with the women they
40
�Academic Essay
captured. “Thus, marriage emerged as the first kind of friendship in the world,”
Vico says (554). This is an interesting point because, perhaps these men thought
that this force was necessary to save these women from the wrath of the gods
and keep them safe. The need to communicate about the gods and important
impressions upon their minds is implicit here. It seems that there was some sort
of care and affection in this situation given that Vico highlights that the root
word for friendship in Greek is the word love in paragraph 554. Vico has the
underlying assumption that men have to need to communicate even in the face
of being unsocial.
Given the context of these “first friendships,” to call it such might seem
foreign to my contemporary understanding; However, in this odd sketch of the
first marriages (and thus societies via Vico) women are taught and share in their
husbands’ ideas because they have the capacity to understand them. For Vico,
these early men did not just force women into caves and did not speak to them,
but they communed together (given the strange circumstance). These women
learned, developed alongside their male counterparts, and possibly contributed to
the ideas of the divine and of life as the species advanced. This possible
interpretation gives me hope in this strange world Vico describes.
41
�Creative Writing
Nostalgia in February
Kelsey Hennegen
First published in Narrative Magazine
Jackets zipped against wind, we stand
close, cupping hands to catch the light.
I get it. My profundity problem.
I want everything to mean. To have worth
and weight. But it doesn’t. My desire
verges on dire. I try to remember patience.
I usually forget. With extravagant flair,
Sam fans the match and declares
all bad poetry is sincere.
It’s nothing new, of course. It’s Eliot
or Wilde, maybe. The trouble is,
I’m too sentimental. I had my first cigarette
last week. Now my body goes buoyant
on just a few sips, doomed
and irreverent. A little romantic. I buy Sappho
in the original Greek even though it flummoxes me.
I wear my mother’s wedding ring to bed
so I can sleep.
Oh, but I want to be greedy with beauty.
Or— No. That’s not quite it.
I want the past.
A garden hose draped
over the gate, backyard showers
after sun-spoiled days. Bonfires,
a poorly pitched tent in Joshua Tree. Strange,
isn’t it? How anything will turn dangerous
if you cling to it long enough.
42
�Creative Writing
The last bellow of day drains. Scallop-edged
and purplish, the cottonwood leaves
fatigue. It was Hesiod who deified pain,
now our -algia is named for the spirits of grief.
And yet, Nostos means tribulations be damned,
the hero gets home. Sometimes I stumble
on a day so blue it blinds. I find
a June within and I am everything
righteous and thrashing and right.
By Neha Gaddam
43
�Personal Essay
On the Benefit of Virtual Learning for our Community
Leith Daghistani
From the preamble to the Polity of St. John’s College:
Education is the making of men and women out of children by bringing them
into the world of inherited customs, intellectual traditions, and spiritual ties.
Institutions of learning are set up for this purpose. Beyond this they should
also seek to develop the moral and intellectual powers of their students to
enable them to fulfill best their freely chosen tasks and thus to take their own
responsible part in shaping the future. St. John's College is a community of
learning committed to holding these ends constantly in sight and to seeking
the best means of attaining them.
Many of our peers who were exposed to virtual learning over the past year or
so have continued to convey to me some form of the idea that virtual learning is
fundamentally incompatible with the GI because we lose some intangible element
of the program hidden in in-person interactions or intramurals when it moves
online. Even those who now defend virtual learning sometimes tacitly agree with
the concern that the program is weaker online. Based on these conversations it
often appears to me that the prevailing views of students and graduates of the GI
are either that virtual classes should not be offered at all or that offering virtual
classes is a worthwhile trade-off for a less rigorous program because it provides
for wider access to students who ought to be in our community. I believe that
maintaining the option for virtual segments offered alongside in-person classes
and leading to the same degree is not a trade-off, and has great potential to
improve the program for us all.
In-person interactions and extracurriculars certainly make the program at St.
John’s more enjoyable, but they aren’t essential or exclusive to the GI.
Undergraduates approach a wider range of texts using the same method and have
more access to the same extracurricular activities as the GI over a longer period
of time, all in person. If one believes that the undergraduate program is not
essentially distinct from the GI, then the GI is limited to be nothing more than
an accelerated and inferior copy of the undergraduate program. I reject that view
and say that the GI has merit in itself, and can support virtual learning.
44
�Personal Essay
From my perspective, most undergraduate schools achieve the same basic
educational ends regardless of their specific mission: they generally teach students
how to learn effectively, to continue their education beyond the classroom, and
to employ their education in a way that benefits the people around them in many
contexts. Undergraduate programs generally require in-person immersion in the
form of shared living and learning spaces, intramurals, or other extracurriculars
to offset the students’ overall lack of experience. Experience empowers
individuals to broadly apply their education in concert with other methods to
improve themselves and the world around them, and in-person immersion in an
academic program quickly develops a kind of experience. At St. John's College,
intramural sports are an outstanding example of immersion because they provide
students with a training field by which the elements of a good education
developed in the program can be put into practice and safely tested with
immediate feedback. The undergraduate program likely couldn’t exist virtually at
St. John’s College because that program requires in-person immersion and
indoctrination to really bring children into the world of inherited customs,
intellectual traditions, and spiritual ties.
But as graduate students we don’t need a practice field, and we are not
children. Though we are still developing, we have already had a basic level of
exposure to higher education. Before virtual classes were offered, GI students
who worked full time or had other responsibilities received the same education
and the same degree without involving themselves in any events outside of class
whatsoever and without any question of their participation in the essence or rigor
of the program. Participating during class hours is sufficient for us because we
already actively seek and employ new methods and models of learning outside of
the classroom to make ourselves better and to empower others to the same. At
the graduate level we are perfecting rather than developing that habit. Our
community’s standards and expectations should reflect that distinction.
Our community is our unique strength, and good dialogue among the
community is the only necessary function for our education in the GI. While the
texts are an important part of our method of education, they are a tool for
creating good dialogue among our community, which is the essential part of our
program. The key group dynamics of good dialogue, namely balanced
participation, active listening, and cooperation, are not impossible to achieve
45
�Personal Essay
online, so GI students should be able to effectively learn virtually. Intramurals
and after-seminar gatherings and everything else that requires in-person
interactions are a bonus — welcome for some but unnecessary for others. If this
were not the case, then we would be able to achieve the same education by
reading the texts in isolation, or by joining a social club for classics enthusiasts.
What makes effective virtual learning more challenging than in-person
learning is that good virtual dialogue always requires balanced participation,
active listening, and cooperation among the group along with a consistently high
level of individual objectivity, courtesy, trust, discipline, and respect. The austerity
of the virtual classroom means that students must develop these habits quickly to
be successful. That is a good thing for the program. Conversely, we can probably
get away with having good-enough dialogue in person despite not maintaining
such a high standard by hiding behind so-called nonverbal participation or
through other conversations which are easier to continue outside of class hours.
At the graduate level, the reality is that we should already have expected
excellence in dialogue as the standard from all members of our community
before we were forced to move online in the spring of 2020.
I do not mean to suggest that the move to online learning in the middle of a
semester and as a result of a global pandemic was easy or welcome in any way.
There were technical difficulties and growing pains great enough to dispirit many
in our community, myself included. I prefer learning in person. But I won’t
pretend that my personal preferences are essential to a good education or that the
academic problems I encountered online were a product of the medium of the
conversation and not of my own failures. It is clear to me that virtual learning
works for students who choose to pursue it because they have already dedicated
themselves to a consistently high standard of dialogue regardless of the medium.
I observed as much in my final semester in the fall of 2020, which was online for
all students. GI students who began the program virtually or who were only able
to attend online due to their circumstances were capable of developing dialogue
online at least as often and to as high a standard as any other in-person group
which I have been a part of.
I believe that virtual learning is troubling for our community not because it is
incompatible with our program but because it exposes our collective and
46
�Personal Essay
individual weaknesses. But an awareness of one’s weaknesses is a gift to be
cherished, not ignored. If those of us who prefer in-person learning found virtual
learning to be less rewarding it highlights that we should all should be more
consistent in explicitly identifying, promulgating, and holding ourselves to a
higher shared standard of dialogue as a community.
My opinion is that no matter the reason or purpose for our enrollment, we
should practically expect all students of the GI to be able to participate in
consistently fruitful and equitable dialogue with any group in any medium. GI
alumni should be able to naturally lead such groups, purely as a byproduct of
sustained exposure to our method. That does not mean that dialogue or class
meetings must always be rewarding for every participant, but as the community
of the premier graduate liberal arts program, we should strive toward the highest
standards for dialogue and be unafraid of collaborative reflection and criticism
when we do not meet them. I think that an examination of the dynamics of good
dialogue should play a more formal part of our education at the GI. We would
collectively benefit from more direct conversations about dialogue itself, such as
a mid-semester meeting dedicated to a conference-style conversation among the
group in each of our classes, or a more robust orientation program that is
revisited by all students every semester. In short, we should be looking to
empower all members of our community to be successful and versatile in
pursuing their education, rather than prematurely declaring the limits of the
program when we briefly falter in the face of a new challenge.
Our community remains strong because we draw on an extraordinarily
diverse range of human experiences and vast depth of competencies to approach
fundamental questions as equals and collaboratively develop a better
understanding of the great books through good dialogue. If we focus on our
improvement with that unique strength in mind, the GI will thrive in any
environment. We should not shy away from serious reflection and frank
discussion which has such enormous potential to both improve and expand
access to the GI. Doing so based on a misguided belief that our program should
exist only in the in-person interactions of St. John’s students in or immediately
adjacent to the classroom is a disservice to us all.
47
�College Ephemera
Uncovering the Lost World of the Black Classical Tradition
Anika Prather
I feel like I am Indiana Jones in Raiders of the Lost Ark. What an adventure I
have had seeking to find the connection between Classic texts, Great Books and
the Black community. I have literally dug through ruins, run away from dangers
seen and unseen and felt fear and despair like you would not believe all in my
journey to revealing to all that Classics are for everyone, especially the Black
community. For the Black community the Classical tradition is actually a part of
our heritage. When I say that, I am met with anger from both Blacks and Whites,
Blacks not wanting any sign that our people are connecting to those who have
oppressed us and Whites not wanting us to have access to “their” books. I have
been met with perils of many kinds in my effort to uncover this lost world, where
my ancestors were fully engrossed in the texts of the ancient world and beyond.
It all happened by accident, actually with me finding DuBois’ essay “Of the
Training of Black Men.” But that one text for some reason awakened an
awareness that if DuBois was devoting so much passion to writing about the
Black Classical tradition, it must be based on some common occurrence in the
Black community. From that one essay, I found myself reading the other essays
in his Souls of Black Folk and it was more of the same, that Classical education was
the most effective way to educate Black Americans. From Souls of Black Folk I
was led to his education essays, The Education of Black People, which provided more
of his revelations about his views on Classical Education for Black people.
DuBois gave me the eyes to see that there was a whole other world undiscovered,
a secret place where Blacks read, discussed, wrote about, synthesized and
embraced the classical tradition. They were learning and reading Latin. Engaged
in rhetorical discussions about beauty, virtue and truth. Classical study was their
gateway to cultural literacy, empowerment and equality. Many yearned for this
type of learning even while enslaved and most ran for this type of education,
once they were emancipated. One excerpt from “Of the Training of Black Men”
has become an opus for me:
I sit with Shakespeare and he winces not. Across the color line I move arm
in arm with Balzac and Dumas, where smiling men and welcoming women
glide in gilded halls….I summon Aristotle and Aurelius and what soul I
will, and they come all graciously with no scorn nor condescension. So, wed
48
�College Ephemera
with Truth, I dwell above the Veil. Is this the life you grudge us, O knightly
America? Is this the life you long to change into the dull red hideousness of
Georgia? Are you so afraid lest peering from this high Pisgah, between
Philistine and Amalekite, we sight the Promised Land? (From Souls of
Black Folk: Of the Training of Black Men)
In this passage, I feel what DuBois felt, a feeling of being transported to a
magical place where color lines no longer haunt us and we are able to dance with
all people in harmony. This one passage was the turning point for me, and would
be the catalyst for my continued journey to finding how the classics have played
an integral part in the African American’s journey to finding their place in
American society.
Not too long after discovering DuBois, I took my high school students on a
tour of the Frederick Douglass House in Washington, DC. I remember that day
so clearly because my mind had been so blown away by what I was reading about
DuBois. I felt mentally on a cloud. Up to this point, I was working on my PhD,
researching the role of the arts in the K12 classroom, but Dubois took me off
that path and his writings compelled me to continue this “archeological dig.” In
other spaces I have shared the resistance I experienced in academia by making
this detour and the danger of me not finishing was a constant presence.
However, I pressed on and through the support of others in my department, I
was able to continue the “archeological dig” enough to introduce my discovery
into my dissertation.
I had no idea that Douglass would be connected to what was starting to
become an obsession of mine, but as soon as I walked into the front door of his
house, where everything was preserved in time, I was greeted by the bust of
Cicero. Instantly I thought, “Cicero? Why is Cicero in here? What does a former
slave know about Cicero?” My heart began to race as I noticed so many items in
his house that reflected this former slave was self-taught in the Classical
Tradition. Leaving the foyer, I came upon a painting which showed a scene from
Shakespeare’s play Othello. Revelation after revelation happened as I toured that
house. He decorated the entire house with signs of his love for Classics and the
Canon. The final clue that confirmed what I was already feeling internally, was
when I entered his library. From floor to ceiling were shelves of books, all from
the Classical tradition and the overall western canon. The tour guide went on to
49
�College Ephemera
explain how Douglass would spend hours in his library reading the texts and
practicing writing about them. This bit of information actually gave me the
foundation for how I teach the texts at the school. We spend our time reading
the texts, discussing the text and writing an essay on the text every week. This
process Douglass engaged in was also how he studied the text when he was
enslaved. When we left the Frederick Douglass House, I went home to further
my research on Douglass and I learned that as a teenage boy he bought the
Colombian Orator and would spend his free time sneaking to read the texts,
focusing on the speeches of Cicero. The Colombian Orator was an anthology of
excerpts from classic texts. This text was commonly used in schools during this
time. In reading the excerpts of the Colombian Orator, Douglass unchained his
mind well before his body was set free. One text involved Douglass analyzing the
argument between a slave and his master, in which the slave did such an effective
job showing his master why slavery was wrong, that the slave ended up being
voluntarily emancipated. It was arguments like these that revealed to Douglass
the importance of rhetoric and logic in presenting a case for ending slavery.
Douglass said,
“I read them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to
interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through my
mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I gained from
the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a
slaveholder...The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts
and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery.” (from
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass)
Douglass spent his time copying the texts, summarizing the texts and fully
immersing himself in the texts. He even says that it was in reading Classics that
he was given the words needed to communicate about the atrocities of slavery in
a way that the White and Black community could understand and receive.
Now two of my ancestors were flooding my mind with reflections on the
Black Classical tradition. There was this pattern I was seeing of going from
captivity or feelings of oppression or both to reading these texts that tell the
human story and discovering that whatever the world may say about you, these
texts reveal a greater truth. These texts actually cancelled out the lies of our
50
�College Ephemera
inferiority and curse that says we were created to serve those with a lighter
complexion. These texts confirmed our identity as an equal human being. My
mind filled with these reflections was still floating on these clouds of revelations
when I took on a new job as a principal of a private school in DC. The board
was considering getting a new building and I had been looking at properties. One
property was an abandoned building which at one time housed the Nannie Helen
Burroughs School. The realtor and the property manager took me all around the
building. It looked as if it had been just left as is. Everything was still in place
from when the school had closed down. It was not in the greatest condition at
that time and I wasn’t sure if I’d meet Mickey and Minnie Mouse and their
friends in the process of touring the building, but somehow I felt a sense of awe
as I walked the abandoned halls and I felt the spirit of the woman who desired to
bring a quality education to Black students many years ago.
The property manager brought us to a glass enclosed room that was a
museum dedicated to Nannie Helen Burroughs. I asked if I could go in and he
unlocked the door to let me in. So many artifacts were in the space that revealed
her love for education, but one thing caught my attention more than anything in
that little shrine to Nannie Helen Burroughs. On the wall, was a framed list of
classes that students had to take back when the school first began in the early
1900s and on that list of classes was Latin. In fact, the other classes I saw
reflected some type of appreciation for the Classical tradition. There’s another
one. Another ancestor inspired by the Classical tradition.
I was thinking about Dubois, Douglass, and Burroughs. How many of them
are there? When I did more research on Nannie Helen Burroughs, I discovered a
world of Black women educators dedicated to the classical tradition. Nannie
Helen Burroughs had been a high school student at the famed M Street School,
led by Anna Julia Cooper. Anna Julia Cooper used an almost totally Classical
curriculum in educating the Black students that attended there and fiercely fought
for this type of education for those students until the board of education fired
her, because she would not stop teaching this way at their request. At M Street
School, Nannie Helen Burroughs founded the Harriet Beecher Stowe Literary
Society. Most students at M Street School took classics, which included the study
of Latin and most went on to some of the top colleges in the nation. Anna Julia
Cooper mentored Nannie Helen Burroughs and in a way, I feel like they are both
mentoring me. Anna Julia Cooper is of great importance, because in discovering
51
�College Ephemera
her, I find a whole community of Black female educators, dedicated to Cooper’s
passion for providing a classical education.
Anna Julia Cooper was born into slavery and remained in enslaved until
emancipation. At around 10 years old, she attended St. Augustine’s School, which
primarily taught freed slaves the classical tradition. Even though the school
focused more on the rigors of classical education for the male students. Anna
Julia Cooper advocated for herself to take the same classical courses. She excelled
in Latin and became a scholar of classic texts. She eventually completed her
college degree at Oberlin College, again advocating to take the rigorous classical
program that was primarily for the male students. Anna Julia Cooper was one of
two African American women to earn an M.A. (the other was Mary Church
Terrell) in mathematics. Eventually she became the principal of M Street School
in DC, again implementing a primarily classical curriculum for her students. As
you walked the halls of the M Street School, you could hear her enthusiastically
teaching the Aeneid in Latin. She would also teach the students the works of
Cicero and many other Classical thinkers. Anna Julia Cooper was passionate
about uplifting the African American people through education. She says,
There is no social activity that more vitally concerns the life of a people than
the problem of education. The Colored people of the United States...want for
themselves and their descendants...all the advantages and opportunities of
education as the term is interpreted and understood in the most favored
groups in our American civilization. (from Uplifting the Women and the
Race by Karen A. Johnson)
What was this world I had found? And now with these constant discoveries
of notable Black Americans who engaged in Classical study, how could I turn
away? I knew that bringing this information to the light would be met with
resistance from all directions. This seemingly mythical world had been kept so
secret, almost undetected. I was right about my misgivings. As soon as I began to
share what I was discovering there was resistance from all directions. This
discovery I was making was not about Black scholars in classics, this was a bit
different. If it was about Black Scholars then you could sort of segregate them to
a space, sort of like DuBois’ “Talented Tenth.” You can say just this small group
of people did this and then it doesn’t quite disrupt a system or misconceptions
we have all held close to our minds and hearts. However, this discovery was
52
�College Ephemera
about an entire educational system, that started while Blacks were in slavery and
continued on until desegregation, revealing that the main way Blacks were
educated in America up until desegregation, was Classical. Anna Julia Cooper was
fired for refusing to stop teaching classically. Why do you think that is? Why was
the Classical tradition taken from us? To reveal this, could upend all that we
thought we knew about how education has been done and should be done. This
discovery dispels the myth that Classics are the tools used to oppress Black
people, when in fact history shows that Classics was a tool to liberate them. Black
people fought to be educated this way, Douglass risking his life to steal it
(through self-teaching) as an enslaved teenager.
My journey continues. Constantly, I am uncovering more of this “lost city of
the Black Classical tradition” and my most recent discovery is that Howard
University was the first and only HBCU to have a Classics dept. The university
was founded by General Howard who was a leader with the Freedman’s Bureau.
The organization was responsible for setting up educational institutions for freed
Black people after emancipation and the main educational philosophy they used
in these institutions? Classical. The fact that Howard University still has a Classics
dept is a monument to this now almost extinct world. It stands there as a
flickering light, reminding us of a powerful time in the education of Black people.
This flickering light at Howard University and what I am learning about the
classical component to the early years of African American education, makes me
wonder what the implications are for the current state of education in African
American communities. If such great minds and powerful beings as Martin
Luther King, Anna Julia Cooper, Frederick Douglass, James Baldwin, W.E.B.
DuBois, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Thurgood Marshall and so many others came
out of this tradition, what can that tell us about a possible need to consider going
back to those roots in the present day?
Even now as we celebrate the first woman, African American and South
Asian Vice President in American history, being a graduate of a place Classically
inspired like Howard University, we all should be wondering about this little
secret within the African American community. The Classics dept at Howard is
responsible for bringing the exposure to classical learning to all students who
attend. Even as an undergrad who was not majoring in Classics, I remember
having to read Medea and Agamemnon. I remember having to learn about Socrates
in my required Philosophy class. Yet the beauty of this is that we were taught to
read classics, but then how to connect it to our lives as African Americans. As a
53
�College Ephemera
result of reflecting on this and learning even more, I am becoming aware of other
early schools that educated Blacks. For example, St. Augustine’s School, which is
now St. Augustine College is where Anna Julia Cooper attended right after
emancipation. This school also used mainly classics as a part of its educational
program. It is all such a long tangled history that I am seeking to unpack. My
dissertation just barely touched the surface of uncovering this hidden world of
Blacks in Classical study and even this article sheds little light on the richness of
the Black Classical heritage here in America. Even though I have felt the
resistance to what I am discovering and I have felt the walls surround me as I try
to share what I am learning, I push forward, hoping one day people will hear me
as I unpack the untold story of the history of the Black Classical tradition in the
education of Black people.
54
��
Dublin Core
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Title
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Colloquy
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A journal for the Graduate Institute Community of St. John's College in Annapolis, MD.
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Annapolis, MD
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
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58 pages
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Title
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Colloquy, Spring 2021
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Volume VIII of Colloquy, published in Spring 2021.
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Braley, Olivia (Editor-in-Chief)
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2021-05
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text
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pdf
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English
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St. John's College (Annapolis, Md.)--Periodicals
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English
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Colloquy_Spring2021
Graduate Institute
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Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series
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The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
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Permanent Crisis: The Humanities in a Disenchanted Age
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Video recording of a lecture by Professory Chad Wellmon of the University of Virginia, held on June 23, 2021 as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. <br /><br />Professor Wellmon describes his lecture: "The humanities didn't come into their own, didn't become modern, until relatively recently, when scholars began to frame their previously disparate practices and ideals as a unique and unified resource for resolving crises of meaning and value that threatened other cultural or social goods. This new self-understanding of the modern humanities didn’t merely take shape in response to a perceived crisis, it justified itself in terms of crisis. The modern humanities are always in crisis because their defenders and detractors alike have needed them to be. <br /><br /><em>Permanent Crisis</em> is neither a call to action nor an apology. It is a work of historical scholarship and conceptual inquiry that shows how claims of crisis are not only older than we think, but also have played a crucial role in grounding the idea that the humanities have a special mission. In uncovering this history, <em>Permanent Crisis</em> highlights continuities and transformations that extend from early nineteenth-century Prussia to the twenty-first-century United States. It shows how the very processes that have allowed the modern humanities to flourish and attain social and institutional value—democratization, secularization, institutional rationalization—have also consistently imperiled them. In this talk, Chad Wellmon will offer an overview of <em>Permanent Crisis</em> and suggest why its story offers reasons for hope in what might otherwise seem like the twilight of liberal learning."
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Wellmon, Chad, 1976-
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St. John's College
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Annapolis, MD
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2021-06-23
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Signed permissions form have been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture available online."
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moving image
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mp4
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Humanities
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Langston, Emily
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English
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Wellmon_Chad_2021-06-23
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/c31006301547cf74718332e6c2c7b0bf.pdf
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In the year 610 of the Christian Era, a merchant of the prominent Quraysh tribe sat
meditating in a cave on Mt. Hira near Mecca. He heard a voice saying,
Recite: In the Name of thy Lord who created.
created man of a blood clot.
Recite: And thy Lord is the Most Generous,
who taught by the Pen,
taught Man that he knew not. [96.1-5]
Thus began the youngest of the major world religions and one of the most successful
lives in world history. As a religious, political, and military leader, Muhammad
(570-632) is without equal. Only Moses comes close, but Moses was not allowed to
enter the Promised Land, while Muhammad returned to Mecca as a victorious conqueror.
We are. moreover, fortunate to have better documentation for his life than for that of
Moses, Jesus, or the Buddha. On any reckoning, Muhammad’s biography is one well
worth studying. If you read the Qur'an, you may want to read along with it the most
important early biography, the Life of Muḥammad by Ibn Isḥāq.
Today, however, our primary goal is to become acquainted with the Qur’an. While
some light may be shed on this great book by a fuller knowledge of its historical context,
nothing replaces study of the text itself. Thus, most of my talk will focus on the primary
text, though I will first discuss some of the major events and issues that form the
background of the Qur’an.
Muhammad was an orphan. His father died before he was born and his mother when
he was six years old. His grandfather took care of him for two more years before he died
#1
�as well. Thereafter his uncle Abu Talib, head of the Banu Hashim clan, assumed
guardianship of the boy. Thus Muhammad grew up as something of an outsider within
Meccan society. Although he did belong to its most prominent tribe, the Quraysh, he was
a weak and vulnerable member of it. He rose to prominence, however, due to his skills as
a caravan trader, as well as for his reputation of honesty. When he was 25, the wealthy
widow Khadija, rather impressed, asked for his hand in marriage, was accepted, and
became his first wife.
Mecca was a major hub of the Arabian caravan trade routes that connected the
Byzantine Empire in the north with the spice-exporting Yemen in the south. The Quraysh
not only dominated Meccan trade but also were custodians of the Kaaba, the central
shrine for the still largely pagan Arab tribes. The word Kaaba, related to our word
"cube", refers to the cubical structure enclosing the Black Stone, a sacred object
traditionally venerated by the pagan Arabs and possibly of meteoric origin. Mecca and
the Kaaba were already sites of pilgrimage before Muhammad's time, the time that
Muslims refer to as Jahiliyya, or the time of ignorance.
During their sojourn there, the Arabs would hold fairs, including competitions in
poetry, still a largely oral art. Several of these pre-Islamic poems survive. Some of them
are known as the "Hanging" or "Suspended" Odes and were supposedly hung up in the
Kaaba as a token of honor.
Although Arab polytheism still flourished at its major center of Mecca, monotheistic
religions were common not only in the surrounding areas but even with Arabia itself.
Orthodox Christianity was the official religion of the Byzantine Empire, while the
#2
�Sassanid Persian Empire supported Zoroastrianism, arguably a monotheistic faith,
although a highly dualistic one. Many Christians, of various sects, were spread througout
Arabia, and there was a sizeable Jewish community in the city of Yathrib.
Thus when Muhammad brought forward his monotheistic message, he had many
enemies. Although he had hoped to find a receptive audience among the “People of the
Book”, i.e, Jews and Christians, in this hope he was largely disappointed. The fiercer and
earlier struggle, however, was against the leaders of his own city and tribe, the polytheist
Quraysh, for Muslims, like Jews and Christians before them, not only believed in the
existence of one God, but held that God to be a jealous god, a god who would “have no
other gods before him.” Polytheism was not simply mistaken, but even a direct affront to
God and could not be tolerated.
Polytheism is more tolerant than monotheism. The chief god of the Arabic pagan
pantheon was Allah, or "the God." "Allah" simply comes from a common Semitic root
for "god" and is cognate with Hebrew Elohim and Ugaritic El. The pagan Arabs had
traditionally associated other gods with Allah and worshipped these other divinities, in
particular Allah’s daughters (al-Lat, Manat, and al-Uzza). The polytheists could well
accept that Allah was the one supreme god; they could not, however, accept that he was
the only god or the only god to be worshipped. Particularly offensive to this traditional
tribal society, however, must have been the claim that their ancestors, by worshipping
associates alongside of Allah, were now burning in hell. Moreover, Muhammad’s attack
upon polytheism was a direct threat to their domination of the Meccan trade and shrine.
#3
�The polytheists challenged Muhammad to prove his apostleship by performing a
miracle. He replied that it was not in his power to perform miracles, but only in God’s
power to do so, and that the Qur’an itself was the miracle. A noble, elevated discourse
spoken through an illiterate merchant, the Qur’an impressed both believers and nonbelievers alike. Muhammad challenged his opponents to sit down and produce
something like it. If they could not do so, the argument goes, then the Qur’an must be a
work of greater than human creation.
Besides the Qur’an itself, there is one other miracle involving Muhammad that
cannot be passed over in silence, since it is the basis of the Muslim claim on Jerusalem as
a holy city. It is reported that one night as he was sleeping in Mecca, Muhammad was
transported by the fabulous winged beast Buraq to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem,
whence he was allowed to ascend the seven heavens and discourse with Abraham, Moses,
and Jesus. Thence he was brought back to Mecca the same night. More than half a
century after the Muslims conquered Jerusalem from the Byzantine Christians, the
Umayyad Caliph Abd-al-Malik, had the Dome of the Rock constructed on the Temple
Mount, known to Muslims as Haram es-Sharif.
The hostility of the Quraysh leadership could well have led to the murder of
Muhammad, if it had not been for the protection of his still pagan uncle Abu Talib. The
killing of somebody under tribal protection would have led to a blood feud. So instead of
attacking Muhammad directly, the polytheists persecuted his followers. Despite
persecution, Islam grew, attracting in particular many of the alienated members of
Meccan society, such as freedmen and slaves. When Abu Talib died, however, (619) and
#4
�the new leader of the Banu Hashim, Abu Lahab (another uncle of the prophet) withdrew
protection from him, Muhammad looked for another home for the Muslim community.
When an opportunity for refuge and alliance presented itself in nearby Yathrib, he and his
Muslim followers migrated there. This migration, or hijra, is the beginning of the
Muslim epoch.
Up to this point, Muhammad had been a religious leader. Now he became a political
leader by founding the nascent Islamic state in Yathrib, now known as Madinat an-Nabiy,
that is, the City of the Prophet, or Medina. The revelations of the Medina period show a
much greater concern for political matters and laws relevant to the foundation of a state.
The hostility between the Muslims and the polytheists of Mecca did not end then,
however. Muhammad insisted that the Muslims be allowed to worship at the Kaaba,
which he claimed had been originally a monotheist shrine founded by Abraham and his
son Ishmael. The Meccans had also confiscated Muslim properties in Mecca and the
immigrants to Medina turned to the Arab tradition of caravan raiding to make a living.
This hostility broke out into open war when Muhammad led the Muslims in a raid on a
Meccan caravan at Badr (624). Engaging with reinforcements from Mecca and
outnumbered by more than three to one, the Muslims won a decisive victory. After
further battles with mixed results, Muhammad entered Mecca as a conqueror in 630,
pardoned nearly the whole population, and purified the Kaaba of its idols.
Muhammad only lived for two more years. In that time he completed the conquest
and conversion of Arabia and unified the Arab tribes for the first time in history, a
unification made possible perhaps by religion alone. He thus provided the basis for the
#5
�astonishing Arab military expansion that was to explode onto the world scene shorty after
his death. He had no surviving sons, however, and his only significant failure as a leader
was that he did not appoint a clear successor or establish a clear policy of succession.
This failure resulted in a series of civil wars after his death and in the schism of the
Islamic community into Sunni and Shi’ite sects that has remained of fateful importance
even to the present day. The majority sect, the Sunnis, accepted Abu Bakr as the caliph
or successor to Muhammad, whereas the Shi'ites believed that Muhammad's nephew and
son-in-law 'Ali should have been recognized as the first caliph.
Even if Muhammad had only united the Arab tribes, he would be remembered as an
eminent political and military leader. But his importance as not merely an Arab leader,
but also as a world leader rests on his prophetic mission. For although the Qur’an is in
Arabic and addresses Arabs most directly, its message is of universal import. From the
beginning, Islam, like Christianity, has seen itself as having a universal mission. So
without further ado, let us turn to the Qur’an.
When we first encounter with the Qur’an as Westerners, we are likely to be puzzled.
This is not a book like the books we are familiar with. It does not tell a story like the
Iliad or War and Peace. Although it has many themes in common with the Bible, it lacks
the narrative frame that organizes many, if not all, of the books of the Bible. Although it
has chapters, or suras, there is little or no apparent connection between a given chapter
and the one that comes before or after it. Even within a given sura, one can encounter a
bewildering mixture of prophetic warnings, stories, and legal stipulations. So our first
question is, “What kind of book is the Qur’an?”.
#6
�Just as the Bible is not one book, but a collection of many books, so too the Qur’an is
not a single revelation but a collection of several revelations. If one were to sit down and
read the entire Bible, one would be rightly puzzled if one were to find the book of Joshua
next to the Gospel of Matthew, the Song of Songs next to Paul’s Letter to the Romans. It
is not surprising to find diversity within the Bible, a collection of texts spanning some
thousand years, written by different authors, addressing different audiences in widely
divergent circumstances. Since the Qur’an, however, was all revealed within a span of
some 23 years, and to one man, Muhammad, we might have expected a high degree of
uniformity, and while there is more uniformity in the Qur’an than in the Bible, there is
still a surpising amount of diversity, as we shall see.
When I say that the Qur’an was revealed to Muhammad, I do not wish to take a
stance on the question of divine authorship, but I do want to emphasize that Muhammad
did not compose or write this book. According to all accounts, both those supportive of
and hostile to him, Muhammad spoke forth individual suras while in a kind of trance or
ecstatic state. Some believed that he was receiving communication from the angel
Gabriel, others that he was possessed by a genie or demon. The former, of course, took
him to be the latest prophet and became his first followers; while the latter accused him
of being a “poet possessed,” alluding to the traditional Arabic view of poets as being
possessed by some divine or demonic spirit. The Arabic word for "crazy," majnun
derives from the same root as jinn or genie.
While some thought that he spun old wives’ tales, there is no contemporary
accusation that he was simply “faking” an ecstatic state for some ulterior motive, e.g., a
#7
�political one. This, I have no doubt, is how Machiavelli sees Muhammad, thus joining
him with Numa and Moses as political leaders who feigned divine communication in
order to bolster a political order. But telling against this view is the fact that when the
Quraysh offerred Muhammad political leadership in exchange for ceasing to preach
monotheism, he refused.
Muhammad spoke forth individual revelations or suras when he fell into an ecstatic
trance. He and many of his followers were illiterate, so although some may have been
written down by his literate followers, by and large the revelations were passed on by
word of mouth, until they were all written down and collected by the third caliph
‘Uthman (c.656). Although traditions had passed down some information about when the
various suras were revealed, in particular whether during the Meccan or the Medinan
period, ‘Uthman did not attempt to arrange the suras chronologically. Instead, by and
large, and with the exception of the first sura, the suras are arranged from longest to
shortest.
It turns out that the Meccan suras tend to be shorter than the Medinan suras, so the
Qur’an roughly moves in a backwards chronological order. Thus the traditional Muslim
way of learning the Qur’an in Arabic—beginning with the end of the book—also makes
chronological sense. A concern with chronology, however, is a largely Western concern,
for Muslims would deny that there is any change or development in the message revealed
in their holy book, whereas Westerners are always looking for development, even where
there is none to be found. Although I would argue that there are interesting differences
between the Meccan and Medinan suras, it is still debatable how significant those
#8
�differences are. The Meccan suras tend not only to be shorter, but also often use beautiful
natural imagery to discuss the coming Day of Judgment. The Medinan suras, by contrast,
are not only longer, but often deal with many of the social and legal issues that needed to
be addressed by the nascent Islamic state in Medina.
So the Qur’an is not a composition, if by “composition” we mean an arrangement
ordered according to a certain principle, so that it would be impossible to move pieces
around and still have the same thing. Exodus cannot come before Genesis, the death of
Patroclus cannot come before the anger of Achilles, Proposition I.47 of Euclid cannot
come before proposition I.1. Nothing is lost, I would argue, by reading the Qur’an
backwards. This is another way of saying that the Qur’an is a collection rather than a
composition.
But perhaps a more important point to emphasize is that each sura is meant to stand
on its own. The longer suras, one might argue, are even meant to present the whole truth.
Thus to go from one sura to another in sequence is not like adding pieces together to form
a whole picture but is like revisiting the same truth again and again, sometimes from a
slightly different angle. Thus a key feature of the form of the Qur’an is repetition. While
this may be tedious for a Western reader who is used always to encountering something
new in the next chapter, this formal feature also reinforces one of the central points of the
content of the Qur’an: human beings’ central failing is that they are forgetful. Prophets
come to remind us of the truth that we have forgotten or that we would like to forget.
And as anybody knows who has tried to learn a foreign language, repetition is the key to
remembering.
#9
�To fend off the accusation that Muhammad was just another “posessed poet,” the
Qur’an itself is claimed not to be poetry, altough it does make use of many poetic
techniques. The suras are composed of verses and make extensive use of end rhyme. I
will now play for you a recitation of the first sura, “Al-Fatihah”, or “The Opening.”
Notice the end rhyme on “-im, -in.”
I hope this excerpt, even through the medium of a foreign language, gives you a sense
of the beauty, power, and appeal of the original. These features of language, in particular
of poetic language, suffer the most in the process of translation. Nor are they thought to
be extrinsic to the essence of the Qur’an. For the Qur’an tells us more than once that it
is written in clear, noble Arabic. The incomparable beauty of the language is the main
argument for the Qur’an being a divine revelation. The verses are called ‘ayāt,’ which
literally means “signs.” Just like the beautiful and powerful cosmic signs such as the sun,
the moon, and the stars, the verses of the Qur’an are taken to be signs that point to the
power, goodness, and wisdom of the Creator who made them.
Having touched briefly on the form of the Qur’an, I will now turn to its content. The
first and most essential part of this content is the theology. A concise statement of its
theology is provided by sura 112:
Say: ‘He is God, One
God, the Everlasting Refuge,
who has not begotten, and has not been begotten,
and equal to him is not any one.’
#10
�Thus God is one and without associates. That he neither begets nor is begotten not
only rules out the Arab polytheist beliefs that he has daughters but also the Christian
trinitarian doctrine. He is eternal and absolute. Elsewhere we are told that he is allknowing and all-powerful. He created everything, not only inanimate things like the sun
and moon, stars and earth, but also the different orders of living things—the angels, the
jinn, and human beings and plants and animals. God is not only just but also
"compassionate and merciful." He commands human beings to do good and resist evil,
but is compassionate towards those who turn to him and ask for forgiveness. On the Day
of Judgment, human beings will be resurrected and summoned before God. Their good
and evil deeds will be recorded and weighed in a balance. Those whose good deeds
prevail will be rewarded will eternal life in Paradise. Others will be cast into the pit of
Hell to suffer eternal torment.
When God created Adam he commanded the angels to bow down before him. All did
so except for Iblis (Satan), who thereby became man’s bitter enemy. Adam and Eve were
cast from the Garden for eating of the fruit of the tree of life, contrary to divine
prohibition. There is no Islamic doctrine of original sin, however. We are not being
punished now for the sin that Adam and Eve committed. We have, however, inherited
their forgetfulness. In particular, human beings get caught up in pursuing their individual
self-interest, such as accumulating wealth, and forget divine warnings. We will all die
and cannot take our wealth with us. We will all be judged and our wealth will not help
us. We are commanded to provide for the more vulnerable members of society—the
#11
�widow, the orphan, the poor. We are commanded to do so by paying the alms tax, the
zakat. Failure to do so will result in grievous punishment in the hereafter.
Prophets have been sent to all peoples and have by and large been ignored. Even
after punishment came upon certain cities that ignored a prophet’s warnings, others did
not heed those examples. God has even sent down two books, the Torah and the Gospel,
to be constant reminders. The people who preserve those books, the “People of the
Book” (i.e., Jews and Christians), continue to bear witness to the one true God, although
even they have altered the true message by corrupting the divine text with human
interpolations. During to these corruptions, Islam, unlike Christianity, does not regard
earlier biblical texts as part of its canon. All the truths of the Torah and Gospel are also to
be found in the Qur'an itself. Muhammad has now been sent as the final prophet, as the
“seal of the prophets,” so this is humanity’s last opportunity to finally get the message.
The message has been essentially the same ever since Abraham, the first monotheist,
brought it to human beings. By submitting his willing to Allah, the one God, Abraham
became the first Muslim, (“one who submits”). The word muslim comes from the same
root as the greeting salām, and is cognate with the Hebrew shalom. According to Islam,
Islam did not begin with Muhammad but rather with Abraham. Muhammad’s importance
lies not in founding Islam, but in restoring it and in being the final prophet. Together
with his son Ishmael, the ancestor of the Arabs, Abraham built and consecrated the
central shrine of Islam, the Kaaba in Mecca.
To receive the message brought first by Abraham, restated by Moses and Jesus, and
finally restored by Muhammad, is to be a believer. To ignore or reject the message is to
#12
�be a non-believer, or infidel. Since the essence of the message is monotheism, infidels
and polytheists are seen as one and the same. Because prophets have been sent to all
peoples, there are no “innocent” polytheists: every people has had an opportunity to
accept the monotheist message. Since there are clear signs everywhere pointing to the
existence of one God, rejecting the oneness of God is taken to indicate not mere
ignorance, but willful ignorance. Polytheists reject God because they want to, not
because they are clueless. Some passages suggest a doctrine of predestination: "God
guides whom he wills and leads astray whom he wills."
The “People of the Book” are not infidels, nor are they believers in the proper sense.
While they have accepted the core of the message—i.e., that God is one—they have
become confused as to other aspects of it. Christians, for example, have mistakenly taken
their prophet Jesus to be not a mere messenger of God, but to be God. Jews have
wrongly rejected Muhammad’s prophetic mission.
Islam asserts a strong dualism of good versus evil and sees them as in constant
struggle with one another. Struggle, or jihād, is a central concept of Islam, although it is
not quite one of the pillars of the faith, at least for Sunnis. Just as in the universe, so too
amongst human beings and in the human soul there is a constant battle between good and
evil, a battle that will last until the Day of Judgment, when all will be resolved by God.
Since God is good, and believers are the ones who have taken God’s side, believers are
inherently on the side of good. This does not mean that believers cannot fall into evil or
err, but it does at least mean that they are on the right side of the cosmic struggle.
Contrariwise, to disbelieve is to go against God, to side with evil against good. Thus
#13
�whatever meritorious action, such as feeding a beggar, disbelievers may do, that action
cannot override the fact that disbelievers have taken the wrong side in the battle of good
versus evil. While they continue in their disbelief, they cannot be saved. Believers, on
the other hand, are not guaranteed salvation, but they will at least receive God’s open ear
and mercy when they ask for forgiveness for their sins.
The struggle against disbelief and evil in oneself and in the world has important
implications for how the Islamic community defines itself in relation to others. During
the Meccan period, when Muslims were a perscuted minority in a largely pagan city, the
message preached sounds something like a message of toleration, as we can see from sura
109:
Say: ‘O unbelievers,
I serve not what you serve
and you are not serving what I serve,
nor am I serving what you have served,
neither are you serving what I serve.’
To you your religion, and to me my religion!’
Now this sura can be taken in more than one way. The weakest reading is that it is a mere
observation that Muslims and polytheists have different religions. But since this is said
directly to polytheists, it is at the very least an act of defiance, for polytheism seeks to
incorporate new gods and cults within itself. It may even, as we can see from Herodotus,
deny the existence of different religions. This sura may be a way of saying, “You may
say that both you and we worship Allah, but in fact we don’t worship the same thing, for
#14
�we worship Allah alone, while you worship him alongside of his supposed daughters and
other false gods.” The last line is thus an assertion of an impassable barrier between
Islam and polytheism.
Another intriguing possibility lies in an ambiguous word in the last line. The
word translated as “religion,” din, can also mean “judgment,” as in the expression,
yawmu d-din, the “Day of Judgment.” Thus we could translate instead, “To you your
judgment, and to me my judgment.” This could be a way of saying, “We fundamentally
disagree, and God will decide between us on Judgment Day.”
Whichever of these possible readings we adopt, something like tolerance is still
being proposed, for in this sura the believer is told to speak the truth to the non-believer,
rather than to attack, oppress, or kill the unbeliever. It does not, however, go against the
idea of a fundamental struggle between good and evil, or between believers and nonbelievers. The Muslim community in Mecca was not in a position to take the offensive
against the Meccan polytheists, so the most that can be expected of them is to maintain
the integrity of their belief by bearing witness to it, i.e., being martyrs for it, in the face of
persecution and oppression.
Once the Muslims migrated to Medina, however, and became powerful enough to
assert themselves against the Meccans, they did so. And the suras from that period reveal
a more aggressive and militant policy against polytheism. Muslims are commanded to
fight the polytheists of Mecca until they cease oppressing Muslims and allow them to
worship in the sacred mosque of Mecca: “Fight them, till there is no persecution and the
#15
�religion is God’s; then if they give over, there shall be no enmity save for
evildoers.” (2.193).
Thus Islam is not a religion that says “Turn the other cheek.” On the other hand,
Muslims are explicity warned not to be the aggressors, “And fight in the way of God with
those who fight with you, but aggress not: God loves not the aggressors.” (2.190) Thus
only defensive warfare is justified, and it is not only justified but even commanded.
Moreover, while Muslims are commanded to spread the word, forced conversion is
explicitly forbidden, “No compulsion is there in religion.” (2.256).
The People of the Book have a special status within Islam. While conflict
between Muslims and polytheists is seen as nearly unavoidable, the People of the Book
should be granted tolerance as fellow, although erring, monotheists. Tolerance in this
context means that Jews and Christians living in a Muslim society are allowed to practice
their own religion under their own laws so long as they recognize Muslim superiority and
pay a tax in exchange for Muslim military protection. While this policy is not explicitly
stated in the Qur’an itself, it did become enshrined in the shari’a or Muslim law. The
Qur’an itself is equivocal on the relations between Muslims and Jews or Christians. To
cite a favorable passage:
Dispute not with the People of the Book
save in the fairer manner, except for
those of them that do wrong; and say,
‘We believe in what has been sent down
to us, and what has been sent down to you;
our God and your God is One, and to Him
we have surrendered.’ (29.46)
#16
�We also read:
Surely they that believe, and those of Jewry
and the Christians, and those Sabaeans,
whoso believes in God and the Last Day, and works
righteousness—their wage awaits them with their Lord,
and no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow. (2.62).
If we turn to the structure of the Islamic society, we find it bound together by religious
and social duties. Although the Qur’an itself does not assign a particular number to these
duties or refer to them as “pillars,” different Islamic sects have enumerated different
“pillars of the faith.” The majority sect, the Sunnis, enumerate five such pillars. Besides
payment of the alms tax, or zakat, that we have already mentioned, we also find the
prescription of five daily prayers, or salat, the pilgrimage to Mecca, or the hajj, as well as
the fast of Ramadan. The remaining duty, the shahada, or testimony of faith, is not
explicitly prescribed as a duty in the Qur’an but may be seen as a precondition for
accepting the Qur’an as a revealed word at all. It goes, “I testify that there is no god but
God, and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God.”
What kind of society do these duties promote? First of all, it is one that struggles
against the selfishness of individualism. There is nothing wrong with becoming wealthy
in itself, but there is if one does so at the expense of others, or if one refuses to contribute
to the welfare of those less fortunate. The Qur’an does not seek to abolish or level
existing social hierarchies, whether of rich vs. poor, free vs. slave, or man vs. woman, but
#17
�it does accept the spiritual equality of all before God and insists that all have a duty to
attend not only to the spiritual, but also to the physical, welfare of all others in the
community.
The opposition between the spiritual and the physical, between the spirit and the
“flesh,” so marked in Christianity, is not so strong in Islam. Islamic paradise includes
flowing water, flourishing plants, abundant honey, and beautiful virgins and youths.
Christians have long been scandalised, but that only shows that Muslims do not war
against the flesh as Christians have for so long. Given that God has made both our bodies
and our souls, our flesh and our spirit, to reject the physical is to reject part of God’s
creation. While Islam does believe in a strong opposition between good and evil and
does contrast this current inferior world with the superior world to come, it does not show
a marked contrast between flesh and spirit, nor does it brand the “desires of the flesh” as
inherently evil. There is nothing wrong with desiring and enjoying beautiful things. This
world is inferior to the world to come not because this world is physical and the next
world is spiritual. Even Christians, after all, insist on the resurrection of the body, and
what would a body be good for in a purely spiritual realm? This world is inferior to the
next rather because it is fleeting and filled with injustice and selfishness.
To take one particular example. Islam prohibits the consumption of alcohol not
because it excessively titillates our appetite for gustatory relish, but rather because it
inhibits our ability to act as responsible members of society. Likewise, its sexual
regulations, against adultery and fornication for example, are justified in terms of
mainting a well-regulated society. There is nothing wrong with sexual pleasure per se,
#18
�much less with sexual desire. Modesty in dress is prescribed for both men and women,
although it is more strictly expected of the latter.
Let us take another example. Islam, along with Judaism and Christianity,
prohibits usury on loans to one’s fellow citizens. While economists will rightly point out
that prohibiting usury is both ineffective and inefficient, that criticism misses the point,
for the economists are presupposing a core human selfishness that Islam is striving to
overcome. It is possible to feed the poor to bolster one’s sense of grandeur, or one’s
ranking on some list; it may even work well when all in society simply pursue their
enlightened self-interest. But to do the right thing for the wrong reason is still not to act
morally: one should support charity just because it is the right thing to do.
This is much more that one could say about the Qur’an. I hope the little that I
have said gives you some sense of the context in which it was revealed, of its form and
content, and also of how it conceives of the nature of Islamic society and the relation of
Islam to other religions.
#19
�
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Lecture Transcripts—Santa Fe
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St. John's College Meem Library
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Description
An account of the resource
Items in this collection are part of a series of lectures given every year at St. John's College at the Santa Fe, NM campus.
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
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pdf
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19 pages
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Title
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The Qur'an : an introduction for Johnnies
Description
An account of the resource
Transcript of a lecture given on June 16, 2021 by Ken Wolfe as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. Mr. Wolfe provided this description of the event: "In this introduction to the Qur'an, I will explore the context of its composition within the life of Muhammad and 6th century Arabia, its form and content, its relation to other texts and traditions (the Bible, Judaism, Christianity), and its influence upon certain aspects of the Islamic tradition."
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Wolfe, Kenneth
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2021-06-16
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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text
Format
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pdf
Subject
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Qur'an
Islam
Language
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English
Identifier
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SF_WolfeK_The_Qur'an--An_Introduction_for_Johnnies_2021-06-16
Graduate Institute
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/01726a00386e3d52abe40473e0ed738d.mp3
0c3c1dc82f1c2353cf2b1a6efd302478
Dublin Core
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Title
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
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St. John's College Meem Library
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Santa Fe, NM
Sound
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wav
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01:01:22
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Reflections on the Bill of Rights
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture given by Elizabeth C'de Baca Eastman on June 30, 2020, hosted by Edward Walpin as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. The Graduate Institute provided this description of the event: "Debate about including a bill of rights, the first ten Amendments of the United States Constitution, began in earnest during the ratification debates of the Constitution. The first ten amendments to the Constitution, called the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791. In contrast to the tradition of celebrating two famous documents in the history of the United States-- the 4th of July, the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776, and September 17, the day that the members of the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787--there is little public commemoration of December 15. Yet, of the three documents, it is perhaps the most invoked by citizens and advocates in day-to-day life. What is the relation of the Bill of Rights to the other seminal documents of the founding era? Has its role changed since ratification? How does it contribute to forming a political community?
Elizabeth Eastman holds a PhD in Political Science from Claremont Graduate School, an MA in Liberal Education from St. John’s College, and a BA in French Literature and Civilization from Scripps College. She has taught in the Political Science and History Departments at Chapman University and Azusa Pacific University, and in the Liberal Studies Programs at Roosevelt University in Chicago and at California State University at Fullerton. She is the 2020-21 Senior Scholar in Residence at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization in Boulder, Colorado."
Creator
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Eastman, Elizabeth C'de Baca
Walpin, Edward
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2020-06-30
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Constitutional amendments--United States
Relation
A related resource
<p>A video of this lecture is available on the St. John's College YouTube channel: <a href="https://youtu.be/AFljQseWAHI">https://youtu.be/AFljQseWAHI</a></p>
Language
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English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SF_EastmanE_Reflections_on_the_Bill_of_Rights_2020-06-30
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/2c01c7d7759d75cbda9cfb0dd60f1413.mp3
6a44741b82b065d42187bd5c227c375e
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
Contributor
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St. John's College Meem Library
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
wav
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:31:24
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The idea of the common good
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a conversation with Seth Appelbaum and David McDonald on July 7, 2020, hosted by Edward Walpin as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. The Graduate Institute provided this description of the event: "The idea of a 'common good' had largely faded as a theme of our public discourse until the Age of COVID-19. The notion of a shared good seems fairly uncontroversial when it shows up as a presupposition of public health policy. Beyond the realm of public health, and even in our fragmented and adversarial era, most activists and factions will sooner or later claim that they are working in service of the common good and not simply against their opponents. Does this resurgence of the 'common good' in our rhetoric herald an emerging consensus about the goal of politics, or is it a narrow, technical claim made in reaction to a specific emergency situation? How has the common good been understood throughout its long lineage, and what is at stake in the idea now? Join St. John’s tutors Seth Appelbaum and David McDonald for a live conversation on the question of what it might mean to have an ethical aim beyond that of the individual."
Creator
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Appelbaum, Seth
McDonald, David
Walpin, Edward
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2020-07-07
Rights
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Common good
Locke, John, 1632-1704
Relation
A related resource
<p>A video of this conversation is available on the St. John's College YouTube channel: <a href="https://youtu.be/hWyWx6DS3CM">https://youtu.be/hWyWx6DS3CM</a></p>
Language
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English
Identifier
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SF_AppelbaumS_McDonaldD_The_Idea_of_the_Common_Good_2020-07-07
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/0b9666bacceebb228b39d33564f2d799.mp3
33858d99d048444f7acfab1c045b87f5
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Meem Library
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
wav
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:16:54
Dublin Core
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Title
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Music in liberal education
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a conversation with John Cornell and David McDonald on June 23, 2020, hosted by Edward Walpin as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. The Graduate Institute provided this description of the event: "Music is everywhere, on account of online streaming, and is a central part of the experience of most people. But what is at stake in it? Why is music important? Does it have ethical significance? Join St. John’s tutors John Cornell and David McDonald for a live conversation on the place of music in education and life."
Creator
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Cornell, John F.
McDonald, David
Walpin, Edward
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2020-06-23
Rights
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Music
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SF_CornellJ_McDonaldD_Music_in_Liberal_Education_2020-06-23
Relation
A related resource
<p>A video of this conversation is available on the St. John's College YouTube channel: <a href="https://youtu.be/GYXn00Q48Vc">https://youtu.be/GYXn00Q48Vc</a></p>
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/d8bc5790f8efd7f772bfcf9119b24c95.mp4
9c322938f97a00bf754ecdf73a43bafc
Dublin Core
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Title
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Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series
Description
An account of the resource
The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Moving Image
A series of visual representations imparting an impression of motion when shown in succession. Examples include animations, movies, television programs, videos, zoetropes, or visual output from a simulation.
Original Format
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Zoom video conference
Duration
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01:29:02
Dublin Core
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Community Colleges and Teaching in the Liberal Arts
Description
An account of the resource
Video recording of a panel discussion held on July 1, 2020 as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Like St. John’s, community colleges are institutions devoted primarily to teaching and learning. They reach a broad and diverse portion of our country’s population. (In 2017–18, 38% of undergraduates were attending 2-year public colleges.) St. John’s collaborated with Anne Arundel Community College to bring together for this panel discussion faculty from a number of community colleges that have implemented discussion-based liberal arts education, including Austin Community College, Hostos Community College, Borough of Manhattan Community College and LaGuardia Community College.
The panelists include Andrea Fabrizio and Gregory Marks of Hostos Community College, Daniel Gertner of LaGuardia Community College, Holly Messitt of Borough of Manhattan Community College, Theodore Hadzi-Antich of Austin Community College, and Steve Canaday of Anne Arundel Community College. The panel was introduced by Emily Langston and moderated by Erica Beall of St. John's College.
Creator
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Fabrizio, Andrea
Marks, Gregory
Gertner, Daniel
Messitt, Holly
Hadzi-Antich, Theodore
Canaday, Steve
Beall, Erica
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
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2020-07-01
Rights
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Signed permissions form have been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audiovisual recording of my lecture available online."
Type
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moving image
Format
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mp4
Subject
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Community college teaching
Education, Humanistic
Anne Arundel Community College
Contributor
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Langston, Emily
Language
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English
Identifier
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PanelLecture_2020-07-01
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/9a845f3d960726c7f87dfded218476d1.mp4
10e760de2f14ca041e7858e8eb964cf5
Dublin Core
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Title
A name given to the resource
Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series
Description
An account of the resource
The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Moving Image
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Original Format
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Zoom video conference
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
01:03:38
Dublin Core
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Reading Plato’s <em>Meno</em> Online
Description
An account of the resource
Video recording of a lecture delivered on June 24, 2020 by William Braithwaite as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series. The final minute of the recording (beginning at 01:02:00) is in audio format only. <br /><br />Mr. Braithwaite describes his lecture as follows: <br /><br />"Traditionally serving to introduce the study of Plato’s two dozen dialogues, the <em>Meno</em> raises questions about what virtue is and how it is acquired, about what knowledge is—both in itself and in relation to opinion, and about how teaching and learning are connected. <br /><br />I will offer a preliminary, or serious beginner’s, reading of the dialogue, with a view to opening one path to these questions: What are the conditions Plato suggests as ideal or best, indispensable or useful, for learning and teaching? How, and to what extent, are these conditions affected by the differences between face-to-face student-teacher meetings, and meetings among geographically-dispersed teachers and students, mediated by an electronic screen? What sort of community is an 'on-line' community?"
Creator
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Braithwaite, William T. (William Thomas)
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
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2020-06-24
Rights
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A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audio recording of my lecture available online."
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
moving image
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp4
Subject
The topic of the resource
Plato. Meno
Web-based instruction
Education
Contributor
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Langston, Emily
Language
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English
Identifier
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Braithwaite_William_2020-06-24
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
Tutors
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/e4eed640060ec97f170601cc63607355.mp3
82cf646ea10595f7e87131136baf2ff9
Dublin Core
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Title
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
Contributor
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St. John's College Meem Library
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Sound
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Original Format
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mp3
Duration
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00:48:20
Dublin Core
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Title
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What kind of political community does the U.S. Constitution form?
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture given on July 23, 2019 by Elizabeth C'de Baca Eastman as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Creator
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Eastman, Elizabeth C'de Baca
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2019-07-23
Rights
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Aristotle. Politics
United States. Constitution
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
SF_EastmanE_What_Kind_of_Political_Community_Does_the_US_Constitution_Form_2019-07-23
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
-
https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/sjcdigitalarchives/original/10f79a37c1987c872cbef4424dd7be54.mp3
d08a59953988d6d54e49a9c4328667b9
Dublin Core
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Title
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
Contributor
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St. John's College Meem Library
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
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mp3
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:36:58
Dublin Core
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Title
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Suspicion and trust in George Eliot's Middlemarch
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture given on July 9, 2019 by Richard McCombs as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Creator
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McCombs, Richard A., II, 1967-
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2019-07-09
Rights
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Eliot, George, 1819-1880. Middlemarch
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
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SF_McCombsR_Middlemarch_2019-07-9
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
Contributor
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St. John's College Meem Library
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Sound
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Original Format
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mp3
Duration
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00:41:57
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Alexis de Tocqueville on American liberty : ancient or modern?
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture given on July 16, 2019 by Steven Forde as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Creator
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Forde, Steven, 1954-
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
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2019-07-16
Rights
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
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Tocqueville, Alexis de, 1805-1859. De la démocratie en Amérique
Language
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English
Identifier
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SF_FordeS_Alexis_de_Toqueville_on_American_Liberty_Ancient_or_Modern_2019-07-16
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series
Description
An account of the resource
The Wednesday Night Lecture Series, hosted during the summer term by the Graduate Institute at St. John’s College in Annapolis, is a less-formal version of the college’s formal Friday Night Lectures. The Wednesday Night lectures are an opportunity for tutors and for graduates of the college who are pursuing academic careers to present the first fruits of their thinking to an attentive and inquisitive audience. The lectures, held in the King William Room of the Barr-Buchanan Center at 7:30 p.m., with a question period afterward in a neighboring classroom, are free and open to the public.<br /><br />For more information, and for a schedule of upcoming lectures, please visit the <strong><a title="Summer lecture series" href="https://www.sjc.edu/annapolis/events/lectures/summer-wednesday-night-lecture-series" target="_blank">St. John's College website</a></strong>.<br /><br />Click on <strong><a title="Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series" href="http://digitalarchives.sjc.edu/items/browse?collection=31">Items in the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series Collection</a></strong> to view and sort all items in the collection.
Contributor
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St. John's College Greenfield Library
Sound
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Original Format
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mp3
Duration
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00:56:41
Dublin Core
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Title
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Euclid as Teacher
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture delivered on July 10, 2019 by William Braithwaite as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Mr. Braithwaite is a tutor at St. John's College, Annapolis. His talk centers on Euclid's role as an educator not just of mathematics but also of life. In particular, Braithwaite examines the ways in which Euclid's mathematical reasoning has applicability outside of what would be traditionally thought. Using examples from Mark Twain, Abraham Lincoln, and others, this talk deepens an understanding of Euclid as a teacher of logic, mathematics, and life.
Creator
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Braithwaite, William T. (William Thomas)
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Annapolis, MD
Date
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2019-07-10
Rights
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A signed permission form has been received stating, "I hereby grant St. John's College permission to make an audio recording of my lecture, and retain copies for circulation and archival preservation at the St. John's College Greenfield Library and to make an audio recording of my lecture available online."
Type
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sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
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Braithwaite_William_2019-07-10
Subject
The topic of the resource
Teaching
Euclid. Elements
Mathematics
Geometry
Education
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
Tutors
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Meem Library
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
mp3
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:49:55
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Simone Weil on having an inner life
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture given on July 2, 2019 by Eric Springsted as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Creator
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Springsted, Eric O.
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-07-02
Rights
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
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mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Weil, Simone, 1909-1943
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
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SF_SpringstedE_Simone_Weil_on_Having_an_Inner_Life_2019-07-02
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
-
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
St. John's College Lecture Recordings—Santa Fe
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
St. John's College Meem Library
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
mp3
Duration
Length of time involved (seconds, minutes, hours, days, class periods, etc.)
00:34:19
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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The weirdness of classical thermodynamics
Description
An account of the resource
Audio recording of a lecture given on June 25, 2019 by Don Lemons as part of the Graduate Institute Summer Lecture Series.
Creator
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Lemons, Don S. (Don Stephen), 1949-
Publisher
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St. John's College
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
Santa Fe, NM
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2019-06-25
Rights
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Meem Library has been given permission to make this item available online.
Type
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sound
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
mp3
Subject
The topic of the resource
Thermodynamics
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
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SF_LemonsD_The_Wierdness_of_Classical_Thermodynamics_2019-06-25
Graduate Institute
Summer lecture series
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