Description
Audio recording of a lecture given by J. Walter Sterling on September 11, 2020 as part of the Dean's Lecture and Concert Series. Dean Sterling provided this description of his lecture: "The lecture will blend reflections on education in times of crisis, including a discussion of the founding of the St. John’s Program, with an examination of Montaigne’s understanding of education and its ends. Montaigne, who lived through plague and civil war, is one of the few authors who can stake a claim to have forged the modern individual. His response to the crises of his times was to cultivate a new literary form, the 'essay,' devoted to a new topic, 'myself,' and to send out a renewed or radicalized call for freedom of thought, independent judgment, and self-possession."