Books and a Balance
by St. John's College
January 12, 2023 3:01 am
St. John’s College is dedicated to a strange idea—that education is for the sake of freedom. Our motto promises to “make free human beings out of children by means of books and a balance.” As the oldest Great Books school in the US, we’ve been working at this for a while. So what is a liberal education? What is its future? And what do books—and conversations about them—have to do with freedom and the life of the mind? Through conversations with a range of guests, we explore the meaning of liberal education, its power in the lives of individuals, and the economic, political, and cultural pressures it faces. Feedback and questions welcome at booksandabalance@sjc.edu.
Recent Episodes
Matt Dinan on the Single Book Course
3 years agoAngel Parham on the Black Intellectual Tradition and Classical Education
3 years agoJenna and Benjamin Storey on the Art of Choosing What to do With Your Life
3 years agoArnold Weinstein on The Lives of Literature
3 years agoJames Hankins on Intellectual Freedom in Medieval Universities—and Today’s
3 years agoBrian Rosenberg on How the Humanities End—and Might Be Saved with Brendan Boyle
3 years agoRoosevelt Montás on Rescuing Socrates with Brendan Boyle
4 years agoDaniel Harrell on Freedom, Death, and Liberal Education with Brendan Boyle
4 years agoZena Hitz on Thinking, Technology, and the Limits of Being Human with David McDonald
4 years ago