How to Mark a Book

Mortimer J. Adler, Ph.D., 1n The Saturday Review of Literature (via Stevenson College.

"Confusion about what it means to "own" a book leads people to a false reverence for paper, binding, and type -- a respect for the physical thing -- the craft of the printer rather than the genius of the author. They forget that it is possible for a man to acquire the idea, to possess the beauty, which a great book contains, without staking his claim by pasting his bookplate inside the cover. Having a fine library doesn't prove that its owner has a mind enriched by books; it proves nothing more than that he, his father, or his wife, was rich enough to buy them."

Chicago's Grumpy Guru

'Best-Selling Professor Allen Bloom on the Chicago Intellectuals', by James Atlas, The New York Times.

"In 1946, Allan Bloom entered the University of Chicago.

"Founded in 1891 with an initial gift of $600,000 from John D. Rockefeller, the University of Chicago was determined from the beginning to model itself upon Oxford, Cambridge and the great German universities - and to do so, noted a later president, Edward Levi, 'in a most unlikely geographical place.' Even Bloom can't entirely suppress his skepticism about the look of his alma mater, the 'fake Gothic buildings' surrounded by slums. 'But they pointed toward a road of learning that leads to the meeting place of the greats.'

"These aren't just words. Under the stewardship of Robert Maynard Hutchins, who began his legendary tenure as president of the university in 1929, Chicago became famous as an institution devoted to the higher learning. Mortimer Adler, recruited by Hutchins to serve as a resident intellectual guide, introduced a program devoted to the classics of Western literature, and, by the mid-1930's, what had begun as a course (General Honors 110) defined a milieu. Adler is much derided today - Bloom puts him down as a kind of equal opportunity intellectual. But for a precocious Midwestern boy like Bloom, Hyde Park was the Promised Land."

Saved by Books

Joseph Epstein reviews Rescuing Socrates: How the Great Books Changed My Life and Why They Matter for a New Generation, by Roosevelt Montás, at First Things.

"Throughout Rescuing Socrates, Montás interweaves his account of reading and teaching St. Augustine, Plato, Freud, and Gandhi with his own autobiography. He tells us at the outset that he has chosen to write about these four figures because, like him, 'each of them experienced an inner transformation that made them into the figures we know today. In each case, the motive force was the relentless pursuit of self-understanding—the very kind of understanding that liberal education takes as its ultimate goal.'"

See Augustine, The Confessions, The City of God, and On Christian Doctrine, in Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 18, and (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 16.

See Freud, selected works, Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 54, (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 54.

See Plato, Dialogues, and The Seventh Letter, in Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952) volume 7, (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) volume 6.

Theorists of the Poison Pill

R. J. Snell, Witherspoon Institute, at Public Discourse.

"As it turns out, there is some truth to the story; Scotism is discernible in certain aspects of modernity. Still, ... it’s a stretch to think that real history, the way things actually happen, follows a clear linear and logical path as might appear on paper. Intellectual historians are sometimes tempted to assume that the influence of an idea flows like a logical deduction—x necessitates y, and y entails z—such that the way we think in 2022 was all but pre-ordained by a medieval treatise. The temptation conflates influence with causation, as if Thomas Jefferson’s having read Francis Bacon means the Declaration of Independence might as well be ascribed to Bacon. And since Bacon writes about Scotus the Declaration is really Scotism, as all educated people should know. The line from Scotus to Planned Parenthood v. Casey is a direct line (apparently), with Casey implicit in Scotus like a the germ of seed that will inevitably sprout with time."

Mary Beard Keeps History on the Move

'For Beard, change has always been a part of the classics. We need to expose the field’s flaws to learn how we’ve inherited them.'

Katy Waldman interviewed classicist and historian Mary Beard at The New Yorker.

[Waldman] "How do you feel about canons? As a proposition.

[Beard] "They’re always changing, aren’t they? And what’s almost more important than what’s in them is the dialectical element: they’re what you react against. I know I sound like a tricksy academic, but in some ways a canon reveals to you not so much what is there as what’s not there. And so it changes itself; it’s self-destructive. The problem, of course, is that we can’t read everything, and so we have to be aware of what we are and aren’t reading, and why we are or aren’t reading it.

"Obviously, there is conservative support for a particular version of the canon, and I think we all know what that looks like. But if you think about some of these apparently conservative institutions more radically, coming face-to-face with them makes you question what you ought to read. And so I think that paradoxically, although it’s easy to get upset about the dead hand of the canon, all the dead white men of literature, et cetera, I also, looking back, can start to say, 'But that’s the canon doing its job.' It’s making me ask, 'Why is it like this?'"

A More Principled Vision for Higher Learning

J. Grant Addison reviews Let’s Be Reasonable: A Conservative Case for Liberal Education, by Jonathan Marks, at Education Next.

"His goal is to sway those inside of the academy to adopt a more principled vision for higher learning, but his defense of liberal education is also intended as a defense of colleges and universities themselves. As indicated by the book’s title, Marks, a conservative who is a professor of politics at Ursinus College, is also aiming his argument specifically at other conservatives, many of whom he fears have written off colleges and universities entirely as factories of leftist indoctrination. He writes from the perspective that higher education’s story is poorly told, and he rejects right-wing fatalism about colleges and universities."

Education Next includes this "Suggested citation format:"

Addison, J.G. (2021). A More Principled Vision for Higher Learning: Jonathan Marks urges a recommitment to reason. Education Next, 21(3), 72-75

The Great Ideas of Religion and Freedom

'A Semiotic Reinterpretation of The Great Ideas Movement for the 21st Century'

Recently published by Brill, volume 369 in the Value Inquiry Book Series and the Philosophy and Religion, and in the Value Inquiry Book Series Online.

Volume Editors are Peter A. Redpath, Imelda Chłodna-Błach, and Artur Mamcarz-Plisiecki.

"This volume tests a hypothesis—philosophy and science are identical forms of behavioristic, organizational psychology: a psychological habit of wondering about causes of organizational existence, formation, and behaviour. Focusing attention on two universal and culturally influential great ideas—freedom and religion—this volume’s array of international scholars demonstrate that leading ancient and medieval philosophers did philosophy in this way. Also, well-known philosophers/scientists like Mortimer J. Adler and John N. Deely practiced philosophy this way. Doing so is precisely what made these philosophers uniquely capable of generating great ideas as motivational principles that dramatically alter cultures. In a nutshell, this work offers significant support for its historically and philosophically ground-breaking thesis."

A Tale of Two Curricula:

'General Education at St. John’s College and the University of Chicago'

Brandon Shin at The Chicago Maroon.

"Hutchins’s push against the New Plan started in 1930 after he became acquainted with Mortimer Adler, an instructor at Columbia University who would go on to become one of the leaders of the Great Books movement.

"According to a 2009 dissertation by William Scott Rule, Seventy Years of Changing Great Books at St. John’s College, which details the history of Great Books at St. John’s and beyond, Adler himself first encountered the idea of a Great Books education at Columbia University as a student in John Erskine’s General Honors course, a course which Adler would eventually go on to help teach."

(via Heather Salonga, at Great Conversations Reading Group)

Decolonizing the Academy:

'Who’s afraid of the call to decolonize higher education?'

Steven Mintz, University of Texas at Austin, at Inside Higher Ed.

"The ever-expanding use of the decolonizing concept has provoked pushback, with two influential scholars, Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, arguing that we should not treat decolonization as a metaphor for various ways to improve education, or for example, advancing social justice, adopting critical methodologies or implementing more student-centered pedagogies.

"Nevertheless, given the prevalence of the term, we should ask: What do the calls to decolonize the academy actually mean?

Book nooks

Brooke Allen reviews The Library: A Fragile History by Andrew Pettegree and Arthur Der Weduwen at The New Criterion.

"The quiet, well-tended New York City branch libraries provided both an education and a refuge for me—and countless other children. They were also an invaluable resource for older members of the community. How could this not always have been perceived as not only desirable but also necessary?"

The Myth of the Classically Educated Elite

Naomi Kanakia at the Los Angeles Review of Books.

"Of course, it’s undeniable that there have been periods of time when the elite placed a high value on being cultured, but there have also been periods when the opposite was true: when paying too much attention to books was considered ungentlemanly. And there’s substantial evidence that the latter periods have tended to predominate, especially in the last 300 years of British and American history.

The Harvard Classics

The Harvard Classics: Download All 51 Volumes as Free eBooks, Open Culture.

"Every revolutionary age produces its own kind of nostalgia. Faced with the enormous social and economic upheavals at the nineteenth century’s end, learned Victorians like Walter Pater, John Ruskin, and Matthew Arnold looked to High Church models and played the bishops of Western culture, with a monkish devotion to preserving and transmitting old texts and traditions and turning back to simpler ways of life. It was in 1909, the nadir of this milieu, before the advent of modernism and world war, that The Harvard Classics took shape."

See my earlier post In just 15 minutes a day.

See Great Books of the Western World (first edition, 52 Vol., 1952), (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990), at Britannica, Wikipedia, and at Logos (second edition).

Enatae Litterae

James Hankins at First Things.

'Why Study the Humanities?

'Did you know that the study of the humanities started as a way to reform the elites?

'... Petrarch sought to morally and intellectually improve the ruling class—to recover virtue he saw had been lost.'

The Role of Book Reviews in the Academic Book Ecosystem – A Report

At Arcadia Fund.

"In 2020, we asked our summer intern, Katie Phillips (at the time, a final year MSc student in Archaeological Science at University College London) to research the role of scholarly book reviews, with a focus on reviews of open access books. Over her six-week internship, Katie tested Arcadia co-founder Peter Baldwin’s suggestion that major book review publications overlook open access books, and examined the importance and relevance of book reviews to open access publishing.

"Katie reviewed a decade’s worth of book reviews from the London Review of Books and LA Review of Books. She found that open access books have been reviewed in both publications, but only rarely. Through interviews with publishers, librarians and academics, Katie also contextualised her findings with fascinating anecdotes and views that shed light on the academic publishing system."

(via Gary Price, InfoDocket, Library Journal)

Aquinas Leadership International September 2021 Update

This is a selection based on items from the Aquinas School of Leadership, provided to us by Dr. Peter A. Redpath. More recent announcements are posted here.

Selected upcoming events are posted in this blog's "Conference Calendar" page.

The items selected from recent news are listed below.

• At Commonsense Wisdom Academies, the complete 2021-2022 Course Catalogue is now posted online.
• Catholic University of America Press has issued it's Winter 2021-22 Catalog. (Acquisitions Editor John B. Martino suggests a look at page 4.) Last Seasons Catalog (Spring & Summer 2021) is also still available online.
• Pontifex University is offering Graduate Programs in Educational Administration. These are almost-totally-online and provide a low-cost way to a Masters of Education (M.Ed) and Doctor of Education (Ed.D).
• Telos Journal Call for Papers: 25 Years After Ecocritique
• The Society for Medieval and Renaissance Thomism (S.M.A.R.T.) is planning a session for the 2022 Notre Dame Conference on Medieval Philosophy to be held 20-22 May 2022 at the University of Notre Dame. S.M.A.R.T. accepts papers on all aspects of Thomism from 1274 to the publication of the Carmelite Cursus Theologiae (1631-1701).
• The Postil Magazine has published An Open Letter To the Rector of the Jagiellonian University from Paul Gottfried and Zbigniew Janowski and others protesting that the "university and Philosophy Department have seen fit to reprimand Professor Ryszard Legutko for an 'Open Letter,' in which he urges your institution to 'disband' the office of equal treatment." (In an earlier issue, Mr. Janowski provides background to The Legutko Affair.)
• Ginna Pennance-Acevedo reports that her sister, soprano Sol Cecilia Pennance-Acevedo, and her friend, contralto Nissa Maria Flanders, have just founded the duo Rosa Amaranth with the aim of being "an instrument of joy, healing, and beauty in order to elevate souls to God through sacred music." Here is a recording of Quam Pulchra Es, Maria: Rosa Amaranth Inaugural Concert.
• Two recently published works by Dennis Bonnette: How Metaphysical Certitudes Anchor Proofs for God, Homiletic and Pastoral Review; and "How the Blessed Mother Can Answer All Those Prayers", Strange Notions
• Also recently published, The Great Ideas of Religion and Freedom: A Semiotic Reinterpretation of The Great Ideas Movement for the 21st Century, co-ed. Peter A. Redpath, Imelda Chłodna-Błach, Artur Mamcarz-Plisieck

Why Colleges Need Great Books

David Mulroy, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, at Wisconsin Interest.

"A central purpose of education is to enliven intellects, to hook young people on the thrill of using their minds freely. No kind of material or strategy that could be used for this purpose has anything like the time-tested success to its credit that the Great Books do."

Aquinas Leadership International August 2021 Update

This is a selection based on items from the Aquinas School of Leadership, provided to us by Dr. Peter A. Redpath. More recent announcements are posted here.

If you have information you would like considered for publication in a later update, submit it to Dr. Redpath.

Selected upcoming events are posted in this blog's "Conference Calendar" page.

The items selected from recent news are listed below.

• The Aquinas School of Leadership (ASL), Commonsense Wisdom Liberal Arts Academy (CWLAA), announces its 2021-2022 Course Catalogue, which lists twenty-two upcoming courses.
• The relief project Help Dante Help Italy paired Daniel Fitzpatrick's new translation of Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy with Timothy Schmalz's sculptures illustrating each of its 100 cantos. At the formal close of both parts of the project on March 25, 2021, Mr. began recording a series of readings from his book to be presented on WCAT Radio, to continue through the celebration of the Third Italian Dantendi on March 25, 2022.
• The Catholic Art Institute holds its Return to Beauty Conference and Gala October 24, 2021 in Chicago.

What Are the Classics For?

'Some on the left are turning against them. Some on the right are oversimplifying them. How should we think about—and learn from—great classical works of literature and philosophy?'

Alexandra Hudson at The Bulwark.

"[Eric] Adler, a classics professor at the University of Maryland, wrote his book [The Battle of the Classics] after observing the failures of modern justifications for studying the humanities. Too often, he notes, these defenses are 'skills-based' and appeal to the 'mental discipline' produced by studying classical languages, offering bland claims that studying the Great Books fosters 'critical thinking.'"

Five Feet of Western Wisdom

Michael Dirda reviewed Great Books of the Western World (second edition, 60 Vol., 1990) at The Washington Post.

"Strangely enough, considering the elaborate apparatus that is The Syntopicon, the GBWW continues to present only bare text, maintaining that common readers shouldn't be distracted or intimidated with critical introductions, explanatory notes or textual history. This, I think, shows a fundamental misjudgment. ... When Singleton published his translation of The Divine Comedy, he linked it with three volumes of commentary for a good reason: Just as Dante needs Virgil, so his readers need a guide through the complexities of a poem grounded in contemporary Italian politics and a complicated system of symbolism."

Birth of the Great Ideas Great Books Movement

The Great Books Movement: A Return to the Classics, by Patrick S. J. Carmack, The Angelicum Academy.

"No one can any longer read all books, or even most books, but only a very tiny percentage of the total number of books. Therefore, to maximize the gains to be made from reading, the best should be read – the great books."