The Classical Mind Newsletter for July 2024

The Redefining Classics Gathering, Motherhood and the Intellectual Life, Classics and Christians in the 12th Century, The Lamps, The Critic as Friend

We are back!

Housekeeping

• Thank you for your patience on the newsletter. It’s been a tough six months, but it’s good to get back to the newsletter! This will come out monthly from here on out.

• We only have two books left for this season: Intention by Anscombe (July) and Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None by Nietzsche (August).

• The September episode is going to be our draft for the next year. We will have a couple listener choice slots again so keep an eye out! Would also appreciate some suggestions of episodes you’d like to see in the third season of the show!

• Junius has a new course this fall for adults called “A Taste for Glory: A Theology of Wonder”. Check it out!

• I believe I’ve mentioned it before but I teach classes for homeschool students online. If you have students or know some people looking for classes, I would be honored if you would share these classes with them:

  • Informal Logic

  • Formal Logic

  • Latin II

  • Latin III

  • Latin IV

  • Here are a couple interviews I did recently about my classes:

    • Latin

    • Logic

The Redefining Classics Gathering

On June 15, Dr. Anika Prather, guest of the show, organized and hosted a gathering called Redefining Classics at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Junius was one of the speakers, alongside Angel Parham, David Steiner, Samba Sara, Toyin Atolagbe, Michele Ronnick, Shana O’Connell, Bettina Joy de Guzman, John Mark Reynolds, Michael Adkins, Carolivia Herron, Ruth Naomi Floyd, Erica Robles Anderson, Pier Panic, Sonja Santelises, David Within, Diana Smith, Paul Henderson, Bryan Whitchurch, Markisha Stovall, and Keith Goosby. The day was a reminder for me, as a lifelong student and an educator that the classical tradition is broad and diverse specifically because the classical tradition is a part of the human conversation.

First, I should say a word about how the event was organized. I’ve been to numerous academic conferences where they have multiple, simultaneous breakout sessions. Usually, you assess the offerings and decide what session most interests you. At Redefining Classics, your program had a unique map of sessions for you to attend, an intentional strategy designed to keep attendees open-minded and allowed for equity in terms of attendance for each session. The only downside to this structure is that I was unable to attend Junius’ session, but I was so appreciative of the sessions I did attend, the experiences I had, and the connections that I made. Since

Before our breakout sessions, we had a general session primarily focusing on Bettina Joy de Guzman who focuses on music in ancient culture. She played and sang some of the oldest songs for which we have music on a lyre.

My first, and probably most unique, session was with Dr. Caroliva Herron, a professor at Howard University, author, and playwright. Rather than deliver a lecture, Dr. Herron offered a monologue in the character of one of her ancestors who had been enslaved in Nelson County, Virginia. She is currently working on a play, commissioned by Theater J, related to this story.

I then attended a session with Dr. Anika Prather and Dr. David Steiner, the executive director of the Johns Hopkins Institute for Education Policy. Their conversation was about ways of integrating a Great Books, classical approach into an educational system that values teaching “skills” rather than the Story. Dr. Steiner called for pushing back against mike-wide, inch-deep “instruction” in favor of an approach to the Great Books where students have an encounter with the text in which the text is free to ask questions back to the students. He parted with two final points of emphasis. First, he argued that we have to ask (and answer) the question what’s worth reading. Second, in addition to loving their students, he pointed out that teachers need to love the subjects that they teach. This love for the material can help energize students and model for them what it means to be a lifelong learner.

We all came together after the second session for a panel conversation between Dr. Prather, Dr. Angel Parham, and Ruth Naomi Floyd. Dr. Prather and Dr. Parham wrote The Black Intellectual Tradition together:

Ruth Naomi Floyd is someone I was unfamiliar with and I really wish I had been aware of her work earlier! She fronts a project called the Frederick Douglass Jazz Works, a set of compositions that draw from Douglass’ works. They had an awesome conversation on Douglass, revolving primarily around the question “When did Douglass break free?” In the wake of this question, there was a fantastic group conversation about what books have set us free. At the end of the discussion, we had the privilege of watching Floyd perform a few songs. To give you a little taste, here’s a video of one of her performances:

The next breakout session I attended was probably my favorite: “The Family of God’s Cosmological Canon” by Dr. John Mark Reynolds of Saint Constantine College. He reminded us that the book list we choose as educators is for our students. Given a Christian anthropology, all people are created in God’s image, and this means that, technically, the canon is as large as humanity is. The “cosmic canon” includes every work that contains beauty, truth, and goodness. Given the constraints of time, place, and language, we have to prioritize for utility using prudence. To help us understand how we might prioritize well, Dr. Reynolds emphasized that we first find our roots. This means being aware of where we as educators come from, but also our students. Whenever a school lets in a new student, they are expanding their own root system which means a growing canon is necessary both backwards and forwards so that we can trace our ancestors back to the great conversation of all humanity and read the texts that enabled them to join that discussion. So, as Americans, he argued, we should read the Bible because it’s had a massive impact on the West and on America. But we should also read the Quran and the Book of Mormon because those books have also had a massive impact on who we are. There are countless good books, but we should prioritize the texts that have been referenced in many places, by many people, in many times.

There are more experiences I could share, but these are the things that really stuck out. It was a lovely experience and I’m so glad I was able to go! Dr. Prather does plan on hosting it again next year, so please keep an eye out. I will try to make sure to announce any details that emerge because I will definitely be going and I hope to see you there!

Also, I posted this in the subscriber’s chat, but here’s a photo of Junius visiting my parish in Crownsville, Maryland the day after the conference: