The Classical Mind Newsletter for August 4, 2023

Reading as an Act of Hospitality, The Brothers Karamazov, Russian Literature and Meaning, "Forbearance", and A Little Bit About Punctuation

Housekeeping

• We recorded the final episode of season 1 on The Brothers Karamazov yesterday. It will be released this Tuesday.

• The September episode will be a twofer: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and Poetics by Aristotle.

• We are working on setting up a merch store. It should be live soon.

• Junius has a new book out: On Teaching Fairy Stories: A Guide to Cultivating Wonder in Students through Great Literature. This book isn’t just for teachers, parents can also benefit from it. Check it out here!

• Wesley will be teaching the following classes this school year at True North Homeschool Academy if your family or someone you know is looking for classes for their kids: Philosophy through Plato, Formal Logic, Latin II, Latin III, and Latin IV.

Season 2 Schedule

In case you missed the most recent episode of the podcast, here is our reading schedule for Season 2:
September: Oedipus Rex by Sophocles and Poetics by Aristotle
October: Euthyphro by Plato
November: The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau
December: Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer
January: TBD - Listener’s Choice
February: Julius Caesar by Shakespeare
March: Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe
April: Emma by Jane Austen
May: The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott
June: TBD - Listener’s Choice
July: Intention by Gertrude Elizabeth Anscombe
August: Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche

Reading as an Act of Hospitality

As always, the brilliant

Jessica Hooten Wilson

provides us with an important reminder at

The Scandal of Reading: Uncovering Holy Wisdom

that the act of reading is an exercise in hospitality. To teach us this lesson, she engages with Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri. This is a book I haven’t read but has come up in a few different conversations recently and, after reading her discussion of it, I am inclined to pick up a copy as soon as possible. In this context, the hospitality of reading comes from the guest-host relationship: “You are sitting down before the author to receive his or her gift.”

“The Brothers Karamazov,” Reviewed

At The New Yorker, Jennifer Wilson—no relation to Jessica Hooten Wilson—offers a helpful summary and review of The Brothers Karamazov. It might be a helpful article if you haven’t read the book or want to revisit the story in anticipation of our upcoming episode.