Life of the Mind: Brookewood & Avalon Schools

Ep. 26 The Extinction of Experience, with Fr. José Medina and Andrea Francois

In this new episode, I (host Cherie Walsh) talk with Andrea Francois and Fr. José Medina about Christine Rosen’s new book, The Extinction of Experience.  Building from our previous work on Jonathan Haidt’s The Anxious Generation, our conversation begins where Rosen’s book does:  the degree to which our experiences are increasingly mediated by our technological choices and how, as a result, we become spectators rather than agents of our activities.  This change in how people live of course has implications for our students and for ourselves, as we all strive to embrace our lives as fully present, embodied creatures.

Ep. 25 Anxious Generation, with Andrea Francois and Fr. José Medina

I am excited to talk with Andrea Francois and Fr. José Medina about Jonathan Haidt's book The Anxious Generation.  Haidt's book was the faculty summer reading at Brookewood, and we like his thesis.  We talk about the phone-free school day in terms of attention, embodiment, reflection, and reasonable physical risk.  For us, going outside in what Haidt calls "Discovery Mode" has been part of the curriculum for years, and we've tightened up our phone policies this summer as the data has come in about the clear correspondence of social media use and the rise of anxiety and depression, especially among girls.

Quentin Walsh ended up producing this one after all, so we thank him for helping to balance us out, as it were.

Ep. 24 The Goldfinch, with Andrea Francois and Ann Vitz

Andrea Francois and Ann Vitz join me for a discussion of Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch.  The novel uses its contemporary idiom (and some rough material) to discuss some of the great themes of literature:  art vs. life, mortality, the role of tradition in modern life, and so on.  We read the books behind the book (Keats, Dostoyevsky, Dickens, and so on).  Finally, we appreciate the novel's ultimately Catholic worldview and find the characters and world fully drawn and ineluctably memorable. (NB:  One of us quotes a vulgar word from the text, and maybe this is an episode not to listen to with the kids in the car anyway...)

Ep. 23 Brief Loves that Live Forever by Andrei Makine, with David Booz and Andrea Francois

David Booz and Andrea Francois join me to discuss Brief Loves that Live Forever, Andrei Makine's 2013 novel exploring the end of the USSR.  David was keen to talk about Makine, as Erik Varden mentions him in The Shattering of Loneliness, among the non-Christian writers whose works feature a longing for meaning beyond ideology or pleasure.  The novel explores the childhood and later life of its nameless narrator in chapters that read as luminous vignettes with moments of real emotion that allow for glimpses of the transcendent.

Ep. 22 Erik Varden's The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance, with David Booz

Podcast regular David Booz joins me to talk about Erik Varden's The Shattering of Loneliness:  On Christian Remembrance.  When a friend gave me this book as a present, I thought she felt sorry for me, but once I got past the title, I found a deeply insightful, rich, accessible treatment of God's commands regarding memory.  David says this book changed his life.  Our conversation includes Andrei Makine, Stig Dagerman, Rainer Maria Rilke, Vassily Grossman, Gustav Mahler, Maïti Girtanner, and more.  

Ep. 21 The Diaries of Etty Hillesum, with Fr. José Medina

In this episode, Fr. José, Brookewood chaplain and teacher, and I talk about the diaries of Etty Hillesum.  Hillesum was in her 20s in the Netherlands when she wrote her diary about her external experience during the Nazi occupation and more importantly about her internal experience of God.  

Ep. 20 Yascha Mounk’s The Identity Trap, with David Booz and Andrea Francois

David Booz and Andrea Francois join me for a discussion of Professor Yascha Mounk's new book, The Identity Trap.  We talk about what we learned from reading Mounk's history of identity politics from Foucault to Ibram X. Kendi, and we discuss Mounk's conclusions about the promotion of universal values.  Mounk's book is significant in part because he comes to the discussion from the left.  We find plenty to agree with him about, even as we wish he had gone further in acknowledging the Source of the values he touts.

Ep. 19 Great Moral Stories, with Ann Vitz

In this episode, I talk with Mrs. Ann Vitz, longtime Brookewood parent and new Brookewood teacher, about her program, Great Moral Stories, which we're implementing in grades K-12 this year.  Based on Core Virtues by Mary Beth Klee, and designed with Aristotle's virtues as its foundation, this curriculum is helping Brookewood girls to learn more about how to live a virtuous life.  Here's the article Ann and I reference, the piece by Andrea Francois.

 

Ep. 18 Camino of Maryland, with Rich McPherson

Today I talk with Rich McPherson, Head of Brookewood and President of Avalon and Brookewood, to learn how he spent his summer vacation.  Having made a number of one-day pilgrimages and thought for a long time about multi-day routes, Rich has devised a two-week pilgrimage, a Camino of Maryland, he hopes to initiate this next summer, with the help of many pastors and other community members along the way.  While I kept calling it "Rich's Camino" all summer, he kept correcting me:  "It's God's Camino," he said. And, indeed, as Rich finds the doors opening to him and the various outpourings of support along the way, it does seem to be a project helped along by the Holy Spirit.  Listen to Rich talk about it and see if you are inspired to join.

Ep. 17: Pieper’s Leisure the Basis of Culture and ”Hope,” with David Booz and Andrea Francois

David, Andrea, and I (with improved audio) sit down to discuss two works by Josef Pieper.  These two works are both important and accessible to non-philosophers.  In Leisure, Pieper posits that real leisure relies on a capacity for contemplation and is anchored in divine worship.  In "Hope," Pieper highlights our status as pilgrims "on the way" in our earthly lives and develops the implications of that status viator in interesting and life-changing ways.