Reflections on Academic Kindness and Intellectual Curiosity

A conversation between Dr Iain McGilchrist, the renowned polymath, and Dr Stephen Blackwood, President of Ralston College, about Dr McGilchrist’s formative experiences at Winchester College, the prestigious British public school, and his subsequent training as a literary critic at Oxford University and his appointment as a Fellow at All Souls. Drs McGilchrist and Blackwood emphasize the vital role of freedom, friendship, and the expectation of excellence in providing students with an authentic education. This conversation was recorded during Dr McGilchrist’s visit to Ralston College in March 2024 to deliver The Sophia lectures for the 2023-24 academic year.

List of People Mentioned in the Episode: 

• Cicero

• George Herbert

• John Donne

• John Clare

• Guido d’Arezzo

• Alexander Pope

• Freeman Dyson

• Gerard Manley Hopkins

• Friedrich Schelling

• G.W.F. Hegel

• John Bayley 

• Christopher Tolkien

• John Milton

• Edmund Spenser 

• William Wordsworth

• Samuel Taylor Coleridge 

• Georg Chritoph Lichtenberg

• Derek Parfit

• Thomas Hardy

• Oliver Sacks

• Roger Scruton