Magnus Podcast: Conversations from the Catacombs of Liberal Education

Today, we are offering you another glimpse into the Magnus Fellowship; this time with Senior Fellow, Dr. Helen Freeh's course, "Friendship and Freedom in the Lord of the Rings." This is the first half of the first class of the final 8- week course on The Lord of the Rings, offered over three rounds of 8- week courses. This Fall, Fellows have been finishing the seminar with The Return of the King. They have discussed closely how the power of friendship achieves the Ring’s destruction; they have looked at the extreme limitations of the individual acting alone against superior physical and spiritual force, the unseen hand of Providence coordinating the consequences of many characters’ choices, and the despair that results from the modernist claim to autonomy. Find out how you can catch the rest of this course AND access all archived courses- over 40 hours of exceptional classes with some of the top educators in liberal learning.  Subscribe to our e-mail list today and stay up to date on all courses, articles, and podcasts!

Blessed Feast of St. Albert the Great! On this special day, we spoke with Leigh Bortins of Classical Conversations who, like St. Albert the Great before us, shares our love for a liberating education. Education is never free, and, like all good things, the higher the quality of education, the higher the cost. She joins John and Larissa to discuss how to give our students a high quality education that is a better kind of free-  free from the shackles and snares of our world.  Learn more about Classical Conversations, educational independence  and Leigh Bortins Educator, mother, grandmother, and daughter of the King, Leigh Bortins is best known for creating lifelong learners through her educational support program, Classical Conversations, which organizes classical academic communities for homeschooling families. Leigh founded Classical Conversations (or CC) in 1997 to know God and to make Him known through the power of community. After receiving a bachelor of science in aerospace engineering from the University of Michigan, Leigh went on to write her Doctor of Ministry thesis on church-based global education for Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.  Join us as we attempt to make quality education accessible to all, despite the cost. 

Once again, we are offering you a quick glimpse into the Magnus Fellowship; this time with Senior Fellow, Dr. Finley's class, “Rousseau and the Diabolical and Moral Imagination." This course explores the moral dimensions of the imagination through an examination of literature and philosophy. The aim of the course is to define and understand the concept of “imagination” and to be able to assess its role—for good or ill—in thought, action, and politics. Eighteenth-century philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a pioneer of the Romantic movement and helped to shape the heart and mind of the West, both politically and in more subtle, but no less profound, ways. This course seeks to uncover some of the ways in which Rousseau’s imagination serves as a touchstone for what has perhaps been the dominant moral sensibility in the West for the past two centuries. Find out how you can catch the rest of this course AND access all archived courses- over 40 hours of exceptional classes with some of the top educators in liberal learning.  Subscribe to our e-mail list today and stay up to date on all courses, articles, and podcasts!

Dr. Amir Sabzevary has spent the last thirty years teaching philosophy and religion. Today, he joins John to talk about the journey of both teaching and studying philosophy– how to trek through complicated lives as students and how to reach the unreachable students as teachers. Discover ever so much more on his Youtube Channel. Don't forget! Free Fall courses in the Magnus Fellowship start next week.

This week on the Magnus Podcast, John and Larissa talk moral theology with high school teacher, Rocky Brittain and attempt to answer difficult moral questions according to Catholic Theology and Thomas Aquinas, such as when is it permissible to kill? How should a priest respond when he hears a life changing confession? How should we respond when we disagree with authority?   Do you have thoughts that you’d like to share after listening to this discussion? Post your answers on twitter to @amifellowship   P.S. Enrollment is open for Fall courses in the Magnus Fellowship! Register today!

In this fast paced world full of echo chambers and outrage machines, we are fooled into believing a misguided view of justice and rhetoric. Dr. Joshua Phillips joins us to talk about how we can properly understand the connection between justice and humility and the distinction between thinking wonderfully and thinking critically.   Joshua Phillips received a Ph.D. in Speech Communication from Southern Illinois University in 2014. His academic focus is rhetoric and intercultural communication with particular interests in civil rights, free speech, media, and poverty. As a Ph.D. student, Dr. Phillips published 15 academic manuscripts, received 4 top paper awards from academic conferences, and presented over 50 keynotes at colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada. His book, Homeless: Narratives from the Streets derives from his dissertation research and was published by McFarland in 2016.  You can follow him on twitter @Joshphillipsphd

AMI exists because we, like so many, see a problem with the current university system. What is the modern university providing to its students in comparison to what it ought to be providing?  What is the purpose of a university? We just completed an 8 week summer course on John Henry Newman's, "The Idea of a University," to grapple with these questions and come to understand what a university ought to look like.  As promised, here is a sneak peek into the first of 8 classes from this course.  Become a fellow and learn how you can access the entire course and attend more for free!

"What is the best way of life for a human being?" The Republic is the most complete attempt by Plato to articulate and answer this question. It is characteristic of Plato that, in the Republic, questions about human happiness ultimately cannot be separated from questions of education, of the nature of the city, of the various forms of government, of the structure of the human soul, and of the character of the gods and being itself. . This week, we wrapped up an 8 week summer course on this very topic with Sr. Fellow Dr. Pavlos Papadopoulos.  We now present you with the first lecture from this excellent course.  Become a fellow and learn how you can watch the rest of the course and attend more for free!

Musician and composer, Greg Wilbur of New College Franklin contemplates music within the quadrivium; he explains why music ought to be ordered rightly in education and how it rests in harmony with the other Liberal Arts. He even discusses a little bit of conspiracy theories.  Gregory Wilbur is President and Dean of the College, permanent Trustee, and Senior Fellow at New College Franklin. Over the past years at New College, he has taught courses or sections of Music, Geometry, Cosmology, Moral Philosophy, Poetics, and numerous preceptorials such as The Art of Film, 20th-Century Literature, Hospitality and Cooking, and the Quadrivium. Mr. Wilbur has composed award-winning works for choir, orchestra, film, and corporate worship as well as various commissions. He recently released his fifth CD of congregational hymns called Praise Your Maker.  

“Take courage daughter, the world is not as strong as it seems.”  From the diary of Maria Faustina Brian Fink has returned to the Magnus Podcast to discuss what it means to see reality as it is: to see oneself in order to better understand the enemy, to see the hope in the midst of losing, to see the truth in a poisoned culture, and, ultimately, how to actualize a vision for oneself that is more clear than the illusions of the world. Find Brian on Twitter @b_fink Find Brian on Substack @ bfink.substack.com