Ryan McDermott announces our newest cohost, and Christian Studies Fellow Kirsten Barron plays an original song.

Samuel Hazo is a lifelong Pittsburgher, a finalist for the National Book Award, and Pennsylvania’s first Poet Laureate. In this episode, Samuel describes his earliest memories of Pittsburgh, what it was like growing up in Squirrel Hill and East Liberty (where he was a Cub Scout), and attending Notre Dame in the 1940s. He also shares his memories of running the International Poetry Forum and tells Elise about the people he brought to Pittsburgh for poetry readings, including Grace Kelly and Gregory Peck.   His introduction to “cosmopolitan Catholicism”   Poetry as a part of public life   His time in the marines   The importance of memory   His work at the International Poetry Forum   His memories of Grace Kelly   Love and risk   How to bring poetry to the public   Samuel Hazo’s website Piers Plowman The Divine Comedy Chaucer Christopher Dawson Francois Mauriac “The Poem” by W.S. Merwin “One-Liners or Less” by Samuel Hazo International Poetry Forum W.H. Auden Anne Sexton Gwendolyn Brooks Seamus Heaney Billy Collins Octavio Paz Naomi Shihab Nye W.S. Merwin Joyce Carol Oates Derek Walcott Eugene McCarthy Grace Kelly (Princess Grace of Monaco) Richard Pasco Archibald MacLeish John Donne Gregory Peck William Butler Yeats Sally Wiggin

Jason Baxter is an associate professor of fine arts and humanities at Wyoming Catholic College and a prolific writer. He has published or completed five books since 2018, including A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy and The Infinite Beauty of the World: Dante’s Encyclopedia and the Names of God. Jason joins Ryan to discuss all things Divine Comedy. Jason talks about the best way to read Dante and explains why some people struggle through the Paradiso. He and Ryan also play a game of “Would You Rather” where Jason tells us about his love of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky.   Modernity and Medievalism   Microcosm and macrocosm   Why the Inferno is so popular   Vision in Dante   Is there a narrative in the Divine Comedy?   Dante and the invention of purgatory   What will heaven actually be like?   Beatitude in community   Cowboy Platonist   Links: Black Elk Petrarch’s ascent Jacob Burkhardt A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy by Jason Baxter Falling Inward: Humanities in the Age of Technology by Jason Baxter The Infinite Beauty of the World: Dante’s Encyclopedia and the Names of God by Jason Baxter An Introduction to Christian Mysticism: Recovering the Wildness of Spiritual Life by Jason Baxter Hugh of Saint Victor Divine Comedy Anthony Esolen translation Gianfranco Contini Umberto Eco Jorge Borges The Birth of Purgatory by Jacques Le Goff Paul Griffiths The Great Divorce by CS Lewis Blessed John Duns Scotus Gerard Manley Hopkins “Death, Be Not Proud” by John Donne “For Once, Then, Something” by Robert Frost “Supernatural Love” by Gjertrud Schnackenberg

Marilyn McEntyre is a steward of words. She has taught courses on English and medical humanities, and she has written or edited over twenty books, including Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. Marilyn joins Elise to discuss the meaning of four words: dwelling, compassion, truth, and awe. Marilyn discusses why she loves participles and how “Christianese” can constrict the meaning of a word. She also reads three of her own poems and explains the background and inspiration of each.   Words as building materials   How space shapes us   Particularity and universality   A productive relationship between loneliness and dwelling   Touch deprivation   The strength and resilience of compassion   Christianese   Our relationship to Industrial food system   A broader examination of conscience   Truth as embodied and relational   The act of translation   Convicted civility   Why do we lie?   Relationship between death and awe   Accompanying the dying   Links: Dwelling in the Text by Marilyn McEntyre Word Tastings: An Essay Anthology by Marilyn McEntyre Teaching Literature and Medicine by Marilyn McEntyre The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies by Marilyn McEntyre The Overstory by Richard Powers The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate―Discoveries from A Secret World by Peter Wohlleben Should Trees Have Standing?: Law, Morality, and the Environment by Christopher D. Stone I MARRY YOU: A Sheaf of Love Poems by John Ciardi Speaking Peace in a Climate of Conflict by Marilyn McEntyre Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Cohosts Ryan McDermott and Elise Lonich Ryan have a conversation about the art that has accompanied them through 2020. They discuss the mysterious ending of Pulitzer-nominated Heroes of the Fourth Turning, a play that explores the political beliefs of four conservative Catholics and has had multiple runs on Zoom. Ryan and Elise share a love of Marilynne Robinson and critiques of Terrence Malick’s A Hidden Life. Ryan explains how the Norwegian show Beforeigners ties into his project Genealogies of Modernity, and Elise recommends the best nature writing.   Reading the signs of the times   The relationship between affect and reason   Can you make sense of the present?   How sci-fi and dystopia help us find meaning in times of anxiety   Affective responses and structures of feeling   Franz Jäggerstätter and the intellectual life   American transcendentalism and sentimentalism   Wilma Theater production of Heroes of the Fourth Turning The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu “Unpacking My Library” by Walter Benjamin Tenet Inception Flourishing in the Wake of COVID-19 Marilynne Robinson on The Ezra Klein Show Gilead by Marilynne Robinson Jack by Marilynne Robinson Lila by Marilynne Robinson Home by Marilynne Robinson “A beginners guide to The Ezra Klein Show” Heroes of the Fourth Turning by Will Arbery A Hidden Life The Thin Red Line Andrei Tarkovsky Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez The Sea Around Us by Rachel Carson Beforeigners Genealogies of Modernity

Andrew DeCort is founder of the neighbor-love movement and author of the book Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning: Ethics after Devastation. Andrew tells John about how witnessing state violence changed his view of vocation and inspired him to start the neighbor-love movement. He discusses how his vocation as an ethicist is to live with and for others, how diversity is a result of being made in God’s image, and why neighbor-love is more than a feeling. Witnessing state violence   Dietrich Bonhoeffer   Radical humility   New beginnings   Connection between unity and diversity   Christianity over nationalism   Biblical understanding of diversity   Links: Bonhoeffer’s New Beginning: Ethics after Devastation by Andrew DeCort Neighbor-love movement website Interpreting Ethiopia Don Levine Jean Elshtain William Schweiker Dietrich Bonhoeffer “Unity and Diversity are Neighbors, and So Are We,” by Andrew DeCort Joint Declaration for Human Value and Nonviolence in Ethiopia Neighbor-love course Neighbor-love covenant 30-day neighbor-love mindfulness exercise Strength to Love by Martin Luther King Jr. Charles Taylor Creating Capabilities by Martha Nussbaum

Jessica Mesman is founder of the blog Sick Pilgrim and coauthor of Love and Salt: A Spiritual Friendship in Letters. Her essays have been published in US Catholic, Lit Hub, Elle, Vox, America, and Christianity Today. Jessica joins Elise to discuss writing as a form of accompaniment and how the experience of mourning shaped her, both as a Christian and as a writer. They talk about the Catholic practice of memento mori, the unique way horror movies can convey truth, and how to live a Christian life when you can’t let go of grief.   How place shapes you   The unique religiosity of New Orleans   Horror movies and haunting   A Christian look at grief   Memento mori   Why remembering the dead is a work of mercy   Wrestling with the darkness of the human experience as an Easter people   St. Therese of Lisieux   What makes a good friendship   Writing as accompaniment   Links: Jessica's website Laudato si The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology by Douglas Christie The Exorcist The Babadook Poltergeist Awakened by Death by Christiana Peterson

Rusty Reno is author of several books and editor of First Things, an ecumenical journal of religion and public life. His conversation with Ryan covers his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism, the scholars and books that have most influenced him, and why he thinks fear is an enemy to solidarity. They also discuss Rusty’s legendary climbing fall, his climbing escapades in Yosemite in the early 80s, and how he went from being a “climbing bum” to a Yale PhD student.   Biblical studies and modern theology   Why rock climbing is good for scholars   Vulnerability as a threat to freedom   Captivity to the resume   The danger of fear   Anti-globalization based on love of homeland   Fear as an enemy to solidarity and love   Links: In the Ruins of the Church by Rusty Reno  Ephraim Radner  “Theology in the Ruins of the Church” by Rusty Reno Sanctified Vision: An introduction to Early Christian Interpretation of the Bible by John O’Keefe Readings in St. John’s Gospel by William Temple Austin Farrer The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper The Ordinary Transformed by Rusty Reno Surnaturel by Henri de Lubac Return of the Strong Gods: Nationalism, Populism and the Future of the West by Rusty Reno The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Luke Sheahan is an assistant professor of political science at Duquesne University and non-resident scholar at the program for research on religion and urban civil society at the University of Pennsylvania. He joins John to discuss his new book, Why Associations Matter: The Case for First Amendment Pluralism. Luke argues that there has been a fundamental misunderstanding of what associations are and that this has affected the Court’s ability to protect them. Luke talks about why we need to stop ignoring the assembly clause, social alienation in the modern world, and the relationship between sociology, philosophy, and political science.   Freedom of association   Membership   Expressive groups   Assembly clause versus the free speech clause   The work of John Inazu and Robert Nesbit   Freedom of association and civil rights   Textualism and dialectic   Links: Why Associations Matter by Luke Sheahan John Inazu The Social Philosophers by Robert Nisbet The Sociological Tradition by Robert Nisbet NAACP v. Alabama Christian Legal Society versus Martinez Roberts v. Jaycees Buck v. Bell Bob Jones University v. United States Holt v. Hobbes Richard Garnett Steven Smith First Amendment Situations by Paul Horwitz

Amy Alznauer is a polymath: she is a writer, arts collaborator, and an instructor of calculus and number theory at Northwestern University. Amy and Elise’s conversation touches on all of these things. Amy tells us about why she started writing picture-book biographies and what the genius of childhood can teach grown-up readers. She and Elise dive into Flannery O’Connor’s unpublished early novel, the grief that motivated O’Connor’s writing, and the recent controversy surrounding a New Yorker piece on O’Connor and racism. They wrap up the conversation by investigating what makes infinity simultaneously compelling and terrifying and the relationship between math and love.   Publishing in a pandemic   The work of imagination in biography writing   Reinvestigating childhood books   Grief, staring, and the grotesque in the work of Flannery O’Connor   Flannery O’Connor and racism   The difference between moral vision and piety   Thinking about the infinite   Mathematics and love   Links: Betsy Bird Blog Me…Jane by Patrick McDonnell  The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor by Amy Alznauer The Boy Who Dreamed of Infinity by Amy Alznauer The Zhou Brothers: A Story of Revolution and Art by Amy Alznauer Srinivasa Ramanujan Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor (includes the essay “The King of the Birds”) “On Flannery O’Connor and Race: A Response to Paul Elie” by Amy Alznauer “How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?” by Paul Elie “This Lonesome Place” by Hilton Als “A South Without Myths” by Alice Walker Benny Andrews illustrations and afterword for “Everything That Rises Must Converge” Benny Andrews website "The Site of Memory," essay by Toni Morrison, anthologized in The Source of Self-Regard: Selected Essays, Speeches, and Meditations Radical Ambivalence by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell