Ep. 090 - Freeing Minds

Today we bring you the 20th and final episode of season 3. This season we talked about all things liberal arts from music and monarchy to Plato and Socrates to freeing minds and humanizing humans. It only seemed right then, to finish this season with a return to our first guest, Professor Steven Cortright, who opened the show with an episode appropriately titled, “The Liberal Arts". He returns now to discuss the current state of higher education and a sneak peak into coming things for AMI. Thank you to those of you have come back week after week and given us your support.  Please consider giving a donation to the Great Campaign today!

“You creatures of earth, don’t you stop to consider the people over which you think you exercise authority?”  This conversation between two ‘non- serial’ entrepreneurs, Christof Meyer and AMI’s own John Johnson, will change the way you view entrepreneurship and management, and give you a vision of a rightly ordered, God honoring way to run a business that finds it’s roots in the Liberal Arts tradition.  Learn more about Hildegard College Will you consider giving to our annual fundraiser, the Great Campaign? It is through the support of our generous donors that we are able to make a liberal arts education both free and freeing.  Magnusinstitute.org for more.      

Mother, grandmother, and author, Leila Lawler joins Larissa to talk about raising children faithfully. She explains how we can escape the traps of the modern world and provide something beautiful for our children to imitate, thus creating sacred spaces and harmonious homes. Read her blogs Like Mother Like Daughter and Happy Despite Them to learn more. Interested in her books, Summa Domestica and The Little Oratory? Learn more here. Will you consider giving to our annual fundraiser, the Great Campaign? It is through the support of our generous donors that we are able to make a liberal arts education both free and freeing.  Magnusinstitute.org for more.          

Enjoy the first half of the first lecture in Senior Fellow, Dr. Arias' course, "Philosophy of Man." Building on Aristotle and St. Thomas's philosophical account of the human person, this class focused on St. Thomas's teachings on man's natural and supernatural ends and the means proportioned thereto. Find out how you can learn more about the final cause of man 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!  

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