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The Christian Humanist Podcast- Episode 67.2: Good News for Anxious Christians
- Episode 67.1: The Office of Assertion
- Episode 67.03: The Best Music of 2011
- Episode 67.02: St. Nicholas at Nicea
- Episode 67.01: Singing Faith
- Episode 67: A Christmas Carol
- Episode 66: Desert Island Books
- Episode 65: Academic Conferences
- Episode 64: Environmentalism
- Episode 63.11: Technical Difficulties
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Category Archives: Boethius
Sinc ea?e m?g, gold on grunde, gumcynnes gehwone oferhigian, hyde se ?e wylle.
Beowulf is over, and so my semester of experimental literature survey wraps up with it. ?I was dog-tired when I taught today, impending events having robbed me of some sleep, and I felt like the lesson suffered somewhat, but Beowulf?is … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, medieval, teaching
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Wyrd oft nere? unf?gne eorl, ?onne his ellen deah
Strangely enough, even though I had just as much amateur linguistics lore, Tolkien tidbits, and other distractions in my notes today, our class on Beowulf turned out more focused than did our class on Anglo-Saxon elegies just before spring break.? … Continue reading
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Another Semester of Liberal Education
I met with the last of my portfolio-revision groups on Thursday afternoon, and now that I’ve actually slept and had a chance to reflect on this fall’s classes, I’m pleased with my efforts.? I hope I never get so stupid … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, Plato, teaching
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Is Freedom an Illusion?
We finished the Consolation of Philosophy with a bang today, and Dr. Freer came in on a very animated class to boot.? I started both classes with a fairly detached discussion of what chance is for Boethius, and we extended … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, teaching
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Does Evil Exist?
We had a really great class in both sections today.? We began by tackling Boethius’s famous distinction between fate and providence, and the class followed along pretty well as we worked out the categories.? Boethius calls Fate the temporal unfolding … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, teaching
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Respecting the Office
This was the perfect time for book three of Consolation to come along.? We all know that, five days and change from now, when the federal election commission declares the votes tallied and one of two men president-elect, the nastiness … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, teaching
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Negating the World with Boethius
It’s fun, really, if one throws one’s self into it.? Money has no value at all when hoarded, and it has no staying power when spent.? Political and military power are illusions: they rely on chains of command that become … Continue reading
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The Nature of Humanity
It’s interesting how different classes take the same questions in entirely different directions.? In today’s comp classes we discussed book one of Boethius’s Consolation of Philosophy, and along with the text I wrapped up the session with a fairly straightforward … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, teaching
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Boethius and Alfred
I led discussion in our Old English seminar and held my own with the big ax-swinging Anglo-Saxonists.? That’s always a nice feeling.? Now the next few weeks are going to be low-maintenance for me in there–each student has one discussion … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, Books, comps, medieval
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The Bible and Pornography
Am I fishing for funky Google searches?? Yes. We spent the bulk of today’s class talking about the fourth scene of J.B., in which paparazzi-style reporters scheme to capture a picture of Sarah, J.B.’s wife, just at the moment when … Continue reading
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Free to Do Otherwise
We wrapped up our textual discussion today, always a bummer.? I had forgotten that book five of Consolation was such a short one, but fortunately today also happens to be my class’s turn to do evaluations, so all worked out. … Continue reading
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Something or No-thing?
Such was our topic today as we finished book four of Consolation.? Boethius asserts ultimately that, because evil is a movement away from goodness/being/God and towards nothing, the result of all evil will be nothing, and thus there is no … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, Political Entertainment, teaching
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Going to Evil School
I’ll admit that I didn’t do my best teaching today.? For whatever reason, I had trouble getting the discussion going in meaningful directions in either class, and although my students were saying good things, I didn’t do a very good … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, Other Blogs, Sports, teaching
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All Saints’ Day
I could tell that my 8:00 class is a pious group today; almost half of them missed class, no doubt for All Saints’ Day services.? And of the ones that did show up, half of them had their heads bowed … Continue reading
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Plato Therapy
We jumped a thousand years into the future today, landing squarely in the sixth century AD.? A class that lives, so to speak, in ancient Greece can make those sorts of jumps. We found at the end of our jump … Continue reading
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Honest Boethius
Just finished The Consolation of Philosophy yesterday. The final three chapters deal with those lovely questions of divine foreknowledge, determinism, and human agency. Boethius, an unapologetic Platonist, unsurprisingly advances the Platonist argument that the same action that seems undetermined to … Continue reading
Posted in Boethius, Books, medieval
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