Lyceum

Season 2 is live! Our first course is on 'Henry IV Part 1' with Professor Ewan Fernie of @ShakesInstitute & @E2EShakespeare: shakespeareforall.com/henry-iv For free access to the full course, visit himalaya.com/courses/2649672 or download the Himalaya app

The realization that our lives are infinitely brief and we are unlikely to be remembered in the future can cause deep angst—but as @WendyWends suggests, it can also help us embrace the exquisite pleasures of friendship, nature and simply being alive. ministryofideas.org/episodes/wendy…

A crisis of meaning can be painful and wrenching, but as @platospodcasts beautifully describes, these encounters with the abyss can also be moments of rebirth and expansion, where we give up our smaller selves and become something more. ministryofideas.org/episodes/mark-…

For John Cottingham, the experience of existence is one of bewilderment and even anguish. Anguish because we feel that we are incomplete beings longing for completion, mired in immanence yet yearning for transcendence. But a longing that can lead to God. ministryofideas.org/episodes/john-…

For Grammy-winning singer @kimbramusic, her songs are both a way to connect people to one another and a means of expressing the deep mysteries of existence. Making Meaning Episode 8: Gifts of Belonging ministryofideas.org/episodes/kimbra

Human beings are storytelling animals, but we don’t write our own stories in a vacuum. We are born in media res and must develop ways of making sense of ourselves if we want to truly flourish. New Making Meaning episode with the wonderful @jennfrey. ministryofideas.org/episodes/jenni…

Organizing our lives around the pursuit of happiness can ultimately leave our souls hungry. Instead, we should try connecting ourselves to deeper things: compassion, community, ritual, and awe. New Making Meaning episode w/ @EmEsfahaniSmith ministryofideas.org/episodes/emily…

Making Meaning Episode 4: Weaving the World Together Meaning is less a secret to discover than an emergent property, a byproduct of engaging with the world. Featuring @ColoradoStateU's @MichaelFSteger, Founder of the Center for Meaning and Purpose. ministryofideas.org/episodes/micha…

Making Meaning Episode 3: The Weight of the World The ideology of capitalism breaks our hearts and blinds us to the source of our most abundant meaning—relationships and solidarity with other people. Feat. Kathryn Lofton, Dean of Humanities at @Yale. ministryofideas.org/episodes/kathr…

Congrats to The Endless Knot on reaching 100 episodes!

Making Meaning Episode 2 We’re often given the following choice: either there’s a cosmic, eternal purpose to our lives or nothing matters at all. But Aaron James (@OnAssholes) suggests that perhaps we can find abundant meaning in a perfect wave. ministryofideas.org/episodes/aaron…

Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot is famous as a play about nothing, but it has endured because it is in fact a play about life. For what is life but a sequential collection of waitings? New Writ Large episode featuring the wonderful Peter Connor. writlarge.fm/episodes/godot

I'm happy to announce a new podcast series I've been working on the last couple of years: Making Meaning Like many people, the pandemic made asking the big questions of existence feel newly urgent. Especially the big question: what is life for? How can my life be meaningful?

Writ Large released its 100th episode today! A centennial episode has to be special, and it was an easy choice at the end: Hamlet. (Harold Bloom would've haunted me otherwise) I'm joined by the great Michael Dobson of the @ShakesInstitute. writlarge.fm/episodes/hamlet

Don Quixote is the funniest book you will ever read. 400 years old and it still busts a gut! But as Timothy Hampton discusses in our new @writlargepod episode, it's also a brilliant exploration of the seductive and transformative power of fiction. writlarge.fm/episodes/quixo…

New @ministryofideas episode on the changing nature of national borders and the moral tragedy of America's arbitrary implementation of international refugee laws. Featuring interviews with @DeborahAnker, @adrian_rennix, and @chowmak. ministryofideas.org/episodes/borde…

Proust's In Search of Lost Time totals more than 1.2 million words. Fortunately, in our new @writlargepod episode, you can hear two brilliant scholars, Elisabeth Ladenson and Michael Lucey, discuss its power and beauty in just under 30 minutes. writlarge.fm/episodes/proust

You're here on Twitter, so you already know we don't live in the best of all possible worlds. Nevertheless, you may enjoy listening to @UCBHistory's @CarlaHesse1 discuss why Voltaire's Candide remains a comic and philosophical masterpiece. writlarge.fm/episodes/candi…

Really appreciated this rich discussion of the Book of Mormon. One aspect of the discussion worth noting is how it highlights what would have been intellectually appealing about it. Nice work, ⁦@zacharysdavis⁩ podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/wri…

One Hundred Years of Solitude is a story about life, death, endings, and beginnings. It invites its readers to think about their own past, and accept the complex and mysterious forces that have shaped them. New Writ Large feat. @stanford’s Hector Hoyos. writlarge.fm/episodes/100ye…