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Beatrice Institute Podcast

Beatrice Institute Podcast

Ryan McDermott

We’re wandering between two worlds. Modernity as we knew it is passing away, and the next world is yet to be born. Like Dante, we are in a dark wood, struggling to know how to think and how to live. Virgil guided Dante with the light of natural reason, then Beatrice illuminated the path to Paradise with Christian revelation. Welcome to the Beatrice Institute Podcast, where Christian faith and reason illuminate the best of academic thinking and research. How should we think and live in this time between worlds? At Beatrice Institute, we take our bearings from the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. This podcast reflects BI’s research and public engagement initiatives. As director of BI’s Genealogies of Modernity initiative, co-host Ryan McDermott asks guests, “What does it mean to be modern, where did we come from, and what comes next?” As director of BI’s Personalism and Public Policy initiative, Grant Martsolf asks, “How should we organize our common life to promote the flourishing of the person, made in the image of God?” And for our initiative on Being Human in an Age of Artificial Intelligence, Gretchen Huizinga asks, "What makes humans special and what does it mean to flourish on the frontier of a technological future?"
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Top 10 Beatrice Institute Podcast Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Beatrice Institute Podcast episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Beatrice Institute Podcast for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Beatrice Institute Podcast episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Beatrice Institute Podcast - Words to Live With

Words to Live With

Beatrice Institute Podcast

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12/21/20 • 83 min

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

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Beatrice Institute Podcast - Free Solo, Strong Loves, and the Limits of Critique with Rusty Reno
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10/19/20 • 58 min

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

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Beatrice Institute Podcast - A Revelation of Grief and Wonder

A Revelation of Grief and Wonder

Beatrice Institute Podcast

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09/21/20 • 79 min

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

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Katie and Brandon McGinley live with their four children in an intentional Catholic neighborhood community. Brandon is a Catholic writer, and Katie is a retired librarian and full-time homeschooler. They discuss how their community began and how they’ve grown since then. The COVID-19 pandemic has forced them to think creatively about community building, and they share the ways they’ve safely stayed in touch with and supported the people they’re close to. They also look to the future, covering what it will be like coming out of lockdown and how they hope to see Catholic communities grow as a result of the pandemic.

Community Begins with Friendship

Organization and Growth of Communities

The Spontaneity That Comes from Having a Stable Community

How Big Can a Neighborhood Community Grow?

Modeling Communities on the Present

A Quarantine Holy Week

Being Social while Respecting Social Distancing

How Quarantine Could Change Religious Communities

Links:

Brandon’s Plough Article The Noonday Devil by Jean-Charles Nault Real Learning: Education in the Heart of the Home by Elizabeth Foss

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Beatrice Institute Podcast - Where Do Bioethics Begin? with Michael Deem
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01/24/24 • 61 min

As a bioethicist and Catholic deacon-in-training, Dr. Michael Deem has spent years in the medical trenches as well as in theological and philosophical research. Michael Deem joins Grant in this episode to answer questions such as, “Do bioethicists actually change minds?” “Does healthcare flourish under a provider-of-services model?” and “Are bioethical principles self-evident?” Their discussion covers territory from contraception to logic to the style of recent Catholic popes.

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Beatrice Institute Podcast - The Fate of the Post-Industrial Man with Richard Reeves
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01/16/23 • 55 min

Do men need equal opportunity? Dr. Richard Reeves answers with an emphatic “yes.” His work as senior fellow at the Brookings Institute and director of the Future of the Middle Class Initiative has encouraged him to author the book Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It.

In this conversation, Grant and Dr. Reeves respond to the fact that men are underrepresented in higher education and struggling in the professional world, asking: What does affirmative action for men look like? How does child education harm or empower boys, and is the academic world donning a feminine identity? Should we celebrate “toxic” masculinity?

Modernity calls for a new contract between men and women. What is the fate of the post-industrial man?

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The liberal tradition frames the story of modernity as the gradual victory of freedom against state hegemony. Liberty, the consent of the people to be governed, and individual rights are the mainstay of western society. But are we really more free than before? What if freedom isn’t what we think?

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Beatrice Institute Podcast - The End of Innovation with Lee Vinsel

The End of Innovation with Lee Vinsel

Beatrice Institute Podcast

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10/12/22 • 49 min

Innovation is often seen as key to modern society. Whether in pursuit of economic growth, more convenience in daily life, or simply greater well-being, the pursuit of the new and better ideas and technology is always underway. But what if the key to human flourishing doesn’t lie in the search for the new, but rather in maintenance of what we already have? Could the endless pursuit of innovation as a goal in itself is actually causing us harm?

Lee Vinsel, co-author of The Innovation Delusion and founder of the Maintainers, explains the costs of this pursuit and the hold that innovation-speak has exacted on our society.From climate change to crumbling infrastructure, he and Grant discuss how maintenance rather than novelty might be the key to a more sustainable life, and how understanding and prioritizing the needs and well-being of human persons can lead to a more functional, beautiful world.

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Ryan, Grant, and Gretchen ask each other all their burning questions, probing more deeply into past interviews and breaking new territory. Together they ponder how Jesus might run a tech company, the desire to live forever and its impact on procreation, and what it means to be stewards of reality.

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Beatrice Institute Podcast - Can Tech Ethics Shape Our Future? with Brian Green
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06/14/23 • 48 min

As technology develops at an ever more rapid pace, it can seem that ethics struggles to keep up with it. While science and technology advance by building on discoveries of the past, virtue and moral knowledge must be cultivated afresh in every individual and each generation.

This is where Brian Green comes in. As director of technology ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, his areas of research are many, ranging from transhumanism and artificial intelligence, to catastrophic risk and the ethics of outer space. This diverse array of interests all pivot on the intersection between technology and humanity.

In this rerun episode, Brian and Gretchen dive into many areas of tech ethics that both impact our present lives and promise to shape our future. From immediate ethical dilemmas like self-driving car crashes and responsible tech development, to long-view issues like the establishment of extra-terrestrial colonies and the achievement of artificial general intelligence, they reflect on a large range of themes that can affect human lives for both good and ill. Listen in as they discuss old and forgotten tools for answering ethical questions, the Christian commission to work miracles, which human qualities can’t be programmed into machines, and more. Together they ask, should our predictions about technology and ethics be dire, or hopeful? What choices are we making now that will shape coming generations?

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FAQ

How many episodes does Beatrice Institute Podcast have?

Beatrice Institute Podcast currently has 99 episodes available.

What topics does Beatrice Institute Podcast cover?

The podcast is about Culture, Christianity, Literature, Theology, Society & Culture, History, Community, Religion & Spirituality, Podcasts, Education, Arts and Academic.

What is the most popular episode on Beatrice Institute Podcast?

The episode title 'Is Mutualism Possible? with Sara Horowitz' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Beatrice Institute Podcast?

The average episode length on Beatrice Institute Podcast is 53 minutes.

How often are episodes of Beatrice Institute Podcast released?

Episodes of Beatrice Institute Podcast are typically released every 14 days.

When was the first episode of Beatrice Institute Podcast?

The first episode of Beatrice Institute Podcast was released on Apr 3, 2020.

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