Speaker: David Townsend, Tutor, Annapolis
Watch the June 17 lecture

The idea of America, the ideal type American, and the Spirit of America depend on purposes and virtues. What are the virtues and texts that identify America and an American? Can a Great Awakening based on these principles free our minds?

Speakers: John Cornell and David McDonald

Watch the June 23 lecture

Music is everywhere, on account of online streaming, and is a central part of the experience of most people. But what is at stake in it? Why is music important? Does it have ethical significance? Join St. John's tutors John Cornell and David McDonald for a live conversation on the place of music in education and life. 

Speaker: Bill Braithwaite, Tutor, Annapolis
Watch the June 24 lecture

Traditionally serving to introduce the study of Plato’s two dozen dialogues, the Meno raises questions about what virtue is and how it is acquired, about what knowledge is—both in itself and in relation to opinion, and about how teaching and learning are connected.

I will offer a preliminary, or serious beginner’s, reading of the dialogue, with a view to opening one path to these questions: What are the conditions Plato suggests as ideal or best, indispensable or useful, for learning and teaching? How, and to what extent, are these conditions affected by the differences between face-to-face student-teacher meetings, and meetings among geographically-dispersed teachers and students, mediated by an electronic screen? What sort of community is an “online” community?

Speaker: Elizabeth C’ de Baca Eastman
Watch the June 30 lecture

Debate about including a bill of rights, the first ten Amendments of the United States Constitution, began in earnest during the ratification debates of the Constitution. The first ten amendments to the Constitution, called the Bill of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791. In contrast to the tradition of celebrating two famous documents in the history of the United States—the 4th of July, the day that the Declaration of Independence was adopted in 1776, and September 17, the day that the members of the Constitutional Convention signed the Constitution in Philadelphia in 1787—there is little public commemoration of December 15. Yet, of the three documents, it is perhaps the most invoked by citizens and advocates in day-to-day life. What is the relation of the Bill of Rights to the other seminal documents of the founding era? Has its role changed since ratification? How does it contribute to forming a political community?

Elizabeth Eastman holds a PhD in Political Science from Claremont Graduate School, an MA in Liberal Education from St. John’s College, and a BA in French Literature and Civilization from Scripps College. She has taught in the Political Science and History Departments at Chapman University and Azusa Pacific University, and in the Liberal Studies Programs at Roosevelt University in Chicago and at California State University at Fullerton. She is the 2020–21 Senior Scholar in Residence at the Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization in Boulder, Colorado.

Panel: participants from Austin Community College, Anne Arundel Community College, Hostos Community College, Borough of Manhattan Community College, and Laguardia Community College
Watch the July 1 lecture

St. John’s College is a college uniquely devoted, through its Program, to the liberal arts and to a view of education that understands each student to be an active participant in her or his own learning, wrestling along with others with the fundamental questions raised by classic texts. The Graduate Institute at St. John’s, since its inception more than 50 years ago, has had a special interest in bringing this approach to teachers and through them to having an impact more broadly on American education.  Like St. John’s, community colleges are institutions devoted primarily to teaching and learning.  They reach a broad and diverse portion of our country’s population. (In 2017–18, 38 percent of undergraduates were attending 2-year public colleges.) St. John’s is delighted to be collaborating with Anne Arundel Community College to bring together for a panel discussion faculty from a number of community colleges that have implemented discussion-based liberal arts education, including Austin Community College, Hostos Community College, Borough of Manhattan Community College and LaGuardia Community College. We’re grateful for their willingness to share their experience and expertise with us, and hope this is the beginning of a conversation that will bear fruit in the lives of students at all of our institutions.

Speaker: Seth Appelbaum and David McDonald
Watch the July 7 lecture

The idea of a “common good” had largely faded as a theme of our public discourse until the Age of COVID-19. The notion of a shared good seems fairly uncontroversial when it shows up as a presupposition of public health policy. Beyond the realm of public health, and even in our fragmented and adversarial era, most activists and factions will sooner or later claim that they are working in service of the common good and not simply against their opponents. Does this resurgence of the “common good” in our rhetoric herald an emerging consensus about the goal of politics, or is it a narrow, technical claim made in reaction to a specific emergency situation? How has the common good been understood throughout its long lineage, and what is at stake in the idea now? Join St. John’s tutors Seth Appelbaum and David McDonald for a live conversation on the question of what it might mean to have an ethical aim beyond that of the individual.

Speaker: Ted Hadzi-Antich
Watch the July 8 lecture

Alumnus Ted Hadzi-Antich, chair of the political science department and founder of the Great Questions seminar program at Austin Community College in Austin Texas, will talk about how teaching Book 1 of Euclid’s Elements embedded in the study of revealed religious texts and poetry helps cultivate a respect for truth.

Speaker: Janet Dougherty, Tutor, Santa Fe
Watch the July 14 lecture

My talk is not simply about Xenophon. Rather, I am using his Socratic works to reflect on the contemporary situation. Because Xenophon’s writings are less familiar to us at the College than Plato’s, and because he includes nothing to indulge the inclination toward metaphysical inquiries, Xenophon’s Socratic writings are difficult to read. Good translations ar available and Xenophon’s prose is quite lucid. The problem is subtler and more stubborn: Modern readers are obtuse to the gentlemanliness of Socrates, which Xenophon insists upon, because they have so little sense of life in the polis. To encounter Xenophon’s Socrates is to be confronted with the pervasive modern lowering of expectations. It is also to be provided with an opportunity for the sort of friendship the community of this College promotes.

Speaker: Kerry Balden

What is happiness according to Herodotus? And what would Aristotle say to this? Plus: How, or, what, did Herodotus write, after all? And what would Aristotle say to that? Please join, with your questions, in order to look at Herodotus and his characters in the company of Aristotle and each other.

After progressing through the better part of freshman year in Annapolis, Kerry Balden completed his undergraduate degree in Classical Languages with distinction at University of Texas at Austin. During his time in the Polity, Kerry became convinced that liberal education belongs, at some stage, to all walks of life, and he corresponds constantly with his fellow alumni and former tutors about the future of public education. Currently Kerry teaches and studies at University of Chicago as a graduate student, with special interests in natural science, Portuguese literature, and philosophic ethics.

Speakers: Topi Heikkero and David McDonald
Watch the July 21 lecture

The power of technology in modern life is immense. Yet many of us have very little framework within which to think about this power and its effects on our lives. Join St. John’s tutors Topi Heikkero and David McDonald for a live conversation on Albert Borgmann’s idea of the “device paradigm,” which Borgmann argues is the essence of modern technology, versus his idea of “focal practices and things,” which in day-to-day life offer a basis for meaning and community.