Welcome to The Maurin Academy
A 21st century agronomic university
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What is an ‘agronomic university’?
Peter Maurin was a social activist and co-founder (along with Dorothy Day) of the Catholic Worker movement, known today for houses of hospitality for the homeless around the world. Maurin envisioned “agronomic universities,” where people could practice agriculture and learn about life, culture, politics, and religion together.
We strive to develop an agronomic university for the 21st Century. Maurin’s triad of cult (religion), culture (politics and economics), and cultivation (agriculture and environment) form the framework for our public podcasts, classes, reading groups, and events, and inspire our work at the John Paul II Catholic Worker Farm in Kansas City, MO.
We are looking for people who can get outside their comfort zones. We want Christians and people of other faiths to take their environmental and social obligations more seriously. We want intellectuals to not dismiss people of faith, and environmentalists to understand the complexity of our problems so they can help truly solve them.
We come from a variety of ideological and religious backgrounds, brought together by a post-liberal consciousness and a concern for the environmental crisis which we believe is linked to loss of community and society’s emphasis on secularity and materialistic values. Read our complete mission statement.
The focus of The Maurin Academy
Cult
Contemporary society suffers from a crisis of meaning. Community, family, religion, value systems, place (from the neighborhood to the planet), responsibility to humanity as a species—have been hollowed-out or evaporated.
Culture
We adopt a critical stance towards capitalism and liberal modernity. We recognize that our social relations are governed by the abstraction of value, and we work to build webs of social relations that are not mediated by labor and money.
Cultivation
We share a concern for the environment, with a focus on the failed agricultural and supply systems we use to fill our basic needs. We call for fundamental changes in the way we live.
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