If you like what we’re doing and would like us to continue to develop classes and groups aimed at “stopping environmental harm by changing our social relations,” please consider a year end gift to the Maurin Academy!
We’re experimenting with different ways to convey the Regenerative Reader, and we landed on creating a webpage with some of our highlights and upcoming events. We’ll publish a Regenerative Reader to the best of our ability at least quarterly. Almost all of our articles and announcements will come out as posts on our website first, so make sure you join our feed if you want more timely updates.
What’s going on right now and what’s right around the corner:
- Our Fall Speaker Series includes (ongoing) sessions with Dr. Laurie Johnson on her new book, The Gap in God’s Country: A Longer View on our Culture Wars, and the Harry Murray sessions (next one is on Nikolai Berdyaev on December 16).
- Coming up at noon Central Time on Saturday, February 22, we have Philosophy Professor Fred Neuhauser: “Can Societies Fall Ill? Diagnosing Social Pathology,” based on his new book Diagnosing Social Pathology: Rousseau, Hegel, Marx and Durkheim.
- We have commitments for speeches with Q & A for supporters from Benjamin Studebaker of the Theory Underground podcast and author of a new book Legitimacy in Liberal Democracies, tentatively scheduled for March 3 at 7 p.m. US Central Time, and from Eugene McCarraher, author of Christian Critics and The Enchantments of Mammon, on Monday, April 7 at 7 p.m. US Central Time.
- Laurie Johnson will teach a class on Aristotle’s virtue ethics and the Aristotelian foundation of natural law in late Spring/early Summer. Exact dates TBA.
- Laurie Johnson is changing up her monthly chats. The first Thursday of each month she’ll be online for the monthly announcements and then lead a discussion on a great book. Our first book is Carl Jung’s The Undiscovered Self. It’s a short work and we’ll take three monthly sessions to discuss this book. Reading is not required, as Laurie will outline the arguments in the book, but if you want to read along, it’s a short paperback and easy to order online!
Laurie’s new book is available at many booksellers and is also available in a Kindle edition. Her ongoing series of talks covers major themes from the book.
Previous Speakers and Guests:
Since our last newsletter we’ve had a variety of speakers and guests speak to us, including:
- Author Jordan Daniel Wood talked to us recently about Incarnation and the Environment.
- Special Guest Prof. Martin Chung on “Catholic Social Teaching on Economic Life and the International Community”
- We interviewed author David Lay Williams about his book The Greatest of All Plagues: Economic Inequality From Plato to Marx
- Sociologist and Catholic worker Harry Murray spoke on “The Hospitality of Dorothy Day and Jacques Derrida.”
Podcast Highlights:
We continued with our Podcasts, Dustbowl Diatribes and Political Philosophy. Some highlights include Spencer and Laurie’s interviews with Chris Cutrone, Catholic Worker Renee Rodin, and author of Magical Realism, Latin American Theology, and the Appearance of Pre-Critical Theory, Alfredo Poggi, and Laurie’s interview with author David Lay Williams on economic inequality.
- Maurin Academy YouTube
- Maurin Academy Political Philosophy: Dr. Laurie M Johnson
- Dustbowl Diatribes on many podcasting platforms.
- Maurin Academy Instagram
Courses:
Deacon Chris May taught a four-part course on “The Spiritual Crises of Modernity: From Nominalism to Nihilism.” Segments of his course are made public on the Maurin Academy YouTube channel. For full access to this and other courses, subscribe to The Maurin Academy on Patreon or check us out on Eventbrite.
Some articles from Maurin Academy co-founders:
Laurie Johnson on the Trump Victory.
“Donald Trump will be our president for the next four years. We are living through unprecedented times. It’s hard not to see this as a huge protest vote—with several sometimes competing things being protested. The effects of globalization. Job insecurity. Alienation from others and anxiety about the future. Anxiety about rapid and continuous cultural change. Anger over elite privilege. The list goes on.”
Laurie Johnson’s review of William T. Cavanaugh’s The Uses of Idolatry.
“The Uses of Idolatry, by William T. Cavanaugh, deals with the economic and political maladaptations of our day due to idolatry. The transfer of religious zeal and reverence towards politics and material things is, of course, ground that has been covered differently in books as diverse as Eugene McCarraher’s The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity, and my Ideological Possession and the Rise of the New Right.”
What we’re reading this Fall:
