maurinacademy 
This Thursday, September 4 at 7-8:30 p.m. US Central Time, the Maurin Academy’s Great Books Reading Group will meet live on Zoom for our first meeting on Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman. This is a classic originally published in 1985 which is all too relevant today. We are now living in the full-blast … Read more
Spencer and Laurie discuss an article by Paul V. Stock, “The Perennial Nature of the Catholic Worker Farms: A Reconsideration of Failure,” in Rural Sociology, 2014.
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The Great Books reading group led by Laurie Johnson starts a new book, Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, in September. The group meets monthly to discuss how media shapes public discourse, urging critical engagement with complex ideas. Supporting the group costs as little as $1 per month on Patreon.
The Maurin Academy was happy to provide Rico with some financial support while he lived and worked on the farm, getting in touch with nature, animals and friends. Above are some of Rico’s photos of the farm, and below are some of his observations. Thank you, Rico, for your much-needed help on our urban farm!
This is the season of botany courses at The Maurin Academy! We have a special speaker you won’t want to miss! Gavin Schaefer, botany extraordinaire, will be teaching a two-part course on all things native plants. You’ll learn the basics, like what even is a native plant, as well as how to start planting them … Read more
Beyond Left or Right critiques of capitalism, state, or power, McKerracher will, with the help of thinkers including Wendell Berry, help us get to a root of all our crises commonly neglected by critical theory.
Eephus (a term for a deceptively slow and high-arcing pitch) could be a movie about the soul-crushing and culture-destroying effects of progress. It could be a movie about the fragility of male friendship. It could even be about the philosophical and social significance of baseball for American culture. It is all those things and more. But more than anything else, I think this is a movie about the precious and irreducible nature of certain places.
Spencer and Laurie kick off their new season with Catholic Worker James Murphy of St. Martin de Porres, Harrisburgh, PA. The Catholic Worker movement is a testing ground for solutions to poverty, successful relationships, and the possibility of bypassing politics. We get into some of those issues in this interview.
You can join us for the live talk by supporting the Maurin Academy on Patreon at the Worker-Scholar level, or receive the video of his talk with the Question and Answer session included at our Salt of the Earth level. Supporting us on Patreon can give you access to all we do–our speaker series, reading groups and classes. If you want to gain access to only this lecture, live and recorded, go to: https://pmaurin.org/2025/07/01/in-this-complicated-world-what-can-you-do-about-the-environment-when-it-comes-to-what-you-eat/
What Maurin Academy sessions can you be involved in soon? It’s the middle of the Summer, and we’ve got some good things for you coming up, including talks centered on food, agriculture, and ecology. Our July TMA Lecture is on your choices at the grocery store, and our August TMA Lecture is on “nature, nurture … Read more