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
On Saturday, July 19, at 4 p.m. US Central Time, the Communio study circle (mainly Ressourcement theology) will read the first chapter of Hans Urs Von Balthasar’s book Mysterium Paschale (The Mystery of Easter) https://ignatius.com/mysterium-paschale-mystp/.
Jakob’s reading AI Snake Oil. Here’s a description from the publisher, Princeton University Press:
The latest Maurin Academy lecture series guest will be Dr. Jeremy Cowan, Horticulture specialist and homesteader, who will speak to us about the “Implications of Sustainable Agriculture at Home.” If you have been confused by the terms you see on foods and products at the grocery store, and wondered if how you eat or consume really impacts the environment, this talk will be worth your while. Dr. Cowan will discuss how the commercial “sustainable” food and product choices we are encouraged to make may not be as sustainable as we think. How can we make more sustainable choices, either in the grocery store or in the garden? Dr. Cowan will give us well-informed guidance.
“By power of its title alone, Mediaeval Socialism is a book certain to provoke. Regardless of how one defines the term “socialism,” as Bede Jarrett, O.P., notes, it “is a modern thing, and dependent almost wholly on modern conditions.” The question is well-worth asking, then: “How is it possible to find any real correspondence between theories of … Read more