We have a regular check-in with our Patreon supporters once every month or so. Our next one is Monday, September 29. To come to this and all our classes, reading groups and lectures, head to the Maurin Academy Patreon and follow us there. Also, check out more of our website: pmaurin.org
This Friday’s session with Gavin will be postponed! There was a last minute scheduling issue, but we will post the reschedule date as soon we get that in the calendar.
Mary Berry’s latest article in the Berry Center’s newsletter really said it succinctly–America has never had a plan to make the country food independent. Instead, the government has prioritized participation in the global commodity market, food interdependence and soft power, for over 70 years with tax and regulatory policies that help one type of agriculture over another. See the full article here: https://berrycenter.org/2025/08/21/4028/
In 1973, Dorothy Day was in California to stand with the United Farm Workers. The UFW was in conflict with grape growers who had signed contracts with the rival Teamsters union, undermining years of organizing and collective bargaining by the farm workers’ movement. When farm workers launched strikes and boycotts, the growers responded with intimidation … Read more
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.
https://pmaurin.org/get-involved/
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.
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