Video of "Innovation vs. Civilization"
Video of my first public lecture at UATX, with some odds & ends
Video of “Innovation vs. Civilization”
This past October, I gave my first public lecture here at the University of Austin. The subject was innovation and civilization, specifically the tension between them, and more practically the tension between the two major components of our curriculum, our sequence of core courses called “Intellectual Foundations” and our focus on entrepreneurship and leadership, or on founding, generally called “Polaris.”
I already posted the text on academia dot edu, but now the video is available on YouTube. The highlight for me was the question and answer period, which went on for some time. I think you’ll find, as I did, that our students here at UATX are serious and thoughtful. I hope that both my remarks and my responses to their questions were adequate in probing their deeper concerns. Whether they were, I leave it to them and to you to judge.
Here’s the video:
Odds and Ends:
My close friend David Bahr recently launched a new venture, LYCEUM: A JOURNAL OF AMERICAN LETTERS. It’s a quarterly publication, with each issue offering readings on a specific theme, along with an editorial letter. The theme for the first issue will be “Mob Rule,” and it will feature contributions from such great authors of the past as Hemingway, Lincoln, Melville, and Polybius, as well as more contemporary authors, like Helen Andrews and John Marini. I highly recommend you subscribe today, before the first issue comes out in January.
In preparation for the “Online Discussion of Christopher Bruell on Leo Strauss,” I’ll be re-reading Bruell’s “The Question of Nature and the Thought of Leo Strauss.” I’m really looking forward to this event. It will be hosted by The Leo Strauss Foundation and will feature David Levy and James Guest as speakers, with Thomas Cleveland commenting. It will take place February 9th at 1pm ET. Register here.
Know a significant book in the history of political theory in 2023–24? Encourage the author to self-nominate for The Catherine and Michael Zuckert Book Award, granted by The Association for the History of Political Thought. Details about eligibility and deadlines can be found here.
Jan Blits recently wrote a great piece called “Saving Shakespeare” for Academic Questions, a publication from the National Association of Scholars. Everything Blits writes on Shakespeare is worth reading, as he’s one of the great Shakespeare scholars of our time. This piece analyzes in brief the defects of both postmodernist and traditionalist approaches to Shakespeare, specifically on the question of the historical settings Shakespeare gave so many of his plays. He focuses most, however, on the historicism of “traditionalist” editors, who tend to assume all settings foreign in time and place are just Elizabethan England thinly veiled. Editors falsely assume that "Shakespeare’s universal is simply his parochial universalized." The result? "Editorial historicism drives out historical poetry." His remarks here are succinct and, to my mind, decisive. Well worth a read.
I also re-read the chapter of Michael Davis’ Electras on Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers. I learned a ton from this excellent book and from Davis’ video lecture course on Greek tragedy while teaching the Oresteia this past term. Buy the book here. And watch the lecture course here.
St. Augustine’s Press published Davis’ Electras, and they also published Leo Strauss’ Published But Uncollected English Writings, edited by Stephen Lenzner and Svetozar Minkov. It’s a treasure trove with some of Strauss’ most important and difficult to find essays. My recommendation: read Strauss’ “German Nihilism” (available here) followed by “The Spirit of Sparta or the Taste of Xenophon.” You can buy the book here.
Also coming soon from St. Augustine’s Press is the new edition of my graduate advisor Ronna Burger’s fantastic second book, Plato’s Phaedo: A Platonic Labyrinth. I’ll say more about this when the book is out, so for now I’ll just emphasize it’s the best guide to understanding Plato’s Phaedo that I’ve encountered. I’m very excited to read the new Preface.
You know what, just check out everything St. Augustine’s Press is publishing.
One Last Thing…
I’m thinking of turning this into a monthly or even bi-weekly post, featuring a short piece on a certain question, with recommended supplemental readings, as well as some notes on things I’ve been reading/watching/listening to. Are you interested? If so, like the post, leave a comment, or just send me a note, so I know there’s at least some interest in that sort of thing.
See my last post for an idea of what I’d like to do: “Vivek The Cartesian.”
Thanks for making it this far!