On Augustine and Hope with Michael Lamb

The last episode of this season of Old Books with Grace is out today!! Sadly, Canva, my usual flyer making spot, isn’t working for me–but definitely don’t miss out on this wonderful episode with Dr. Michael Lamb on Augustine and the virtue of hope. Augustine is so often painted as a pessimist, but in our conversation and in his marvelous book, Dr. Lamb points out both the anachronism of this idea, and argues that Augustine in fact has a vision of hope that can be for right here and right now. You can listen on any podcasting platform, including Apple and Spotify!

Michael Lamb is the F. M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character, Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Wake Forest University. He is also a Research Fellow with the Oxford Character Project. He holds a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University, a B.A. in political science from Rhodes College, and a second B.A. in philosophy and theology from the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. An award-winning teacher, his research and teaching focus on leadership, character, and the role of virtues in public life. He is the author of A Commonwealth of Hope: Augustine’s Political Thought (2022), which offers a bold new interpretation of Augustine’s virtue of hope and its relevance for politics. His work has been published in leading academic journals across numerous disciplines.

I want to sincerely thank you all for listening to season three. If you’d like to support the podcast, you can give to the link in the show notes, buymeacoffee.com/gracehamman, and these funds basically go straight to platform fees and books for research, etc. If you want to support but not monetarily, reviews, subscriptions, and ratings matter so much for a one-woman podcast like Old Books with Grace! Thanks again.

Julian of Norwich and Jesus our Mother with Grace Hamman

I’m my own guest for this episode! I even answer my own get-to-know-you questions, just because I’ve always wanted to answer them myself 🙂

Today, dear listeners, is my birthday, May 17th. It was also Mother’s Day here in the United States on Sunday. And finally, either the 13th or the 8th (the Latin numerals for 8 and 13 look very similar in medieval manuscripts!) marked the 650th anniversary of Julian of Norwich’s strange encounter with God in the year of our Lord 1373. So it’s a big week, and I wanted to mark it myself in a special way.

For Julian is very special to me. Of all the medieval writers I study and adore, she is most my teacher and guide on this pilgrims’ way, on the via caritatis, path of love that characterizes following Christ. She has shaped my thought and desire deeper than I can say. I hope her words have seeped into my very bones. I often think of her when I am making decisions or facing something difficult or beautiful, about myself, about God, or about other people. I would love to have a conversation with her. So today, rather than having a guest on, in honor of these three occasions of this last week, I’m my own guest, sharing about Julian of Norwich, and her lovely, powerful meditations on Christ as our Mother.

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcasting platform of your choice.

Reading Art with Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt

Normally, obviously, I talk about old books. But every now and then, I do an episode on old art. Because encountering old art is just as much about reading, interpretation, and attention as reading old books! Today, I’m really happy to welcome Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt as a guest to talk about the beauty of art and how it forms us in love.

Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt (Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis) is an associate professor of art and art history at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia. As a biracial Japanese-white woman, she has navigated the joys and tensions of a hybrid identity. Weichbrodt has published on topics ranging from contemporary Black photographers to the patronage of Hawaiian landscape paintings to documentary photographs of Japanse Americans during World War II. She also enjoys writing for general audiences on the intersection of art history, politics, and pop culture.

This episode is available on any podcasting platform of repute, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify! I always appreciate a rating and/or review if you enjoyed the episode.

Learning like Shakespeare with Scott Newstok

Today, I’m delighted to chat with Dr. Scott Newstok on Shakespeare and the principles of a renaissance education. We talk about Shakespeare, what kind of education people of his time were receiving, and some of the building blocks of critical thinking from the perspective of Early Modern educators and students!

Scott Newstok is Professor of English and founding director of the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment at Rhodes College. A parent and an award-winning teacher, he is the author of How to Think Like Shakespeare, as well as Quoting Death in Early Modern England, and the editor of several other books, including a forthcoming edition of Michel de Montaigne’s educational writings. 

Listen on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts! If you enjoyed this episode, I’d also deeply appreciate it if you left a review on your platform–it helps out the podcast quite a bit!

A Book that Changed Me: Claude Atcho on The Picture of Dorian Gray

This year’s Old Books with Grace Lent series, called “A Book that Changed Me,” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Books can be mirrors—they can help us to consider ourselves in new light. Books invite us into conversation and reflection we would not have known to participate in without their guidance. Each of the guests in this series has chosen a book that invited them into reflection, remembrance, and self-knowledge. Each conversation is quite different—some more personal, others less—and the books span from the Middle Ages to the 1960s. And if you’re inspired, I’d love to hear about a book that changed you, on social media (find me on Instagram @oldbookswithgrace or on Twitter, @gracehammanphd). My last guest of the series is Claude Atcho, who has chosen to talk about the haunting novel by Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Claude Atcho resides in Charlottesville, VA where he lives with his family, serves as a pastor of Church of the Resurrection, and enjoys coaching his kids in basketball and soccer. In addition to his preaching and pastoral work, Claude speaks and writes about literature, film, music, and culture from a theological perspective. His writing has been featured at The Witness: A Black Christian Collective, Think Christian, Christ and Pop Culture, and The Gospel Coalition. His writing often lives at the intersection of theology, culture, and African American experience.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcasting platform of your choice.

A Book that Changed Me: Kaitlyn Schiess on A Wrinkle in Time

This year’s Old Books with Grace Lent series, called “A Book that Changed Me,” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Books can be mirrors—they can help us to consider ourselves in new light. Books invite us into conversation and reflection we would not have known to participate in without their guidance. Each of the guests in this series has chosen a book that invited them into reflection, remembrance, and self-knowledge. Each conversation is quite different—some more personal, others less—and the books span from the Middle Ages to the 1960s. And if you’re inspired, I’d love to hear about a book that changed you, on social media (find me on Instagram @oldbookswithgrace or on Twitter, @gracehammanphd). My third guest of the series is Kaitlyn Schiess, who has chosen to talk about the absolutely wonderful young adult novel, A Wrinkle in Time, by one of my favorite authors, Madeleine L’Engle.

Kaitlyn Schiess is the author of The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture has been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here (Brazos, 2023) and The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Our Neighbor (IVP, 2020). Her writing has appeared at Christianity Today, The New York Times, Christ and Pop Culture, RELEVANT, and Sojourner. She has a ThM in systematic theology from Dallas Theological Seminary and is currently a doctoral student in political theology at Duke Divinity School. 

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcasting platform of your choice.

A Book that Changed Me: Jason Baxter on Dante’s Inferno

This year’s Old Books with Grace Lent series, called “A Book that Changed Me,” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Books can be mirrors—they can help us to consider ourselves in new light. Books invite us into conversation and reflection we would not have known to participate in without their guidance. Each of the guests in this series has chosen a book that invited them into reflection, remembrance, and self-knowledge. Each conversation is quite different—some more personal, others less—and the books span from the Middle Ages to the 1960s. And if you’re inspired, I’d love to hear about a book that changed you, on social media (find me on Instagram @oldbookswithgrace or on Twitter, @gracehammanphd). My second guest of the series is Jason Baxter, who has chosen to talk about Dante Alighieri’s descent into Hell, Inferno.

Jason Baxter is a college professor, speaker, and author of five books, including A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s  Comedy and, most recently, The Medieval Mind of C.S. Lewis. He now lives in South Bend, where he is teaching great books at Notre Dame.

Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or the podcasting platform of your choice.

A Book that Changed Me: Joy Clarkson on Silas Marner

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Lent is traditionally a time of fasting, of reflection, and of remembering who we as humans are, what we have done, and what we have failed to do—and who loves us, in whose path we follow. Fasting or self-discipline, whatever shape these take depending on the tradition of Christianity to which you belong, provokes these remembrances of our limitations and spurs us on towards transformation. Lent is about truthfulness, and the places that truthfulness leads us. In Lent, we imitate Christ in his humility by rejecting easy ways to power, domination, and lies about ourselves and the way the world works. 

This year’s Old Books with Grace Lent series, called “A Book that Changed Me,” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Books can be mirrors—they can help us to consider ourselves in new light. Books invite us into conversation and reflection we would not have known to participate in without their guidance. Each of the guests in this series has chosen a book that invited them into reflection, remembrance, and self-knowledge. Each conversation is quite different—some more personal, others less—and the books span from the Middle Ages to the 1960s. And if you’re inspired, I’d love to hear about a book that changed you, on social media (find me on Instagram @oldbookswithgrace or on Twitter, @gracehammanphd). My first guest of the series is Joy Clarkson, who has chosen to talk about George Eliot’s wonderful tale about the avaricious weaver changed by love, Silas Marner.

Dr. Joy Clarkson is the author of Aggressively Happy: A Realist’s Guide to Believing in the Goodness of Life, and a research associate in theology and literature at King’s College, London. She received her doctorate in theology from St Andrews University, where she researched the ways we can use art to prepare ourselves for a good death. She hosts a podcast, Speaking with Joy, and is the Books & Culture editor at Plough Quarterly.

Listen on the podcasting platform of your choice, including Apple Podcasts or Spotify.

Enjoying Elizabeth Goudge with Julie Witmer

Have you heard of the midcentury fiction writer, Elizabeth Goudge, author of classics like The Little White Horse or The Scent of Water? I had not until very recently, and now I just love her work. Julie Witmer, founder of the Elizabeth Goudge Book Club, comes on to Old Books with Grace to talk about Goudge’s life and writings with me, from her talent for writing children, to her love for her characters, to her mischaracterization as a romance writer!

Julie Witmer is a teacher, garden designer and the host of the Elizabeth Goudge Bookclub on Instagram, where she shares the joy she has found in the works of this less-known twentieth century British author. For four years, she has been committed to encouraging new Goudge readers through Instagram “readalongs,” and creating a global community of those who love Goudge’s writings. 

Instagram link: https://www.instagram.com/elizabethgoudgebookclub/

Modernism & T.S. Eliot with Tony Domestico

I’m really pleased to welcome Dr. Anthony Domestico to Old Books with Grace today to chat about modernist poetry including my favorite twentieth-century poet, T.S. Eliot. Warning: this episode is longer than my usual episodes because I lost track of time in my excitement about Eliot, and then, in further excitement about Eliot, I did not want to cut anything out.

Anthony Domestico is chair of the Literature Department at Purchase College, SUNY and the books columnist for Commonweal. His reviews and essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The Baffler, Book Post, the Boston Globe, Lit Hu​b, the San Francisco Chronicle, and many other places. His book, Poetry and Theology in the Modernist Period, is available from Johns Hopkins.

Check out the episode on the platform of your choice, including Apple & Spotify.