Free Program Offer:
Continuing the Conversation
CTCO 101-120
Description:
In this series, professors from St. John’s College in Santa Fe use landmark books as a starting point for a conversation where history’s great thinkers, from Socrates to Shakespeare to Emerson, provide a springboard to tackle big questions.
Production Format: HD-Base, Stereo, CC
Producing Agency: St. John's College
Presenting Station: New Mexico PBS
Local Underwriting: Cleared
Cost / Conditions: Free upon notification of intent to carry.
Feed Date & Schedule: Available via sIX on February 23, 2024
Rights: Unlimited Broadcast from March 1, 2024 through February 28, 2026
Live Streaming: Cleared for Livestreaming concurrent with On-Air Broadcast
Episode Order and Descriptions:
Episodes available to view at: https://www.pbs.org/show/continuing-the-conversation/
Episode 101: EUCLID’S OPTICS
Long description: What are the limitations and possibilities of perception—and what do ancient mathematics and modern literature have to say about this question?
Short description: What are the limitations and possibilities of perception?
Episode 102: FAMILY DRAMA: FROM OEDIPUS TO OZU
Long description: This episode searches for insights into the nature of family, the tension between the safety and anxiety that family creates, and the rich and multiple ways that different artists, works, cultures, and mediums express these insights.
Short description: Searching for insights into the nature of family.
Episode 103: THE IDEAL COMMUNITY: THE ADVENTURE TO TRY
Long description: Can an ideal human community ever be achieved? A conversation on Plato’s Republic, Du Bois’ The Souls of Black Folk, and the conflict between the ideals that America was founded upon and the lived reality of life.
Short description: Can an ideal human community ever be achieved?
Episode 104: PURSUING THE ETERNAL PRESENT
Long description: Does a contemplative life bring us closer to the divine, as Aristotle believed? Is it the highest form of human life or is it self-centered and lived at the expense of others? Can one lead a contemplative life while living in the real world?
Short description: Does a contemplative life bring us closer to the divine, as Aristotle believed?
Episode 105: THE PILLOW BOOK OF SEI SHōNAGON
Long description: What is it to write? What roles do ceremony, beauty, and material play in the act of writing? Not only is the Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon an early classic of Japanese literature, written in the 10th century, it is also the world’s first sustained portrayal of an individual self as she lives, thinks, and feels from day to day.
Short description: Exploring the Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon, the world’s first portrayal of individual self.
Episode 106: WHAT IS FREEDOM AND HOW DO WE CULTIVATE IT?
Long description: Liberal education is education for freedom. What kind of freedom does it or should it cultivate? A probing conversation into the nature of freedom, the ways in which individuals and communities can cultivate it, and the need for self-discipline in tempering our freedoms.
Short description: What kind of freedom does liberal education cultivate?
Episode 107: HOME AND HUNGER: THE CROSSROADS OF FOOD AND THOUGHT
Long description: This episode, rich in metaphor and poetry, connects gastronomy, language, thought, and community to a theme to which all humans can relate: wanting to know and be at home in the world.
Short description: Connecting gastronomy, language, thought and community to being at home in the world.
Episode 108: SOPHROSYNE: IN SEARCH OF MODERATION
Long description: Sophrosyne is the ancient Greek word for moderation, one of the four classical virtues. But what does Socrates’ definition of moderation really mean and how is it connected to another virtue: courage?
Short description: What does Socrates’ definition of moderation mean and how is it connected to courage?
Episode 109: CAN A BOOK BE A FRIEND?
Long description: Is a book dead or alive? Can one be friends with a book, or with the author behind the book? This episode explores the very personal relationships that humans have with books, and the complex questions they bring up in all of us.
Short description: Exploring the very personal relationships humans have with books.
Episode 110: LINCOLN’S NEW BIRTH OF FREEDOM
Long description: How did the Civil War bring about a new birth of freedom? What about the lynchings, segregation, and deep economic inequalities that followed? Did Lincoln foresee the nation would need multiple new births to maintain its ideals and opportunities for all citizens? How has—and hasn’t—the nation realized Lincoln's vision at Gettysburg?
Short description: How did the Civil War bring about a new birth of freedom?
Episode 111: THE THRILL OF LITERATURE – AND OF THE UNIVERSE
Long description: Is it important to feel when we read literature? Or when we learn math and science? On a related front, what is the role of order and disruption in literature, in life, and in our observation of the universe?
Short description: Is it important to feel when we read literature? Or when we learn math and science?
Episode 112: THE FOOL’S PARADISE: TO WHERE DOES TRAVEL LEAD?
Long description: Why do writers travel? Why do some authors write their most influential works in foreign countries? Does the unknown bring new insights and transformation, or do new lands provide nothing more than romantic myths for the imagination?
Short description: Why do some authors write their most influential works in foreign countries?
Episode 113: SCIENCE AS A LIBERAL ART
Long description: In this episode, a conversation on St John's College' unique approach to scientific and mathematical study. Authors touched upon include Galileo, Leibniz, Maxwell, Thompson, Schrödinger, Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Faraday, and Descartes.
Short description: A conversation on St John's College' unique approach to scientific and mathematical study.
Episode 114: PRACTICING FOR DEATH: INTEGRATING MIND AND BODY
Long description: Through the writings of the 13th-century Japanese author Dogen and the 16th-century French author Montaigne—explore how physical presence and pain can take us out of our minds and into a practice that prepares us for the vicissitudes of life and the certainty of death through an integration of mind, body, and soul.
Short description: Explore how physical presence and pain can prepare us for the certainty of death.
Episode 115: THE CHALLENGE OF TRANSLATION
Long description: In this episode, we discuss the complexities of translation, including the role of interpretation and emotion, as humans attempt to understand and communicate ideas across linguistic boundaries through literary translation and dialogue with each other.
Short description: Discussing the complexities of translation, including the role of interpretation and emotion.
Episode 116: VANQUISHING THE ENEMY: SPORTS, WAR AND SEMINAR?
Long description: What is the relationship between sports and war? And what is seminar's relationship to both? From conversational cooperation to sportsmanlike competition to brutal war, this episode takes us on a journey through the best and worst of human nature.
Short description: What is the relationship between sports and war? And seminar's relationship to both?
Episode 117: WE, THE TERRIBLE LISTENERS
Long description: This episode discusses the importance of learning to hear and understand the language of those who are unlike us, of supporting quieter and less represented voices in conversation, and building true community through the committed practice of listening.
Short description: The importance of building community through the committed practice of listening.
Episode 118: CAN WAR BE BEAUTIFUL?
Long description: Can killing and dying in war be beautiful? Is a just cause required for glory to be gained? Is war a courageous way of fulfilling human nature and, ultimately, of embracing the reality that death awaits us all?
Short description: Can killing and dying in war be beautiful? Is a just cause required for glory to be gained?
Episode 119: TO THINK OR TO DO
Long description: Today, our world is defined by consumerism, self-expression, and a gnawing lack of meaning. Can the contemplative life of the mind play a central role in addressing this void? What about the role of its supposed counterparts—doing, making, and simply being?
Short description: Can the contemplative mind play a central role in addressing lack of meaning in life?
Episode 120: SONNET 94: SHAESPEARE’S UNMOVED MOVER
Long description: This episode takes us through a close reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94, which many consider to be his most enigmatic.
Short description: A close reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 94, considered to be his most enigmatic.
