The Christian Humanist Podcast

Latest Episodes:

Episode 135: Songs of Innocence and experience Apr 29, 2014

Show notes

Michial Farmer chats with David Grubbs and Nathan Gilmour about William Blake's poetic collection "Songs of Innocence and Experience." The trio takes on the standard anthology pieces like "Little Lamb," "The Tyger," and "London," and they also discuss some of the back-catalog poems in the collection and venture on occasion into "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" and the prophetic poems. Among the poems and other realities discussed are "America: A Prophecy," "The Clod and the Pebble," Romanticism, Milton's Satan, and print-making.

Episode 134: Cain Apr 22, 2014

Show notes

David Grubbs hosts a conversation with Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour about Cain, the first man born of a woman in Genesis. A figure of subhuman, superhuman, and otherwise inhuman terror through much of literature, Cain contains multitudes, sometimes existing as the figure of urban corruption and other times as the swamp-dweller who shuns cities. Among the texts and other realities discussed are Genesis, City of God, East of Eden, Hebrews, 1 John, and Bruce Springsteen.

Episode 133: Psychology Apr 15, 2014

Show notes

Nathan Gilmour hosts a conversation with Michial Farmer, David Grubbs, and Book of Nature host Charles Hackney about psychology. After the quartet looks at the history of the discipline, Hackney introduces the listeners to the field of Positive Psychology, and there's a side trip into Tolkien along the way. Among the theories, theorists, and other realities engaged are Aristotle's De Anima, Patristic psychological theology, Positive Psychology, The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings, and why Psychology is really science.

Episode 132: Physics Apr 08, 2014

Show notes

Michial Farmer hosts a conversation with David Grubbs, Nathan Gilmour, and Book of Nature host Todd Pedlar about physics. From Aristotle to Einstein and beyond, human beings have proposed mathematical and metaphorical models for how the universe works, and physicists take as their work to refine and to teach those models. Among the theories, theorists, and other realities engaged are Aristotle's Physics, Edgar Allen Poe, relativity, radioactivity, quantum mechanics, and bad reasons to be a relativist.

Episode 131: Meteorology Apr 01, 2014

Show notes

David Grubbs hosts a conversation with Michial Farmer, Nathan Gilmour, and Book of Nature host Dan Dawson about meteorology. Starting from the contrast between weather-mythologies and explanations from states of matter, the quartet spend much of the time examining why storms in particular inspires such respect and awe among human beings. Among the writers, ideas, and other phenomena discussed are Aristotle, Job, the water cycle, the synoptic gospels, forecasting, Polar Vortex, and Snowmageddon.

Episode 130.1: Amusing Ourselves to Death Mar 25, 2014

Show notes

Nathan Gilmour and Michial Farmer hold forth about Neil Postman's 1985 book "Amusing Ourselves to Death." Postman's most widely read book explores the philosophical and psychological implications of the historical shift from a print culture to a televised culture and examines what happens to institutions like political debate and public education when such shifts happen. Among the ideas and other realities engaged are media ecology, cable television news, MTV, Sesame Street, the genre-distinctives of television programming, and Ben Affleck.

Episode 130: C.S. Lewis Mar 18, 2014

Show notes

Michial Farmer holds a conversation with Nathan Gilmour and David Grubbs about C.S. Lewis. In a survey-style conversation, the trio digs into his children's novels, his forays into science fiction, his popular apologetics, and especially his influence among 21st-century Evangelicals. Among the books and other realities engaged are The Chronicles of Narnia, the Space Trilogy, the Abolition of Man, Surprised by Joy, and The Great Divorce.

Episode 129: Ghostbusters Mar 11, 2014

Show notes

Nathan Gilmour hosts a conversation with Danny Anderson, Michial Farmer, and David Grubbs about the 1984 movie "Ghostbusters." Digging into its treatment of the supernatural and its ties to emerging political phenomena, the quartet both appreciates its staying power and wonders at the strange ideas that lie just beyond the screen. Among the religious movements and other realities engaged are Spiritualism, Cold War nuclear weapons anxieities, the Tea Party, the Comedy of Humors, and Bill Murray.

Episode 128: Neighbour Rosicky Mar 04, 2014

Show notes

Michial Farmer hosts a conversation with Danny Anderson and Nathan Gilmour about Willa Cather's short story "Neighbour Rosicky." The crew explores the story's complex treatment of city and country and the American work ethic before settling in on a conversation of the ethics of love that moves the story's plot and defines the title character.

Episode 127: Alfred Hitchcock Feb 25, 2014

Show notes

Danny Anderson talks with Michial Farmer and Nathan Gilmour about the career and films of Alfred Hitchcock. Beginning with their personal histories with Hitchcock's films and Hitchcock's own central role in the rise of film studies as an academic discipline, the Humanists dig into the psychological and literary character of some of his works. Among the movies and other realities discussed are Psycho, Strangers on a Train, Dial M for Murder, The Birds, Notorious, North by Northwest, Vertigo, Spellbound, and Rear Window.