{"id":8003,"date":"2014-07-01T10:05:43","date_gmt":"2014-07-01T14:05:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/?p=8003"},"modified":"2014-07-01T10:07:43","modified_gmt":"2014-07-01T14:07:43","slug":"podcast-from-billiards-to-bach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/chimeraobscura.com\/vm\/podcast-from-billiards-to-bach","title":{"rendered":"Podcast: From Billiards to Bach"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Peter<\/a><\/p>\n

Virtual Memories: Peter Kalkavage\u00a0– From Billiards to Bach<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Season_4_Episode_24_-_From_Billiards_to_Bach.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

“No one can be deeply affected by this course of study and not want to go beyond it. It gets you excited about ideas, questions and authors. To read one author is to lead you to another.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"hegelshrunk\"<\/a>How does a man go from being a ne’er-do-well in a Pennsylvania mining town to a tutor at St. John’s College<\/a>? Peter Kalkavage<\/a> joins the show to talk about his path to that Great Books institution, what he’s learned going into his\u00a038th year as a tutor, how he fell in love with the college’s music program, what his study of Hegel taught him, what he’d add to the St. John’s curriculum, and more! (Also: Iliad<\/em> or Odyssey, <\/em>which offsets the question of “Luther or Calvin?”)<\/p>\n

“In my time here, the one change that has irked me the most has been the shift from Luther to Calvin in the sophomore seminar. There were understandable problems with Luther . . . on the other hand, he deals in a blunt and powerful way with questions of freedom, secular authority, and faith-vs.-works. Calvin seems too relentlessly negative and too obsessed with the question of predestination.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

http:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/virtualmemories\/Season_4_Episode_24_-_From_Billiards_to_Bach.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div>

Podcast: Play in new window<\/a> | Download<\/a><\/p>

Subscribe: Spotify<\/a> | TuneIn<\/a> | RSS<\/a> | More<\/a><\/p>\n

We also discuss his upbringing, The Big Lebowski<\/em>, the teacher who got him to turn himself around, his favorite area to teach, how Dante taught him the possibilities of poetry, the question of whether we’re ever mature enough to read the curriculum, and the recent move to rebrand St. John’s College.<\/p>\n

“We have to be very careful not to present ourselves in what we think might be an attractive way which misrepresents what we most have to offer our students, the country and the world: our curriculum. That’s the most important thing. Not our location, not our extracurricular activities, but the program. ‘The following teachers are returning to St. John’s next year. . . .'”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Enjoy the conversation!<\/a>\u00a0Then check out\u00a0the archives<\/a>\u00a0for more great episodes! Related conversations:<\/p>\n