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PODCAST

New Humanists

Ancient Language Institute

Join the hosts of New Humanists and founders of the Ancient Language Institute, Jonathan Roberts and Ryan Hammill, on their quest to discover what a renewed humanism looks like for the modern world. The Ancient Language Institute is an online language school and think tank, dedicated to changing the way ancient languages are taught.

education language learning

All Episodes

52:28

Using Paganism to Christianize the Pagans | Episode...

New Humanists ·

2025/04/15

Send us a text In his lifetime, John Chrysostom witnessed the true beginning of Christendom: the Emperor Theodosius confirmed the public standing of Christianity over that of paganism and delivered a final knockout blow to Arian heresy in favor of Nicene orthodoxy. But a religion on the upswing can attract opportunistic and ill-informed converts. Jonathan and Ryan look at Chrysostom's advice on the bringing-up of children, and the ways in which the Greek Father uses pagan tropes - Greco-Roman...

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60:07

The Hieronymus Option | Episode LXXXV

New Humanists ·

2025/04/01

Send us a text Can Christians read and appreciate pagan literature? The vexed relationship between the Church and a world that hates it has generated many different responses. The most popular recent proposal is Rod Dreher's "Benedict option" - Dreher counsels Christian retrenchment and quasi-monastic self-sufficiency. But the great saint of late antiquity and compiler of the Vulgate, Jerome (aka Eusebius Sophronius Hieronymus), proposes a different option, drawn from the Mosaic Law. Jonathan...

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57:21

Why Modern Literature Stinks | Episode LXXXIV

New Humanists ·

2025/03/15

Send us a text In the final chapter of Climbing Parnassus, Tracy Lee Simmons distinguishes between the "skills" and the "content" arguments for classical study, and says that the skills argument is in fact the stronger. Content, Simmons says, can be learned by reading translations - or even from scanning Wikipedia (or asking A.I.!). What is irreplaceable about true classical study is the formation of the mind and the skills acquired from long years of intense training in reading and writing i...

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60:20

The Declines and Falls of Classical Education |...

New Humanists ·

2025/03/01

Send us a text Classical education has declined and fallen before - as the Roman Empire succumbed to internal weakness and external threats, so did its bilingual educational regime. Humanists in the Renaissance revived the ancient world's Greek and Latin literary paideia, or at least created a new system of education modelled on it, which flourished for centuries, well into the modern era. But it fell apart once again after the catastrophe of the First World War. In Chapter Two of Climbing Pa...

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49:37

Will Classical Schools Climb Parnassus? | Episode LXXXII

New Humanists ·

2025/02/15

Send us a text A truly classical education is centered on the study of the Classics: the ancient languages and literatures of Greece and Rome. The adjective "classical" is thus a misnomer for a school that strays promiscuously from the true Classics into the "Great Books" or the "Great Tradition." So argues Tracy Lee Simmons in his landmark book, Climbing Parnassus. Jonathan and Ryan dive into Simmons' book and debate whether classical education is, as he says, a lost cause. Tracy Lee Simmo...

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62:16

"The Church Is Like the Ancient Roman State" |...

New Humanists ·

2025/02/01

Send us a text The Renaissance humanist Biondo Flavio dedicated his massive book Roma Triumphans, a historical investigation of what made Rome great, to his fellow humanist Pope Pius II. He contended that central to the story of Roman greatness was Roman religion, and that the Roman Catholic Church was the heir of the Roman Empire, correcting its faults even as it carried its legacy into the modern world. As James Hankins discusses in Virtue Politics, the main policy position that Biondo advo...

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70:57

What the Modern World Lost | Episode LXXX

New Humanists ·

2025/01/01

Send us a textRepresentative government, freedom of religion, the right to privacy - these are just some of the liberties of the modern world which we cherish. But at what cost? After the French Revolution and the subsequent rise and fall of Napoleon, the French classical liberal Benjamin Constant undertook an examination of ancient liberty as compared to modern liberty, in a bid to defend the modern liberal project against its detractors. But Constant is honest about the downsides of the mod...

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47:20

A Great Books Monastery | Episode LXXIX

New Humanists ·

2024/12/01

Send us a textWhen civilization is crashing down all around you, what do you do? Retreat to the hills, build a monastery, and preserve what you can. That is exactly what Cassiodorus did in the 6th century when he founded the Vivarium, an Italian monastery dedicated to copying, emending, and preserving the classics of Greek and Roman literature. In this episode, Jonathan and Ryan take a look at the proposed curriculum and list of great books and authors that Cassiodorus recommended for his stu...

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50:20

The Barren Contemplative Life | Episode LXXVIII

New Humanists ·

2024/11/15

Send us a textThis week, Jonathan and Ryan discuss two early medieval selections from Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition, one taken from Gregory the Great, perhaps the most significant pope in the history of Christendom, and another from Alcuin of York, adviser to Charlemagne and architect of the Carolingian Renaissance. Both Gregory and Alcuin were churchmen, statesmen, scholars, and are linked closely to the Christianization of Britain. Jonathan and Ryan discuss the relation between ra...

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65:32

How to Train a Pastor | Episode LXXVII

New Humanists ·

2024/11/01

Send us a textHe who teaches the truth finds himself locked in battle against all those who teach falsehood. With what tools will you equip him? That is the question motivating "Education of the Clergy," a 9th century treatise written by one of the great students of Alcuin: Rhabanus Maurus. The stereotype of the "dark ages" - the narrowness of mind and dogmatic intolerance of the early medieval period - is shown up to be mere mythmaking by the broad, even humanistic cast of mind Rhabanus Maur...

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61:52

Florence the Heir of Rome | Episode LXXVI

New Humanists ·

2024/10/15

Send us a textWhat if the true heir of the Roman Empire was not Rome, but Florence? Over the course of his life and career as a scholar and politician, the great humanist Leonardo Bruni made this argument multiple times, and in a variety of ways. In doing so, he gave novel accounts of liberty and virtue, and eventually moved away from an appeal to Florence's Roman roots and appealed instead to her Etruscan roots. In doing so, he laid the groundwork for the preeminent Italian political thinker...

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58:02

The Homer-Industrial Complex | Episode LXXV

New Humanists ·

2024/09/01

The Iliad was more popular than the Odyssey beginning in ancient times, and continued to be all the way up to World War One. Then, something changed. Now the Odyssey leaves the Iliad in the dust in terms of which poem gets assigned more frequently in school, in book sales, and simply in the stated preference of readers. What happened? Ryan and Jonathan read Edward Luttwak's essay, Homer Inc., about the thriving industry of Homer translations, the ancient redactors of Homer, the historicity of...

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100:53

Humanism, With or Without God, feat. Eric Adler |...

New Humanists ·

2024/08/15

For the first time, a collection of Irving Babbitt's and Paul Elmer More's correspondence has been published. Eric Adler, the editor of the collection (titled "Humanistic Letters") joins the show to discuss the collection, New Humanism, and the question that caused more controversy between Babbitt and More than anything else: Do humanists need to believe in God? Eric Adler's Humanistic Letters: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780826222909Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics: https://boo...

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52:10

Medieval Monastic Humanism | Episode LXXIII

New Humanists ·

2024/08/01

Love for Cicero, attention to rhetorical form, use of pagan wisdom for political thought - these are all hallmarks of the Renaissance humanists. But not their invention. In fact, you find the same things among some medieval thinkers. Jonathan and Ryan read and discuss selections from the Policraticus and the Metalogicon, two works by the 12th century bishop of Chartres, John of Salisbury, who was an exemplar of this medieval brand of humanism.Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://a...

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51:55

How to Learn Like Thomas Aquinas | Episode LXXII

New Humanists ·

2024/07/15

Thomas Aquinas is also known as the "Angelic Doctor," but he was quite capable of coming down from the heavens and getting practical. In two selections from his work included in Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition, we find some of Thomas' advice and outlook for students and teachers, including a discussion of whether teaching is an inherently contemplative or active pursuit.Richard M. Gamble's The Great Tradition: https://amzn.to/3Q4lRnONew Humanists episode Education that Makes Aquinas L...

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60:45

Pagans and Christians, Glory and Piety | Episode LXXI

New Humanists ·

2024/07/01

The things of God belong to a heavenly kingdom. But politics is taken up with what is earthly. Surely, therefore, Christians should keep politics at a distance as much as possible. Right? Even while defending the life of contemplation and retreat from the earthly, Francesco Petrarch and Giovanni Bocaccio laud Christian involvement in public life. Petrarch goes so far as to dream of a Julius Caesar reborn in medieval Europe and baptized a Christian, who goes on to conquer Egypt from the Muslim...

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59:51

Petrarch's Little Dark Age | Episode LXX

New Humanists ·

2024/06/15

Imagine that you are the leading figure in a movement to renew the study and appreciation of classical literature, but you have come to the end of your life and not only has the educational and political situation not improved - it has gotten worse. Such was the vista spread out before Petrarch in his twilight. Jonathan and Ryan read and discuss some of Petrarch's correspondence, recording the meditations of the great humanist as he wrestled with civilizational decline, the possibility of reb...

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55:24

Liberal Arts for Liberal Hearts | Episode LXIX

New Humanists ·

2024/06/01

Are the liberal arts for everyone? We tend to think that the liberal arts can be helpful and edifying for anyone. But even amidst the humanist enthusiasm for the study of letters, the Renaissance writer Pier Paolo Vergerio denied that the liberal arts could improve a corrupt soul. In his mind, the liberal arts are proper only for those born free from the demands of moneymaking and furthermore, possessing a liberal temper. What is a liberal temper? And what are the liberal arts anyways? Jonath...

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53:00

What is Tyranny? | Episode LXVIII

New Humanists ·

2024/05/15

We think we know what a "republic" is, but what did the Romans mean with their phrase "res publica"? What about the Italian humanists? And how did they distinguish a republic from a tyranny? We take a look at two more chapters from James Hankins's book, Virtue Politics, a groundbreaking examination of Renaissance political theory. These chapters focus on the question of legitimacy: What makes a government legitimate? What makes it illegitimate?James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/...

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69:32

The Renaissance Politics of Virtue | Episode LXVII

New Humanists ·

2024/05/01

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