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The Professor"s Bayonet

Jason Dew

Book reviews and social commentary

arts books

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00:04:25

Episode 32 - Saint Michael the Archangel and G.K....

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/09/24

For those of my listeners who do not know, it is a tradition to recite the prayer of Saint Michael at the end of Mass in the Catholic Church. As a convert to the faith, I had to learn this powerful prayer, so I could join the chorus of those petitioning Saint Michael to “defend us in battle” and to “cast into hell Satan and all the evil spirits who prowl about the world seeking the ruin of souls.” It is a prayer that pulls no punches and rightly so. We are, after all, in a spiritual war against

00:05:43

Episode 31 - Moral Relativism versus the Four...

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/09/17

At the time of my writing of this episode, philosophy professor Peter Kreeft’s book A Refutation of Moral Relativism: Interviews with an Absolutist has only 134 ratings on Amazon.com. This, I contend, is not a reflection of the quality of Kreeft’s writing nor of the content he explores but, rather, what is typically chosen as casual reading. The book, as my old college roommate used to say, is a thinker. I made notes in the margins. I reread passages to understand them better. Kreeft covers a

00:03:45

Episode 30 - Love You Forever

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/09/10

Love You Forever – written by Robert Munsch, illustrated by Sheila McGraw In 2007, my oldest daughter, then a newborn, was gifted with this classic children’s book. The story’s arc is simple, yet the message remains powerful. A mother rocks her child in various stages of his life, singing the same lullaby: I’ll love you forever, I’ll like you for always, As long as I’m living, my baby you’ll be. Of course, she, too, experiences various stages of life. In the beginning, she is a new mother. As time

00:04:36

Episode 29 - Root Hog or Die

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/09/03

In his New York Times bestselling book The Road to Character, David Brooks explores the Adam I and the Adam II archetypes – the two opposing sides of our nature taken from the two accounts of creation in the Book of Genesis. Adam I is all about building a resume. His focus is external. It is about position. About promotion. Degrees earned. Awards won. Being the perfect company man. Adam II, on the other hand, is about the internal. He wants a robust moral compass. He seeks to better

00:03:36

Episode 28 - Sleepy Hollow and the Enlightenment

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/08/27

Thinkers at the time of the Enlightenment or Age of Reason were engrossed with the project of imposing order onto the universe. With the God-given faculty of reason, they argued, humankind, above and beyond every other creature, could navigate the world with greater insight and influence. They saw themselves, in other words, as Adam-like in the sense that their mission was to "tend the garden": keep it trimmed and tidy, give it language, name everything that can be named. This was in

00:03:42

Episode 27 - The Holy Spirit, The American Spirit

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/08/20

I first read James Fenimore Cooper’s classic The Last of the Mohicans when I was around twelve years old. Somebody had gifted me a set of abridged versions of a selection of American classics, and I devoured them one after the other. It was not until I taught a section of Cooper’s work to my Honors students that I learned that the 19th century author was doing something quite clever in his telling of how a trio of backwoodsmen, two of them Natives, come to the assistance of two English sisters who

00:04:23

Episode 26 - The New Jerusalem Infiltrated

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/08/13

According to Jewish mythology, Adam’s first wife was not Eve. The Adam from the Book of Genesis was first wed to a woman named Lilith; however, she was not quite on board with her expected station in the Garden, so she was summarily banished, ejected, kicked out. The insurrection in heaven had already taken place, which meant that Lilith, in her exiled state, was not exactly alone. She was among fallen angels or demons who, like ravenous sharks, circled Eden, looking for ways to get in. To spite

00:04:27

Episode 25 - Father as Artist: Sorolla, Joyce, and...

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/08/06

Years ago, when I was teaching in Spain, I discovered a museum that altered my understanding of what it means to be an artist. Born in 1863 in Valencia, Joaquin Sorolla was a well-known painter, plying his craft just as the Modernist movement was picking up speed. I had expected to be immersed in a world of experimentalism and the avante garde; however, I was quickly corrected when I was exposed to the fruits of his labor. I stood in the building that had once been his home and beheld

00:04:48

Episode 24 - The Metamorphosis

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/07/30

One day, inexplicably, Gregor Samsa, the protagonist in Kafka’s 1915 novella, wakes up to find himself transformed into a bug. Common depictions have him as a cockroach. No matter the case, the metamorphosis is shocking yet quite telling. Samsa is, after all, a salesman who works a dead-end job to provide for his family. In many ways, his lot is one we can all relate to. Days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months, and all the sudden you are a year older, still plugging away at the same job

00:04:40

Episode 23 - The Doctrine of the Spheres

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/07/23

Charlotte Perkins Gilman was not the only female writer to challenge the Doctrine of the Spheres. The torch that was lit by Mary Wollstonecraft in her notable work “Vindication of the Rights of Women,” which was published in 1792 was carried forth by a number of aspiring liberators of the so-called weaker sex. The Bronte sisters, Kate Chopin, George Eliot, Jane Austen, Louisa May Alcott, Fanny Fern, even Wollstonecraft’s daughter, Mary Shelley all got in their digs. What is useful about Gilman’s

00:04:56

Episode 22 - Old Men and the Seas

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/07/16

John Steinbeck once wrote that “there is a line of old men standing on the edge of the Pacific, angry at the ocean for stopping them.” He was, of course, referring to those who spent their youth as explorers, trackers, soldiers, cowboys – men who bridled at the very notion of remaining in the long-tamed East, preferring, instead, to strike out into the vast unknown – the West – brimming with possibility and danger. Many took up the call to embrace Manifest Destiny. It was in a spirit of American

00:05:53

Episode 21 - A Modest Proposal

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/07/09

“A Modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift Swift’s 1729 essay in which he proposes that, to alleviate their economic troubles, the poor people of Ireland should sell their children to the well-to-do for food, is standard fare when it comes to teaching satire. The Anglo-Irish writer lays out a quasi-reasonable argument and then happily suggests recipes for how the children be prepared kitchens across the land. Satire, of course, is humorous exaggeration meant to expose some social and/or economic ill.

00:04:18

Episode 20 - One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/07/02

“Of all tyrannies,” C.S. Lewis writes, “a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” Abusive power, in other words, sometimes comes in sheep’s clothing. The twentieth century was no stranger to this phenomenon. To be sure, it was an era of totalitarian regimes: the Nazis and the Communists taking center stage. Lewis, the famed author of The Chronicles of Narnia, may have been referring to both, but even so, his observation still applies well after the

00:04:10

Episode 19 -- Emerson and the Pitfall of Absolute...

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/06/25

In retrospect, it was an easy trap to fall into. The loss of my father when I was nine-years old ignited in me the zeal to survive. I mowed lawns. I shoveled sidewalks and driveways. I delivered papers. I once even walked down to a local shop to ask for a job. I had no idea what they produced, but I assured the bearded man that I could sweep up the sawdust – keep the place tidy. I was turned away, of course. I remember crying all the way home. It was in high school that I first discovered

00:04:34

Episode 18 - The In-Between

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/06/18

The In-Between by Hadley Vlahos Published by Ballantine Books Years ago, when my sweet grandmother lay on her deathbed in a room in a house her husband and brothers had built after the war, in rare moments of lucidity, she wondered aloud about the man sitting in the kitchen, waiting for her. He had simply shown up and was biding his time. No one else, of course, could see him, yet that made little difference. My grandmother was straddling two worlds, and in that moment, she could engage with

00:05:28

Episode 17 - Creator, Creature, and AI the Destroyer

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/06/11

Those of us who teach writing for a living have long had to contend with students who, for whatever reason, fail to complete the assigned reading. They forgot. They do not have the book. They were just too busy. The list of reasons is long. I even once had a student claim that she could not do the reading because, and I quote, “her poodle exploded.” You can’t make this stuff up. This particular challenge faced by educators throughout the ages is common enough; however, new onto the scholastic scene

00:04:24

Episode 16 - Petrarch

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/06/04

Thanks to Petrach, women even today face an impossible standard. The 14th century poet famously penned love poems to a woman by the name of Laura, which, in and of itself, would have been harmless were it not for the fact that he appropriated the language of praise and worship to express his affections. Language meant for God, in other words, was applied to a mere mortal. No longer was God alone perfect, wonderful, and glorious but now so too was this Laura. And not only that, but Petrach inspired a

00:04:27

Episode 15 -Tom Joad and the Silence of Saint Joseph

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/05/28

Tom Joad and the Silence of Saint Joseph Tom Joad, Steinbeck’s hardscrabble protagonist in The Grapes of Wrath, delivers a resounding farewell speech in which he asserts that, quote, I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. That line, in particular, has always stuck with me – for its poignance, for its ability to draw me into something human, real, recognizable and beautiful -- but now that I am a father, it resonates with me even more. I delight in calling

00:03:59

Episode 14 - Plus One

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/05/21

When I started this podcast, I did so with the intent of offering honest commentary on literature and culture. The world is filled with too much mindless chatter. Perhaps my attempt at being sincere and insightful would be well-received. I had no plans to review films as that medium seems to dominate our lives too much as it is; however, I recently came across a movie that captured my imagination in ways that are still surprising to me now. I am even taken aback by its genre: romantic

00:04:20

Episode 13 - The Possibility of Evil

The Professor"s Bayonet ·

2024/05/14

The Possibility of Evil by Shirley Jackson Adela Strangeworth, the seventy-one-year-old protagonist in Jackson’s 1965 short story, has a gripe with evil, which is really to say anything that could upset the delicate balance in the social ecosystem of a town she reminds us was built by her grandfather around a lumber mill. She is proud of her ancestry and carries herself as such: the single remaining descendant of an admirable line of Strangeworths responsible for keeping order by proclaiming

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