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Online Great Books Podcast

Dec 21, 2020

Scott, Karl, and Trent explore Vince Guaraldi's timeless Christmas album, the soundtrack to "A Charlie Brown Christmas," the 1965 TV special based on Charles Schultz's iconic Peanuts comic strip. At once hopeful and melancholic, Guaraldi's breezy jazz soundscape captures the childhood innocence of the Peanuts cast while...


Dec 17, 2020

This week, we are celebrating our 100th episode of the Online Great Books podcast! Thank you to our listeners and supporters of the show— we appreciate you. 

To commemorate the occasion, Scott and Karl read the timeless tale, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Most of us know the story from one rendition or...


Dec 3, 2020

This week, Scott and Karl discuss James Madison's Federalist No. 51, titled: "The Structure of the Government Must Furnish the Proper Checks and Balances Between the Different Departments."

In this Federalist Paper, Madison explains and defends the checks and balances system in the Constitution. Of its effectiveness,...


Nov 26, 2020

This week, Scott and Karl talk about two, while unsuspecting, companion pieces: Thomas Gray’s poem “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” and Norman Rockwell's iconic painting Freedom from Want. 

Scott says, "They are both about hearth and normal forgotten people."

"Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard” is a...


Nov 19, 2020

This week, Scott and Karl read the classical epic, The Song of Roland, translated by Dorthy Sayers. 

The Song of Roland is an 11th-century epic poem based on the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778, during the reign of Charlemagne. Although the poem was set in the Carolingian era, The Song of Roland was actually written...