St. John's College (Santa Fe) Lectures

The Vacuum Tube (Howard Fisher)

Audio recording of a lecture given by tutor emeritus Howard Fisher on April 15, 2026 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "A puzzling phenomenon observed by Edison in one of his early light bulbs seemed to disclose a kind of electric current that did not fit the received ideas, for it was not confined to a conductor, and it would flow in one direction but not in the reverse direction. From this 'Edison effect' arose the modern vacuum tube, which enabled, first, the detection of electromagnetic waves by a process readily understood (rectification), and second, a means for effectively multiplying the strength of an electric current (amplification). Both of these capabilities brought dramatic improvements in wireless telegraphy, and they also introduced the prospect of radio transmission of voice and sound. This is the second of three talks on early radio technology."

Visual Arts Panel (Alison Chapman, Krishnan Venkatesh, David Carl)

Audio recording of a tutor panel given by tutors AlisonChapman, Krishnan Venkatesh, and David Carl on April 3, 2026 as part of the Dean’s Lecture & Concert Series.  The Dean’s Office has provided this description of the event: “What is aportrait?  The English word comes from the Latin word protrahere, ‘to draw forth,’ ‘to drag forward,’ ‘to bring tolight,’ ‘to produce for inspection,’ while the main component trahere comes from an Indo-European root -tragh—that is cognate with our words tract, traction, trawl, drag, track, trace.  What does a portrait draw or drag forth?—a human being, a self?—and what are those?  In books, we can see how writers like Chaucer or Montaigne ‘portray’ individual people with words that can capture a distinctive interiority—but how can paint or a photographic image do that?  Does a portrait have to have eyes, or even a face?—indeed, are there any portraits without human figures?  In this panel discussion, three tutors (Alison Chapman, David Carl, and Krishnan Venkatesh) will attempt to approach these questions by talking us through a small selection of pictures.”

On the Mortality of Minds (John Peters)

Audio recording of a lecture given by John Peters on March6, 2026 as part of the Dean’s Lecture & Concert Series.  The Dean’s Office has provided this description of the event: “As far as we know the most complex thing the universe has brought forth, besides itself, is the human mind.  Among many other things, minds know things.  But what should we make of the fundamental fact that knowledge is housed in such fragile, forgetful, and short-lived vessels as human beings?  Why do minds die—or do they?  Since the origin of writing, and likely long before that, humans found ways to externalize mind.  In complex societies, the library is the key symbol of mind embedded in matter.  At least since Socrates in Plato’s Phaedrus, thinkers have been anxious about this externalization.  Was he right to criticize writing?  And how might we think about the would-be total library of the internet, and of its administration by AI-intoxicated techCaesars whose ambition often seems to be to by-pass death altogether?  This lecture pursues very basic questions,drawing on (at least) the Phaedrus and works by Jorge Luis Borges.”

Λόγος and Ανθρωπος: a Genealogy (Ken Wolfe)

Audio recording of a lecture given by tutor Ken Wolfe on February 6, 2026 as part of the Dean’s Lecture & Concert Series.  The Dean’s Office has provided this description of the event: “In the Origin of Species, Darwin points to analogies between biological and linguistic evolution and classification.  How strong are those analogies?  Why do they exist?  What do they tell us about human evolution?  The first part of the lecture will discuss Darwin’s Origin of Species, focusing in particular on his diagram of the ‘tree of life,’ the definition of species, and the relation between species, varieties, and individuals.  We shall consider some issues raised in The Descent of Man in order to see how Darwin thought about human nature.  It will also include some considerations of more recent discoveries in genetics and how they bear on these questions.  The second part of the lecture will focus on linguistic evolution, on both what we know and don’t know about the development and beginnings of language(s).  It will discuss in particular the Indo-European family of languages, spoken by nearly half of the world’s population.  Are all the world’s languages related?  Do they have a single origin?  This lecture will end by returning to Aristotle and considering whether his definition of man as the animal with λόγος can still be defended."

Telegraphy and Radiotelegraphy (Howard Fisher)

Audio recording of a lecture given by tutor emeritus Howard Fisher on February 18, 2026 as part of the Dean's Lecture & Concert Series. The Dean's Office has provided this description of the event: "Overland telegraph technology implicitly embodied a familiar image of electricity as being a mobile substance confined to conductors. But phenomena encountered in undersea telegraph cables presented a competing image, one far more suggestive of Faraday’s image of tension in a dielectric. Subsequent production of electromagnetic waves could be seen as the ultimate practical expression of Faraday’s 'tension' image. But if they were to serve as a communications medium, electromagnetic waves had not only to be produced but be detected; and although various detecting mechanisms were developed, their operation was mysterious: the received images of electric current appeared to provide little clarity."