Growing Up Classical: Literature, Wisdom, and the Questions We Carry

Growing Up Classical: Literature, Wisdom, and the Questions We Carry

What does it mean to grow up classical, and how can the great books help form a young person’s moral imagination? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with Olivia Reardon, a graduating senior at Messiah University, about literature, ethical formation, and the classical Christian classroom. Drawing from Olivia’s senior honors thesis and her upcoming ClassicalU course, Journeying with the Great Books: Ethical Formation in the Classical Christian Classroom, the conversation explores how stories give students language for their deepest questions, offer “handholds” for living in a broken world, and invite readers to return again and again as they grow in wisdom. Together, Christine and Olivia reflect on reading as a relational and formative act, one that happens best in a community of trust, conversation, and shared attention. Olivia offers the images of mirrors, windows, and doors as a way of understanding how books help students see themselves, encounter others, and enter experiences beyond their own. The conversation also considers the breadth of the Great Conversation, not as a narrow inheritance for a few, but as a living tradition shaped by many voices and offered for the formation of all. About the Guest Olivia Reardon earned her B.A. in English with a concentration in literature and minors in Education and Dance from Messiah University in 2026. Olivia grew up in Maryland with her parents and four siblings where she received a Classical, Christian education first through a homeschool co-op and then at a full-time private school. Olivia now teaches Upper School Rhetoric and Literature at Rockbridge Academy, a Classical, Christian School in Crownsville, Maryland. When Olivia is not teaching, she reads abundantly (some of her favorite authors are Fyodor Dostoyevsky, C. S. Lewis, Jane Austen, Toni Morrison, and Kazuo Ishiguro), teaches dance at a local studio, and enjoys the beach, trying new ice cream flavors, and competition with friends and family.   Guest Links Messiah University Honors Program | https://www.messiah.edu/honors-program/ [https://www.messiah.edu/honors-program/]Reardon’s ClassicalU Course releases Jun 9, 2026 | https://classicalu.com/course-finder [https://classicalu.com/course-finder] Connect with the Humanitas Institute Humanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.org [https://humanitasinstitute.org] X | https://x.com/HIClassicalEd [https://x.com/HIClassicalEd] Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/ [https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/] TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute [https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute] Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070 [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070] YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute [https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute]

The Harmony of the Parts: on Beauty, Place, and Belonging

What does beauty have to do with the spaces where we learn, teach, worship, and gather? In this shared bonus episode of Composed and Forged, Christine Perrin speaks with Brian Williams about Templeton Hall, the home of the Templeton Honors College, and the deep work of making a place that feels whole, hospitable, and human. Their conversation moves from architecture and furniture to poetry, asking how beauty forms us before we can fully explain what it has done. This is an episode about attention, creation, community, and the grace of places that help us breathe more deeply and live more faithfully. Brian reflects on the making of Templeton Hall at Eastern University as an act of stewardship, one that honors the old while creating room for students and faculty to dwell together in the pursuit of the true, the good, the beautiful. Christine and Brian consider why beauty is not a luxury, why material places matter to Christian formation, and how the experience of a beautiful space can awaken desire for God. The episode closes fittingly with Hopkins’s “Pied Beauty,” a poem of praise for the dappled, particular, and creaturely world. References and Links Templeton Honors College | https://templeton.eastern.edu/ [https://templeton.eastern.edu/]Templeton Hall | https://templeton.eastern.edu/life-community/templeton-hall [https://templeton.eastern.edu/life-community/templeton-hall]Christopher Alexander, The Timeless Way of Building | https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-Alexander/dp/0195024028 [https://www.amazon.com/Timeless-Way-Building-Christopher-Alexander/dp/0195024028]Gregory Wolfe, Beauty Will Save the World | https://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Will-Save-World-Ideological/dp/1610171004 [https://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Will-Save-World-Ideological/dp/1610171004]Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Idiot | https://www.amazon.com/Idiot-Penguin-Classics-Fyodor-Dostoyevsky/dp/014044792X [https://www.amazon.com/Idiot-Penguin-Classics-Fyodor-Dostoyevsky/dp/014044792X]C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy | https://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Joy-Shape-Early-Life/dp/0062565435 [https://www.amazon.com/Surprised-Joy-Shape-Early-Life/dp/0062565435]Charles Williams, The Descent of the Dove | https://angelicopress.com/products/the-descent-of-the-dove?srsltid=AfmBOop0_4ZZscz8U6o_ldEPhSYpkPOBsrJotPNumtbWjmzkJWtypzrJ [https://angelicopress.com/products/the-descent-of-the-dove?srsltid=AfmBOop0_4ZZscz8U6o_ldEPhSYpkPOBsrJotPNumtbWjmzkJWtypzrJ]Gerard Manley Hopkins, “God’s Grandeur” | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44395/gods-grandeur [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44395/gods-grandeur]Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Pied Beauty” | https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44399/pied-beauty [https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44399/pied-beauty] Connect with the Humanitas Institute Humanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.org [https://humanitasinstitute.org/]X | https://x.com/HIClassicalEd [https://x.com/HIClassicalEd]Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/ [https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/]TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute [https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute]Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070 [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070]YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute [https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute]

Living Inside Language with Annie Kantar Ben-Hillel

What does it mean to compose a life through Sabbath rest, faithful work, and the patient practice of language? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with Annie Kantar Ben-Hillel, a poet, translator, teacher, and director of the English program at Shalem College in Jerusalem, about the patterns that have shaped her life as a mother, writer, citizen, and friend. Their conversation moves from a childhood formed by trust and moral responsibility, to the weekly reset of Shabbat, to the strange and beautiful labor of translating the Book of Job. Along the way, Annie reflects on Hebrew, Palestinian Arabic, friendship across fracture, and the need to remain questioning without becoming cynical. The conversation also touches on Natalia Ginzburg’s “The Little Virtues,” Stefan Zweig’s The World of Yesterday, the Ethics of the Fathers, and the enduring hope that virtues can persist even in periods of historical grief and uncertainty. About the Guest Annie Kantar Ben-Hillel is a teacher, translator and poet who lives in Jerusalem and works at Shalem College. She has translated the Book of Job, among other poetry, and understands the way we live and befriend people inside of language. She describes the habits of language acquisition and its yield along with many other patterns that have shaped her life as a mother, writer, and citizen. Guest Links Kantar’s full-length collection of poems, Means To Be Lucky | https://www.poets-traitors.com/means-to-be-lucky [https://www.poets-traitors.com/means-to-be-lucky] Translation from the Hebrew of With This Night, The final collection of poetry that Leah Goldberg published in her lifetime |  https://bookshop.org/p/books/with-this-night-leah-goldberg/b76aceb9230cbea9 [https://bookshop.org/p/books/with-this-night-leah-goldberg/b76aceb9230cbea9] Translation of the Book of Job as part of Koren Publishers’ new translation of the Hebrew bible | https://korenpub.co.il/en/products/the-english-koren-tanakh-large-size-magerman-edition [https://korenpub.co.il/en/products/the-english-koren-tanakh-large-size-magerman-edition]  Connect with the Humanitas Institute Humanitas Institute | https://humanitasinstitute.org [https://humanitasinstitute.org]X | https://x.com/HIClassicalEd [https://x.com/HIClassicalEd]Instagram | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/ [https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/]TikTok | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute [https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute] Facebook | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070 [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070]YouTube | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute [https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute]

James LaGrand on Making a Home for Books, Beauty, and Belonging

What does it mean to build a culture of intellectual friendship, one shaped by books, music, meals, memory, and shared attention? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with historian and colleague, James LaGrand, about the habits that form students and teachers into a genuine community of learning. Their conversation moves from violin lessons and hymns to Augustine, Dante, Frederick Douglass, Lincoln, Tyehimba Jess, and the Sunday dinner table. Together they consider education not merely as competence or achievement, but as the patient formation of persons who can receive beauty, honor the past, and seek the good in company with others. LaGrand describes his work in Messiah University’s Honors Program as the building and protecting of a culture, rather than the management of a program. Through seminars, shared meals, walks, tea, concerts, trips to Gettysburg, and the reading of great texts aloud, he invites students into patterns of attention that join the life of the mind to friendship and delight. The episode closes with a tribute to Tyehimba Jess’s Olio, and with the quiet image of a grandmother’s Sabbath table as a pattern for a life of hospitality and care. About the Guest James LaGrand is an American historian and the Director of the Honors Program and Professor of American History at Messiah University. He has published a monograph with University of Illinois Press and essays in Quillette, Public Discourse, Patheos, The Federalist, History News Network, The Cresset, and Pennsylvania History, among other publications. He has spent his seven-year tenure as director practicing the example of his grandmother and mother in setting the table in order to draw students and faculty together for conversation about books and life that build relationships. Guest Links Messiah University Honors Program [https://www.messiah.edu/honors-program/]| https://www.messiah.edu/honors-program/ [https://www.messiah.edu/honors-program/?utm_source=chatgpt.com] Indian Metropolis: Native Americans in Chicago, 1945-75 | https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p072963 [https://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/?id=p072963] The Black Intellectual Tradition and the Great Conversation [https://classicalu.com/course/f1d74d43-befa-4030-8fbc-185947a9617c]  | https://classicalu.com/course/f1d74d43-befa-4030-8fbc-185947a9617c  Mentioned in the Episode Olio by Tyehimba Jess | https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/olio [https://www.wavepoetry.com/products/olio?utm_source=chatgpt.com]Tyehimba Jess | https://www.tyehimbajess.net/books.html [https://www.tyehimbajess.net/books.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com] Connect with the Humanitas Institute Humanitas Institute [https://humanitasinstitute.org/] | https://humanitasinstitute.org [https://humanitasinstitute.org/]X [https://x.com/HIClassicalEd] | https://x.com/HIClassicalEd [https://x.com/HIClassicalEd]Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/] | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/ [https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/]TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute] | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute [https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute]Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070] | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070 [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070]YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute] | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute [https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute]

Fighting for the Real: Jeanne Schindler on Presence, Technology, and the Life We Share

What does it take to remain fully human in an age of distraction? In this conversation, Christine Perrin speaks with Dr. Jeanne Schindler about attention, technology, homeschooling, civic life, and the quiet disciplines that help us fight for what is real. Together they consider how modern devices flatten experience, weaken our sense of place, and make presence harder to practice, while also pointing toward a better way, one rooted in community life, embodied friendship, serious thought, and shared public spaces. This is a conversation about recovering the habits that make a human life deep, relational, and truly lived. Drawing from her own intellectual formation, Dr. Schindler reflects on childhood influences, her shift from history to political theory, her decision to leave tenure and devote herself more fully to home and family, and the rewards of lifelong learning through homeschooling. She and Christine also explore AI, the limits of technology, the strain placed on civic discourse, and why restlessness should not always be medicated by screens, but instead received as a summons to seek truth, communion, and a richer form of life. About the Guest Dr. Jeanne Schindler is a Fellow of the John Paul II Institute. Until 2013 she was an associate professor at Villanova University. Dr. Schindler’s intellectual interests are interdisciplinary, integrating philosophy, theology, and political science. She has lectured and published in a variety of areas, including Catholic social thought and democratic theory. She edited Christianity and Civil Society: Catholic and Neo-Calvinist Perspectives (2008) and co-edited with her husband, D.C. Schindler, A Robert Spaemann Reader (Oxford University Press, 2015). Dr. Schindler is a homeschooling mother of three children. Guest Links & Resources The Postman Pledge [https://postmanpledge.org/] James Howard Kunstler TED Talk [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1ZeXnmDZMQ] Amusing Ourselves to Death  The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects by Marshall McLuhan  The Quest for Community by Robert Nisbet Connect with the Humanitas Institute Humanitas Institute [https://humanitasinstitute.org] | https://humanitasinstitute.org [https://humanitasinstitute.org]X [https://x.com/HIClassicalEd] | https://x.com/HIClassicalEd [https://x.com/HIClassicalEd]Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/] | https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/ [https://www.instagram.com/humanitas_institute/]TikTok [https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute] | https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute [https://www.tiktok.com/@humanitas_institute]Facebook [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070] | https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070 [https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61588606585070]YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute] | https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute [https://www.youtube.com/@TheHumanitasInstitute]