Dr. Lucy Donkin’s Standing on Holy Ground in the Middle Ages (Cornell University Press, 2022) illuminates how the floor surface shaped the ways in which people in Medieval Western Europe and beyond experienced sacred spaces.
The ground beneath our feet plays a crucial, yet often overlooked, role in our relationship with the environments we inhabit and the sp ... Show More
Feb 5
Kevin Hart, "Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation" (U Chicago Press, 2023)
In Lands of Likeness: For a Poetics of Contemplation (U Chicago Press, 2023), Kevin Hart develops a new hermeneutics of contemplation through a meditation on Christian thought and secular philosophy. Drawing on Kant, Schopenhauer, Coleridge, and Husserl, Hart first charts the eme ... Show More
1h 17m
Feb 2
Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga, "The Chronicle of John of Nikiu: Coping with Crisis in Post-Roman Egypt" (U California Press, 2025)
In the midst of profound political changes in late seventh-century Egypt, after the end of Roman hegemony and during Islamic rule, a bishop named John from the city of Nikiu sat down to pen a chronicle. It is a puzzling and fascinating work that reimagines the established Roman g ... Show More
1h 21m
Jan 27
David Albertson, "The Geometry of Christian Contemplation: Measure Without Measure" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The writings of ancient and medieval Christian mystics were rediscovered in the twentieth century, and today they are read more widely than ever before. But do modern assumptions about religious experience influence how we hear those premodern voices? Do we do them justice by thi ... Show More
1h 4m
Aug 2025
SAINT NIKIFOROS THE LEPER & WONDERWORKER - Written by: Simon the Monk
… Stricken with leprosy, he came to see it not as a curse, but as a special favor from heaven and a personal calling from Christ, the One who sets the contest.… the illness was destroying the members of his body—eyes, hands and feet—so that in the end he remained immobile. Yet th ... Show More
3h 56m
Mar 2025
Comfort is the Enemy | Michael Easter Teaches The Benefits of Struggle
<p>The daily comforts and conveniences that make life ‘easier’ might be the very thing keeping you stuck. In today’s episode, Ryan sits down with bestselling author and journalist Michael Easter to explore the power of discomfort, the dangers of modern excess, and how ancient wis ... Show More
1h 11m