In this episode we talk about the role of art and the imagination in shaping empathy with Dr. Mary McCampbell, Associate Professor of Humanities at Lee University in Tennessee and the author of Imagining our Neighbors as Ourselves: How Art Shapes Empathy (published by Fortress). As Dr. McCampbell explains, the origin for the idea of the book is the quote by Graham Greene, “Hate was just a failure of imagination.” Over the course of our...
There comes a point where you know you are getting old, which was hammered home to me recently when it was revealed that apparently “ska has been uncool forever.” I remember the 90s, and forever seems a little bit longer than that. However, when your favourite band of the late 90s has now reformed twice to record albums and is having to juggle recording with family life, there may be some truth to the assertion....
To kick off our series on Art & Culture we are joined by Dr. Esther Meek, who is Professor of Philosophy at Geneva College, and the author of a number of important works on epistemology, including Longing to Know: The Philosophy of Knowledge for Ordinary People (with Brazos) and Loving to Know: Introducing Covenant Epistemology (with Cascade). In this episode Dr. Meek addresses the relationship between Art and Knowing. Over the course of our conversation...
What is it about films like The Revenant and 127 Hours that grips us so much? One of my buddies (J. D. O’Brien) out here in the Twin Cities is a local filmmaker. His first major film was a documentary called Out in the Cold, which you can check out on Amazon Prime. Out in the Cold looks at homelessness in the Twin Cities in the middle of winter (J.D. and his buddy actually spend a week “out...
I am so excited to share with you all about an art show that I am helping to organize. At Mill City Church, where I am a member, our small groups are organized around distinct missional purposes. The group that I am a part of, called Craft, is oriented towards the Arts community of Northeast Minneapolis. As part of an effort to support and engage local artists, we are running a juried art show this September. The show...
Having emerged from the bowels of Hell, Dante and his guide find themselves upon the shores of the fresh and uncharted territory of Purgatory, a mountain surrounded by sea and pure air free from the stench and darkness of the Inferno. From the opening lines of Purgatorio, the poet distinguishes this place as God-graced: the dawn spreading the “sweet color of eastern sapphire”—the color associated with the Virgin—across the skies welcomes the pilgrim to journey...
I recall as a first year law student attending a lecture on music copyright by Clyde Spillenger. The professor played a recording of Sweet Georgia Brown by Bernie and Pinkard (the “Harlem Globetrotters song,” if that helps). He then played a folk recording of Hava Nagila (that one Jewish song that you know). He asked students to consider the respective similarities in the songs’ top-line melody (there were none), its chord structure (again no relation), and other...
Darwin’s philosophy of aesthetics is exciting. History is the progression of creation from “so simple a beginning,” to “endless forms most beautiful and wonderful.” (On the Origin of Species, p. 507) If we have any capacity at all to appreciate the beauty we see in the world, we have to be thankful to whatever is responsible for making things the way they are. According to Darwin, Christian doctrine at the time maintained that all species...
Last night at our church, we hosted a spoken word open mic night with Micah Bournes, a phenomenal spoken word poet who is well worth your time. You can check him out here. For the event, we planned to have 45 minutes of open mic time where 15 people could share a poem and then Micah would perform some of his work for the latter half of the night. When the night began, we had...
I was on holiday in Oslo recently. As I was hoping to get some reading and coffee/beer tasting done, I only visited one museum: The Munch Museum. The Munch Museum, featuring works by the painter Edvard Munch, is actually located right next to the Olso’s Natural History Museum. The Munch Museum is most well-known for having Munch’s popular painting, The Scream; and, the Natural History is probably most well-known for having the (apparently world-famous) Darwinius masillae...
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