UPDATED: Paul Johnston at the Ethics Institute today

[Cindy McMurray]

Emeritus professor of English and past Institute Fellow Dr. Paul Johnston
joins us at the Ethics Institute today to talk about his podcast series,
Fireside Poems. The podcasts (https://www.firesidepoems.com/
<https://l.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.firesidepoems.com%2F%3Ffbclid%3DIwAR1J_sFiZ4UNQ3u9dTrb4LNIyJDeQrXc2WXbAVrmd1KLnv40GphqyaOHKeo&h=AT1eKlYWbtjHOfUCQBxE6ANt422xatNXAejvVIkfYEJwWSO6Fe1a9VKKdxJS5-fcFeQXXDJpl2u9uz3hsC39NsORtV0e9HBTMA8ntCloQ5WTlwCEreyQSlCeEIkft4I&__tn__=-UK-R&c[0]=AT3OP7F6JP9S8YvJOD95d9IMhklA_x6bgEUvyBivvn0SDllwcxMKWqL0GSbbDQ7zd03Xd0es_ORysFqqmVBhlvNpf6Q2FDS-fOpctEazGR0CgGqRVPmrizMEivQ5hjM6wdjkcPXhyGd5QVtRig8qUKuulAWdM8dKkWquWA5N3PhO3dtWDUod1ClK6VauAub-C_kOHE2UnAODVOtWGgsUzzzfHQ>)
explore primarily the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

Paul explains his motivation for the series this way: "When I think of
Longfellow and his fellow poets and what is now missing in American
education, I think of the Latin phrase mens sana in corpore sano—a sound
mind in a sound body—coined by the first-century Roman poet Juvenal.  I
learned this phrase as a schoolboy myself, in the Latin class my mother
taught.  This was the goal of a human life, she explained, and thus the
goal of a sound education.  America has long abandoned this ideal of
education—a sound mind in a sound body—replacing it with the goal of
preparing young people not for a life but for a job.  Longfellow’s poetry
can’t necessarily help us toward a sound body—though it might—but it can
help us toward a sounder mind and, in addition, a sounder society—toward mens
sana in societate sana.  As I comment on the poems I’ll be sharing with
you, I’ll talk about just how poetry helps us have  sounder, stronger,
minds—minds more thoughtful and open to feeling—and a sounder society, a
society less vulgar, less violent, and more just."

Wednesday, October 28, noon-1 p.m.

Institute for Ethics in Public Life

Zoom only:
https://plattsburgh.zoom.us/j/99879641828?pwd=SlhhMzlwWW9sYkt2MjA4bnMrQkVzZz09

Colloquies at the Ethics Institute are open to students, faculty,
administrators and alumni. The fellowship program at the Institute is
generously supported by gifts to the Plattsburgh College Foundation.
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