St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures

Recording of a lecture delivered on February 10, 1995, by Annapolis tutor Steven Crockett as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on March 29, 1996, by Annapolis tutor Michael Dink as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on April 17, 2026, by Annapolis tutor Louis Petrich, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Mr. Petrich offers the following description of his lecture: "To think that Shakespeare felt Iago deeply, as he felt Othello and Desdemona. To authenticate what it’s like to corner human dispositions and fantastically turn all heads. To hear the vulgar tongue of the street on the most intimate and volatile matters. Discretion says, 'be advised.' You may prefer to hear the musical tongues of men and women well-tuned for constant love and aromatic kisses.  Honesty says, 'leave them to time.' That is, to honest Iago, the timekeeper who makes hours seem short or seconds stretch forever. He makes only one mistake.  That is enough, but we shall see. Shakespeare, when he engendered the double-timed action of Othello (and perhaps in no play did he stage a more satisfying action), probably conspired in these terms: 'Iago, accomplice, let’s put people to extreme compulsion of good and evil. At stake is the determination of truth in history and the possession of unmasked souls by heaven or hell.' This lecture will notice things that matter to those outcomes—repetitive stuff, mainly, tracks in the dirt of Iago’s world.  And unless my omissions and exaggerations fail to do their rhetorical job, that dirt and those tracks you may recognize as our world’s."

Recording of a lecture delivered on March 28, 2003, by Annapolis tutor Stewart Umphrey, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on February 20, 2026, by Annapolis tutor Leah Lasell, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Ms. Lasell offers the following description: "Antoine Lavoisier claims that there is no free caloric in his Elementary Treatise on Chemistry. Less than twenty years later, Jane Marcet, in her Conversations on Chemistry (1806), claims that there is. Moreover, she argues that free caloric is essential for understanding temperature equilibrium. Who is right? We will investigate this question as we consider the many phenomena, experiments, and theories that Marcet presents through conversations in the laboratory between Mrs. B, Caroline, and Emily. Marcet’s treatise might be unfamiliar to our community. Marcet’s Conversations on Chemistry is among the most influential and widely read chemistry textbooks written since Lavoisier re-founded chemistry in the late 18th century."

Recording of a lecture delivered on February 13, 2026, by Annapolis tutor Brendon Lasell, as the 2026-26 NEH lecture.

Mr. Lasell offers the following description of his lecture: "Diophantus begins his Arithmetica by saying that he has 'tried to establish the nature and power of numbers.' After a short general introduction, he goes on to pose and solve hundreds of difficult problems about numbers. We will explore whether numbers have a nature and how it can be established, looking at examples of the kind of work Diophantus does with numbers."

Recording of a lecture delivered on February 6, 2026, by Annapolis tutor Janet Dougherty, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.
Ms. Dougherty offers the following description of her lecture: "Usbek, the most prolific writer in Montesquieu’s epistolary novel The Persian Letters, is in voluntary exile from his homeland and his harem. During his sojourn in Europe his perspective as a stranger provides the freedom he needs to develop an understanding of good government completely different from Persian despotic rule. His ideas cohere into a sort of Cartesian political science. But while these ideas diverge continually from an endorsement of despotism, he feels more and more compelled to impose his will on his wives and their guards. Usbek’s hope to be loved by the women he oppresses endures alongside his enlightened views of law and government. Eventually his wives openly rebel; the collapse of the seraglio leads to Usbek’s collapse. I will argue that Usbek’s blindness to his despotic authority derives from his Cartesian method of inquiry. His enlightenment is linked by ‘a secret chain’ to his deepest prejudice. Montesquieu is pointing to a more thorough science of human, i.e. erotic, beings."

Recording of a lecture delivered on September 18, 1992, by Jonathan Tuck as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on December 9, 2026, by Annapolis Assistant Dean Ron Haflidson, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Mr. Haflidson offers the following description of his lecture: "In Genesis, when the Man first meets the Woman, he says: 'This one at last, bone of my bones/ and flesh of my flesh…'. Then, the narrator adds, 'Therefore does a man leave his father and his mother and cling to his wife and they become one flesh.' In The Symposium, Aristophanes offers this pithy summary of the origin of love: 'Before…we were one, but now, because of our injustice, we have been split up and scattered by the god…We were whole, and the name for our yearning for and pursuit of wholeness is Love.' Both stories identify three moments in eros. First, in the present, there is an encounter with another with whom one feels an immediate and intense unity. Second, that experience of unity is partially explained by a strange, forgotten past. And then, third, that experience becomes a task for the future, as the lovers labor to make it an ongoing, sustained reality. Despite this cluster of similarities, there is also a difference with much at stake: in Genesis, the erotic heroes are a married man and woman, while Aristophanes most praises the intergenerational male couple. In terms of what it’s like to be in love, these two stories share much in common, but when it comes to judging which couple best fulfills the potential of eros, they diverge. A guiding question of this inquiry, then, is what criteria are at work in making these judgments?"

Recording of a lecture delivered on November 14, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Matthew Linck, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Professor Shiffman offers the following description of his lecture: "Our encounter with Matisse will be an occasion to think about learning. Paintings look like themselves, but they can remind us of other things (for example, other paintings). Aristotle says that when we see this as that, we learn. The “this is that” moment happens spontaneously; but we can also seek it out—seek learning—and ask, “What does this look like?” This requires looking around, searching for likenesses and making connections. But even if one painting reminds us of others, by looking like many others, that which a painting most looks like is itself. And so this requires us to think about what it means to see one painting by itself and what that would mean for learning. Matisse will help us with this question, and thus help us with a question about contemplation."

Recording of a lecture delivered on October 24, 2025, by Professor Mark Shiffman, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.Mark Shiffman (A89) is Professor and Department Chair of Philosophy at Saint Patrick’s Seminary in California and Director of the Institute for Philosophy, Technology, and Politics. He is the author of What is Ideology, with scholarly work spanning the fields of ancient philosophy, political theory, and the Catholic tradition. 

Professor Shiffman offers the following introduction to his lecture: "Ambition, competition, dignity, and pride are phenomena central to an adequate political psychology. Plato calls the root source of these passions thumos and Rousseau calls it amour-propre. Can both the commonalities and the differences between what the two authors mean by these words help illuminate the political developments of our time?"

Recording of a lecture delivered on October 10, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Khafiz Kerimov, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Mr. Kerimov offers the following description: The final lines of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit are not his own. Hegel ends the book with a quotation from Friedrich Schiller’s poem "Friendship" ("Freundschaft")—and misquotes it in a number of ways. Hegel's closing gesture invites a range of questions: why conclude with a quotation at all? Why a poetic one, and why Schiller’s "Friendship" in particular? Why misquote Schiller's poem? While I will touch on all of these questions in my lecture, my chief goal is to examine how this misquotation operates as the culminating moment of the Phenomenology and how it fulfills the book’s overarching project.

Recording of a lecture delivered on September 26, 2025, by Annapolis Dean Joseph Macfarland as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Mr. Macfarland offers the following description: "According to Galileo, the grand book of the universe standing before our eyes is written in the language of mathematics, in the characters of geometrical figures. On account of this conception of nature as fundamentally mathematical, he is taken to be a sort of founder of modern science and philosophy. By one account, the subsequent rapid progress of mathematical methods entails a forgetfulness of, or distrust of, mere appearances. The things known objectively, that is, mathematically, are not what they seem. This way of thinking seems fitting to the replacement of the Ptolemaic system by the Copernican one. The lecture will consider a few examples of how Galileo takes in what is before his eyes and thinks about it, and it will consider some limits to his efforts to account for phenomena mathematically. These characteristics of his natural philosophy will be viewed within the context of his attempt to secure a freedom to philosophize. The lecture will focus on his Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, Ptolemaic and Copernican, with attention to his letter to Christina of Lorraine. No familiarity with either text will be presupposed."

Video recording of a lecture delivered on September 19, 2025, by Santa Fe Dean Sarah Davis.

Ms. Davis offers the following description: "I hate everything that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my activity.” Nietzsche opens The Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life with this quote from Goethe.  It appropriately frames Nietzsche’s own meditation, which does not just walk us through different ways to relate to the past, giving us a schema for making sense of history, but invigorates and leads to a quickening within us. But how?  This lecture investigates Nietzsche's claim that the "excess of history" in modern times compromises the health and vitality of human life. It then considers The Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life itself as presenting an alternative way to relate to history. Finally, it asks how, if at all, this alternative informs a St. John's education."

Recording of a lecture delivered on September 12, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Nicholas Bellinson as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Mr. Bellinson offers the following description of his lecture: "What kind of relationship to time underlies the urge to attend the theater? Shakespeare points to this question in various plays through the metaphor of time's pregnancy. Over and over, his characters stage this very relationship to time, as we will see in four plays: Othello, Hamlet, As You Like It, and Love's Labour's Lost. We will then ask what philosophical attitudes arise when we consider time to have or not to have the metaphorical capacity for pregnancy."

Recording of a lecture delivered on September 5, 2025, by Professor Thomas Merrill as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Thomas Merrill is an associate professor for American University’s School of Public Affairs, and the associate director for the university’s Political Theory Institute, with research interests in political science and governance. He previously served on the President’s Council on Bioethics, and his most recent book, Hume and the Politics of Enlightenment, was the winner of the Delba Winthrop Award for Best Recent Work in Political Philosophy.

Professor Merrill offers the following introduction to his lecture: "Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments seems to offer a morality perfectly suited for bourgeois modernity: secular, sympathetic, and based on our transparency to each other. Yet upon examination, Smith’s moral world is shot through with deception and self-deception on several levels. This lecture uses Smith’s treatment of deception and self-deception to uncover the narrative structure of the Theory of Moral Sentiments and highlights the idea of generative errors—mistakes and deceptions that have unintended but positive consequences—as a key theme of Smith’s thought."

Recording of a lecture delivered on August 22, 2025, by Annapolis President Suzy Paalman as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Ms. Paalman offers the following description: 'We learn as young children that multiplication is taking a number a certain number of times, to form the times tables. As we learn more, the meaning of multiplication subtly changes, even as the methods of doing actual problems don't really change much. For instance, we learn early on to multiply length by width to find the area of a rectangle. How is finding the area of a shape related to taking numbers a certain number of times? This naive question will lead us to ask about the relation between number and magnitude, using Euclid and Descartes for help. In the end, our inquiry will come to mathematics as a discipline. The question, "What is multiplication?" will lead us, in the end, to the question, "What is mathematics?"'

Ms. Paalman's lecture is the first formal lecture of the academic year. Previously referred to as the Dean's Lecture, this lecture is now called the Christopher B. Nelson Lecture.

Recording of a lecture delivered on August 30, 2024, by Annapolis tutor Nicholas Bellinson as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on May 19, 1978, by Howard Zeiderman as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Mr. Zeiderman is now a tutor emeritus at St. John's College.

Recording of a lecture delivered on May 2, 1986, by Dr. Stephen Salkever as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on January 17, 1986, by Annapolis tutor Stewart Umphrey as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on November 8, 2002, by Jacob Howland as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on January 11, 2002, by Ori Soltes as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on September 16, 1994, by James N. Jarvis as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on April 30, 1976, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on April 4, 2025, by Dr. Jessy Jordan as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Dr. Jordan is Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University, specializing in neo-Aristotelian natural normativity. He is also the Director of the Mount’s common, integrated, and sequenced liberal arts core curriculum. He has published numerous articles on moral philosophy and is currently putting the finishing touches on an Introduction to the Metaethics of Virtue Ethics: On Transcendental Aristotelian Naturalism. 

He offers this introduction: "The way one thinks about and explains motion has surprising consequences for how one thinks about moral philosophy. Thus, the early modern rejection of Aristotelian physics and its replacement by the mechanical philosophy of some of the most renowned natural philosophers of the 17th century had profound consequences for what appeared to be a legitimate account of moral evaluations."

Recording of a lecture delivered on March 28, 2025, by Dr. Emily Austin as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Dr. Austin is an Associate Professor of Classics and the College at the University of Chicago, with research interests in Greek literature, especially Homer and depictions of solitude in ancient Greece. Her first book, Grief and the Hero: the Futility of Longing in the Iliad, explores the nexus of grief, longing and anger in the Iliad. She is currently working on a second book, Solitude and its Powers in Ancient Greece, which identifies surprising moments when ancient Greek poetry conceives of solitude as a good thing. 

Dr. Austin offers this introduction to her lecture: Sophocles’ Philoctetes presents its lonely hero as incomparably wretched. Yet this suffering figure also claims that his isolated survival is something uniquely heroic. This lecture explores the tension between debasement and nobility in Sophocles’ play, taking seriously Philoctetes’ claims to heroism, which are unparalleled in the poetic discourse of his time.

Recording of a lecture delivered on October 3, 2003, by Annapolis tutor Jonathan Tuck as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on April 9, 2014, by Francis J. "Bing" West as part of the LCDR Erik S. Kristensen Lecture Series.

The lecture is the second in a series of joint lectures series between St. John's College and the U.S. Naval Academy to honor the memory of Lieutenant Commander Erik S. Kristensen. An alumnus of the United States Naval Academy and the St. John's College Graduate Institute, Kristensen, a Navy SEAL, was killed in the line of duty in Afghanistan in 2005. This lecture series aims to create even greater ties between the two schools, as well as to educate the public about civil-military relations and the place of the liberal arts in education of naval and military professions.

Recording of a lecture delivered by Santa Fe tutor Grant H. Franks on February 6, 1998, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on February 7, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Mary Elizabeth Halper as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

She offers the following description of her lecture: "There are two kinds of speech: the speech we speak and the speech we read. This lecture is on the latter. By way of comparison with spoken speech, and with help from Plato'sTheaetetus, Phaedo,andPhaedrus, the lecture will reflect on written speech as such, what it offers us and what it asks from us." 

Recording of a lecture delivered on March 18, 2005, by Dylan Casey as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on January 10, 2025, by Annapolis tutor Greg Recco as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Mr. Recco offers this description: This lecture will examine the difficulty of sustaining collective action. In working together, we respond to exigent circumstances, but the social structures we thereby create have exigencies of their own. To the student of history, it can even seem inevitable that temporary triumph yield to eventual failure. Central chapters of Jean-Paul Sartre's Critique of Dialectical Reason will help illuminate essential reasons for the tendency of effective groups to turn into ineffective institutions, and some remarks on Plato's Republic (particularly Books 1 and 8) will frame the inquiry.

Recording of a lecture delivered by Annapolis tutor Paul Ludwig on November 5, 2004, as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on February 18, 2005, by Dr. Harvey C. Mansfield as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

This lecture is also part of the Steiner Lecture Series. The Andrew Steiner Memorial Lecture fund was created by the family and friends of Mr. Steiner, an alumnus (class of 1963) of St. John’s College, Annapolis. It was established to attract scholars from different disciplines and worlds, recognizing Andrew’s great intellectual versatility.

Recording of a lecture delivered on November 19, 2004, by Stephanie Nelson as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on September 17, 2004, by Gisela Berns as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Audio recording of a lecture delivered on October 23, 1981, by Leon Kass as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Dr. Kass is Addie Clark Harding Professor Emeritus in the Committee on Social Thought and in the College at The University of Chicago, the Hertog Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and the Dean of the Faculty at Shalem College in Jerusalem. He was a tutor at St. John's College from 1972 to 1974.

Recording of a lecture delivered on September 2, 2016, by Annapolis tutor Elliott Zuckerman as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a November 20, 2024 lecture and Q&A session by Karl Walling of the U.S. Naval War College. The conversation with Dr. Walling centers on the problem of peacemaking in the Peloponnesian War, and Thucydides’ preference to often call what some name peace, a mere truce.

Recording of a lecture delivered on November 15, 2024, by Stephanie Nelson as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Dr. Nelson (SJC Annapolis, 1983) is Professor of Classical Studies at Boston University and a Visiting Tutor at St. John’s. Her most recent book is titled, Time and Identity in Ulysses and the Odyssey (2023), and explores how each work benefits from being read alongside the other. 

Professor Nelson offers this introduction to her lecture: It is not too much of a stretch to say that Aristophanes’ Clouds is primarily about two topics: logos and the gods – and about Socrates’ relation to them both. Aristophanes, in his most serious playful manner, challenges us to think about who gets to be a god, and even, this lecture will suggest, proposes the Logoi as the real gods of human experience. The play thus asks us to consider both the nature of gods and the nature of logos, and in so doing juxtaposes the way that Socrates views the relation of logos and reality to the way the comic poet sees the same question. 

Recording of a lecture delivered on November 8, 2024, by Allen Speight as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Professor Speight (SJC Annapolis, 1984) is Professor of Philosophy and Director of Graduate Admissions at Boston University, with a teaching focus on the philosophy of art and culture. Alongside his interest in early art, he has written extensively on Hegel and German Ideology, and is a previous Fullbright Professor of Leuphana Universität Lüneburg in Germany. His most recent book was as co-editor and contributor on Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Philosophy (2020).

Professor Speight offers this introduction to his lecture: "Since the modern discovery of Paleolithic cave art in 1879, scholars have pondered its origin and significance. The remarkable paintings and etchings that line the walls of caves at Altamira, Lascaux and Chauvet and hundreds of other sites around the world prompt both wonder and reflection: what can images produced tens of thousands of years ago tell us about the nature of human making and our responses to it? This lecture will explore a range of philosophical questions posed by early art, including the nature of mimesis, the roles of sight and touch, and the relation between symbol and figurative art."

Audio recording of a lecture delivered on November 1, 2024, by Bret Davis as part of the Formal Lecture Series.  Bret W. Davis is Professor and Higgins Chair in Philosophy at Loyola University Maryland, where he teaches courses in Asian, Western, and cross-cultural philosophy, with previous research and teaching stops in Germany and Japan. Professor Davis has published articles on numerous philosophical topics, and is the author of Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit (2007) and Zen Pathways: An Introduction to the Philosophy and Practice of Zen Buddhism (2022). 

Professor Davis offers this introduction to his lecture: “Know thyself” is a motto of philosophical inquiry not only in the West but in many traditions. What does it mean to know oneself? There are different types of self-knowledge, revealing different aspects of the self. One important aspect of the self is how our thoughts, feelings, and values are shaped by the culture and tradition in which we were raised. Another important aspect of the self is how we are capable of critically reflecting on and creatively developing our culture and tradition in dialogue with others. Our selves are both shaped by and shape our cultures and traditions. 

Recording of a lecture delivered on March 22, 2002, by Christopher Pelling as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Dr. Pelling is Regius Professor of Greek emeritus at the University of Oxford.

Note: the recording started slightly after Dr. Pelling began speaking.

This lecture is also part of the Steiner Lecture Series. The Andrew Steiner Memorial Lecture fund was created by the family and friends of Mr. Steiner, an alumnus (class of 1963) of St. John’s College, Annapolis. It was established to attract scholars from different disciplines and worlds, recognizing Andrew’s great intellectual versatility.

Recording of a lecture delivered on November 2, 2001, by Eva Brann as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Recording of a lecture delivered on October 18, 2024, by Cynthia Keppel as part of the Formal Lecture Series. Dr. Keppel, a St. John's Annapolis alum, leads the Physics Division at Jefferson Labs, where she and her colleagues study the structure and dynamics of the fundamental building blocks of matter. She is both a nuclear physicist and a cancer researcher, with numerous patents and scientific publications across both fields.  

Dr. Keppel offers the following description of her lecture: "Humans for ages have pondered the question, 'what is everything made of?' I will discuss why physicists have for centuries been interested in this question and pursue understanding of the tiniest particles known to humankind, and how an understanding of these particles continues to advance a breadth of human knowledge and endeavor."

Recording of a lecture delivered on October 11, 2024, by Dr. Ellwood Wiggins as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Professor Wiggins (SJC Annapolis, 1998) is an associate professor in the German department at the University of Washington, Seattle, where he teaches comparative literature and philosophy. He has also taught in Kentucky, Germany, and Russia. His teaching and research explore how people come to know one another and themselves, often exploring literary figures such as Odysseus or Philoctetes. 

Professor Wiggins describes his lecture: "The plot of Sophocles' Philoctetes turns on the experience of sympathy, which is often given credit for the moral education of Neoptolemus, Achilles' son. Yet is this emotion a reliable force for good? Sophocles' tragedy is a perfect proving ground to explore this question, and to test Aristotle's description of compassion in the Rhetoric."

Recording of a lecture delivered on September 27, 2024, by Annapolis tutor Zena Hitz as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Ms. Hitz offers this description of her lecture: “In a St. John's seminar, we do not approach the readings historically, that is, ‘in a context.’ Instead, we ask them questions, as we might ask living people questions, and engage them in conversation and shared inquiry. Is this simply the way we prefer to read? Or is something wrong with a historical approach to a great book? If so, what?”

Recording of a lecture delivered on September 20, 2024, by Ryan Shea as part of the Formal Lecture Series.

Ryan Shea taught at Providence College for eight years, including courses in philosophy of science, environmental philosophy, and nature writing. His research weaves together ancient philosophical biology (especially Aristotle), the scientific revolution, phenomenology, German idealism, and Goethean qualitative science. His main project is to learn what it might look like to read the “book of nature” in a participatory, contemplative, phenomenological, and poetic fashion. 

Ryan Shea offers this description of his lecture: Edmund Husserl inaugurated the modern discipline of phenomenology with the rallying cry, "back to the 'things themselves'." And yet, when reading the works of phenomenologists, one might reasonably worry that we have bracketed the natural world, that we have left out precisely the "things themselves." This talk pursues two distinct, yet intertwined, questions. We begin with Socrates's central question (ti esti), "What is phenomenology?" This leads to our central concern, "How might we practice a phenomenology of nature?" The work of the poet, scientist, painter, and dramatist Johann Wolfgang von Goethe will serve as a guiding light.