Wil Friesen - Podcast Details

Shows

FD DagkoersToegevoegde Waarde: Beleefde Trump een Liz Truss-moment?Donald Trump verraste woensdag vriend en vijand met het besluit om de allerhoogste heffingen voor 75 landen met negentig dagen uit te stellen. Welke rol speelt de obligatiemarkt hierin? En beleefde Trump hiermee een heus Liz Truss-moment? Anna Dijkman en Marijn Jongsma analyseren wat er gebeurde en wat er meegespeeld móet hebben. Net als elke week kijken ze of er interessant onderzoek of analyses bij de post zijn verschenen en deze week kwam Marijn uit bij een rapport van de global strategist van Rabobank, Michael Every, die met zijn analyse een interessant perspectief bood op de relatie t...2025-04-1228 min

FD Toegevoegde WaardeBeleefde Trump een Liz Truss-moment?Donald Trump verraste woensdag vriend en vijand met het besluit om de allerhoogste heffingen voor 75 landen met negentig dagen uit te stellen. Welke rol speelt de obligatiemarkt hierin? En beleefde Trump hiermee een heus Liz Truss-moment? Anna Dijkman en Marijn Jongsma analyseren wat er gebeurde en wat er meegespeeld móet hebben. Net als elke week kijken ze of er interessant onderzoek of analyses bij de post zijn verschenen en deze week kwam Marijn uit bij een rapport van de global strategist van Rabobank, Michael Every, die met zijn analyse een interessant perspectief bood op de relatie t...2025-04-1228 min

Onder curatoren | BNRBouwde zeppelinbedrijf Rigid Airship Design luchtschepen of luchtkastelen?Zeppelins, luchtschepen of vliegende sigaren. Hoe je ze ook wil noemen, de tijd dat deze gigantische voertuigen door de lucht zweefden doet denken aan een vervlogen tijdperk. Toch was er eind jaren negentig sprake van een mogelijke terugkeer van de zeppelin. De uitbreiding van Schiphol stuitte op veel weerstand en zeppelins leken een stiller alternatief voor vliegtuigen. Tegelijkertijd was er naar aanleiding van onderzoek door de TU Delft veel media-aandacht ontstaan voor nieuwe ontwerpen van luchtschepen. Minister Annemarie Jorritsma besloot daarop in 1996 een rapport te laten opstellen over de haalbaarheid van luchtschepen in Nederland, wat positief uitviel. D...2025-04-1133 min

DE FABRIEKAflevering 1: Het stalen ritme van de FabriekWie de impact van het massaontslag bij VDL Nedcar wil begrijpen, moet beginnen in de fabriek. Bij de machines, de turbulente jaren en de rauwe werkcultuur. In de fabriek werken mensen zoals Alwin Lipowitz, 58, zoon van een mijnwerker uit Brunssum. In de Put controleert hij de onderkant van auto’s – 250 per dag, 25 seconden per stuk. Een harde plek, maar wel zijn thuis. Alwin heeft nog nooit zonder werk gezeten. Maar nu dreigt hij, net als zijn vader na de mijnsluiting, op straat te belanden. ‘De Fabriek’ i...2025-03-1612 min

Splijtstof2. Waar kernenergie vandaan komt en hoe het werktWil je iets over kernenergie kunnen zeggen, dan moet je op z’n minst ook enigszins weten hoe het eigenlijk werkt. En dat is goed uit te leggen aan de hand van de eerste door de mens gecontroleerde nucleaire kettingreactie ooit. Diederik en Daan duiken de nucleaire geschiedenis in en reizen naar het Chicago van 1942, waar op een squashbaan een kubus van 6 bij 6 meter, bestaande uit 350-duizend kilo grafiet en uranium, gedurende vierenhalve minuut een halve watt aan energie produceerde. Een halve watt? Ja, small step in wattage, een giant leap voor de wetenschap en mensheid. Reden vo...2024-10-0825 min

Splijtstof1. Radioactieve steentjes in een nieuwbouwschuurWaarom een podcast over kernenergie? En wat kan je als luisteraar verwachten? De eerste aflevering van Splijtstof begint in de nieuwbouwschuur van Daan. Daar liggen, weggestopt achter tuingereedschap en kinderspeelgoed, een paar mysterieuze steentjes: Trinitiet. Gevormd tijdens de eerste door de mens gecreëerde kernexplosie waren ze ooit radioactief, maar nu niet meer. Dat laat Diederik Daan ook zien. Toch blijft Daan het maar enge steentjes vinden. De onderbuik (gevoel) - gevoed door verhalen over Tsjernobyl, de Simpsons, Godzilla, etc. - lijkt sterker dan het hoofd (ratio). Zoiets lijkt ook in het kernenergiedebat te spelen - een debat dat pl...2024-10-0125 min

SplijtstofSplijtstof - Trailer“Kernenergie is veilig!”, “Nee, het brengt enorme risico’s met zich mee! En wat te denken van dat afval?!”, “Dat kun je hartstikke veilig opslaan!”, “Maar kernenergie is veel te duur!”, “Nee hoor, en wat als er geen zon en wind is voor doe windmolen en zonnepanelen van jou?!” Kernenergie is terug van weggeweest. Niet alleen op de politieke agenda - het nieuwe kabinet wil niet minder dan 4 nieuwe centrales gaan bouwen - maar ook in het publieke debat. En dat debat is soms even explosief als de bom waarmee het nucleaire tijdperk begon. Voor- en tegenstanders buitelen over elkaar h...2024-09-2601 min

Zakendoen | BNRHoe het noodlot toesloeg nadat de oprichters van Koopjedeal eerder een miljoenendeal lieten schietenBij webwinkel Koopjedeal kunnen klanten terecht voor een goedkope nieuwe stofzuiger, verloopstukjes voor elektronica of zelfs een weekendje weg. Op elke aanbieding zit een tijdsklok; een formule die na de oprichting in 2012 leidt tot snelle groei. De twee jonge oprichters, Ilias Ahayan en Karrar Al-Hasa'i, steken al het geld dat ze verdienen weer in hun bedrijf. De financiering hebben ze op een aparte manier geregeld, namelijk via hun klanten. Oftewel: als een consument een bestelling doet, maakt Koopjedeal het geld meteen over naar de leverancier, waarna de spullen verstuurd worden. Jarenlang gaat dit net goed, al...2024-05-101h 00

Onder curatoren | BNRHoe het noodlot toesloeg nadat de oprichters van Koopjedeal eerder een miljoenendeal lieten schietenBij webwinkel Koopjedeal kunnen klanten terecht voor een goedkope nieuwe stofzuiger, verloopstukjes voor elektronica of zelfs een weekendje weg. Op elke aanbieding zit een tijdsklok; een formule die na de oprichting in 2012 leidt tot snelle groei. De twee jonge oprichters, Ilias Ahayan en Karrar Al-Hasa'i, steken al het geld dat ze verdienen weer in hun bedrijf. De financiering hebben ze op een aparte manier geregeld, namelijk via hun klanten. Oftewel: als een consument een bestelling doet, maakt Koopjedeal het geld meteen over naar de leverancier, waarna de spullen verstuurd worden. Jarenlang gaat dit net goed, al...2024-05-101h 00

Over de MuurEinde van Apartheid nabij, op weg naar Vrijheid in Zuid-Afrika | Nederland en de ApartheidOndanks veel protest in Nederland, vertrekt Shell niet uit Zuid-Afrika. Anti-apartheidsactivisten richten zich daarom op de politiek en eisen een olie-boycot. Deze activisten hadden daarbij een belangrijke medestander in de politiek: CDA-kamerlid Jan Nico Scholten. Joya en Remco bezoeken Rein Willems, oud president-directeur Nederland van Shell. Hoe keek hij tegen de oproep voor een olieboycot? Na Soweto belandt Zuid-Afrika in een oorlogstoestand. Het apartheidsregime staat zo onder druk, dat het uiteindelijk besluit om Mandela vrij te laten. Na de vrijlating start een lange periode van onderhandelingen tussen het ANC en de regering van de Klerk over de t...2023-12-1838 min

Onder curatoren | BNRWaarom moest Licom, werkgever van 4000 mensen met een afstand tot de arbeidsmarkt, sneuvelen?Licom, opgericht in 1996, was de grootste sociale werkgever van het land. Er werkten begin jaren tien 4000 mensen met een afstand tot de arbeidsmarkt op sociale werkplaatsen. Mensen met een psychische of lichamelijke beperking verzetten hun werk onder meer in de assemblage, de kwekerij, de schoenfabriek en de groenvoorziening. Licom opereerde in opdracht van elf gemeenten in Limburg, die op die manier invulling gaven aan de Wet Sociale Werkvoorziening. Zwarte cijfers werden er nooit geschreven, maar lange tijd maakte dat ook niet uit: de gemeentes dekten de verliezen. Maar dan willen de Limburgse gemeentes in 2012 de ve...2023-12-1535 min

Onder curatoren | BNRWelke rol speelde oprichter Roland Kahn toen CoolCat ten onder ging?In de jaren tachtig en negentig was het nog hélemaal hip: CoolCat, de kledingketen voor jongeren waar je nog even snel een gedurfde en betaalbare outfit kon kopen voor het kerstgala of een ander schoolfeest. Met de opbrengsten van deze succesvolle keten bouwde ondernemer Roland Kahn zijn winkel- en vastgoedimperium verder uit. Maar pubers groeien op en dan moet je als winkelketen weer een nieuwe generatie weten aan te spreken. Na de financiële crisis lukt dit steeds minder goed. CoolCat maakt de stap naar online verkoop te laat en tot overmaat van ramp vindt de jeu...2023-12-0138 min

Podcast | BNRDe Kwestie WolfHebben we nou een probleem met de wolf, of met elkaar? De wolf doet iets geks met ons, verdeelt ons in voor en tegenstanders. In de vijfde en laatste aflevering van De Kwestie Wolf maakt Mark Beekhuis de balans op: is er consensus over de vraag of er ruimte is voor de wolf in ons land? En hoeveel ruimte is er dan? De verschillen per regio zijn groot. Op de Veluwe gaat het goed, maar in Drenthe niet. Hoeveel steun willen we aan veehouders geven? Geen makkelijke details: iedereen heeft andere bezwaren en problemen. In...2023-10-3120 min

Onder curatoren | BNRIcesave: van IJslands rentesprookje tot financieel inferno voor tienduizenden Nederlandse spaardersIJsland had eind jaren nul een bankensector die tien keer zo groot was geworden als de eigen economie. IJslandse bankiers en ook een groot deel van de bevolking waren inmiddels overtuigd van hun kunde op de internationale financiële markten. Dit terwijl er in IJsland in 2008 slechts 317.000 mensen woonden. Ter vergelijking: in datzelfde jaar woonden er in de gemeente Utrecht 294.000 inwoners. Ook in Nederland deden de IJslanders zaken. Het IJslandse Landsbanki zette onder de naam Icesave een internetbank in de markt waar je kon sparen tegen een rente die veel hoger lag dan bij de Nederlandse banken. Ic...2023-10-2743 min

Welkom in de AI-fabriek | BNR3. AI verandert de samenleving. Hoe kijken de makers naar de wereld?Chatbots zijn een rare uitvinding. Tegen een computer praten kan nuttig zijn. Maar met een computer praten, waar is dat goed voor? Die vraag wil ik beantwoorden. En dan ontkom je niet aan Alan Turing. De vader van mijn vakgebied - de informatica. Turing geloofde dat je een computer als intelligent moet zien, wanneer deze kan praten als een mens, en mét een mens. Daarom bedacht hij in 1950 een experiment. The Imitation Game. Een test waarin een computer zich voor moet doen als mens. Het idee van de chatbot was geboren. Maar, is taalvaardigheid wel e...2023-10-2039 min

Onder curatoren | BNRWaarom spatte de zeepbel van winkelketen Sabon uiteen?Het verhaal over zeepjesketen Sabon begint in Tel Aviv, Israël, waar in 1997 de eerste winkel zijn deuren opent. De Nederlandse ondernemer Bob Ultee ziet er begin jaren nul brood in. Hij wordt licentiehouder van het luxe zeepmerk en opent vanaf 2005 de ene na de andere Sabonwinkel, vaak op dure locaties. Ultee wil namelijk niet gestaag groeien, maar met grote stappen. Maar het lukt hem niet om op te boksen tegen concurrent Rituals en het wordt voor Ultee steeds lastiger om financieel het hoofd boven water te houden. Om te voorkomen dat zijn winkelbedrijf ten ond...2023-09-0824 min

Onder curatoren | BNRDe zaak Steinhoff: van grootschalige boekhoudfraude tot megaschikkingDe Duitse ondernemer Bruno Steinhoff heeft het in de jaren zestig slim bekeken: hij haalt goedkope meubels uit communistische landen om ze voor meer geld door te verkopen in het westen. De handel levert hem steeds meer geld op en Steinhoff gaat in de loop der jaren ook zelf meubels produceren. In de jaren negentig neemt het bedrijf een meubelmaker in Zuid-Afrika over en daar groeit Steinhoff uit tot een internationale meubelgigant met wereldwijd meer dan 100.000 werknemers. Alleen Ikea is nog groter. In 2015 krijgt het bedrijf een andere structuur met een Nederlandse brievenbusfirma om een notering aan de beurs v...2023-07-1448 min

Onder curatoren | BNRHoe kon het Slotervaartziekenhuis na 40 jaar zo maar failliet gaan?Miljoenen Amsterdammers konden er sinds de jaren '70 op vertrouwen dat ze voor goede zorg terecht konden bij het Slotervaart Ziekenhuis. Maar na 2010 krijgt het bestuur keer op keer te horen dat de kosten te hoog zijn en de opbrengsten te laag. Reorganisatie op reorganisatie volgt, maar telkens lukt het niet om rode cijfers zwart te maken. En dus zeggen zorgverzekeraars in oktober 2018: wij betalen niet meer. Wij krijgen nog héél veel geld van het Ziekenhuis. Daarmee dreigt het doek te vallen en komt de behandeling van tienduizenden patiënten in gevaar. En vlak voord...2023-03-2422 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Twelve, William FaulknerWilliam Faulkner is acknowledge to be one of the greatest American authors of the 20th century. His scintillating writing, masterful plots, mesmerizing characters, and shocking perspective make him the other great pioneer of Southern Gothic (along with Flannery O'Connor) and one of the Southern Renaissance's most intriguing voices. In this episode, Drs. Masson and Friesen focus in on one of his best known short stories, "A Rose for Emily," exploring its curious mix of the macabre and the illuminating.2021-11-2957 min

Paideia TodayPaidiea Today, Season Four, Episode Eleven, Samuel BeckettToday we discuss a flagship work of Post-Modernism, Waiting for Godot. This is one of the seminal works which signals the way forward for culture and its art in the Post-Modernist era (1945-2001). We explore the evolution of our current angst, nihilism and vast loneliness. It is easy to dismiss this play as ridiculous, which it is, but that does not keep it from being incredibly important to where we find ourselves today. 2021-11-021h 15

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Ten, J.R.R. TolkienJ.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) is the greatest author of the the twentieth century. At least he is by popular acclaim. In the eyes of the critics and the literary establishment, he has been virtually ignored. In this episode we open what could be a lengthy discussion of this author, seeking to explain the utter divergence of opinion on Tolkien.2021-10-261h 08

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Nine, KafkaFranz Kafka (1883-1924) was a German-speaking Bohemian novelist and short-story writer, widely regarded as one of the major figures of 20th-century literature. His reputation, however, only really advanced in the light of the atrocities of the Nazi regime. Kafka was Jewish. Like Orwell, Kafka's name has become synonymous with the type of world he portrays, in Kafka's case a world operating under an absurd series of conditions in which human freedom is rendered meaningless, and in which human nature becomes utterly dehumanized.2021-10-181h 05

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Eight, Flannery O'ConnorToday's episode focuses on Flannery O'Connor (1925–64), an American writer famed for her 'southern Gothic' style. We will read O'Connor as a Christian realist who portrays the depravity of the human condition with unusual acuity, set as it is in sharp relief against the backdrop of Southern gentility.2021-10-1147 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Seven, George OrwellIn today's episode of Paideia Today, we look at the famed British novelist George Orwell (1903-50), whose work is so harrowing the adjective Orwellian has come to describe the peculiarly modern form of totalitarian technocracy.2021-10-041h 20

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Six, W.B. YeatsWilliam Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, prose writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. We spend the majority of the episode looking at Yeats' most famous poem and observe the way it reflects the worldview of his era.2021-09-281h 04

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Five, W.H. AudenW.H. Auden (1907 –1973) is one of the great poets of the twentieth century. Some regard him as a lesser poet to Yeats and Eliot - we discuss that here - but he was also a prolific writer of prose essays and reviews on literary, political, psychological, and religious subjects. Unlike Eliot, who migrated from America to Britain, Auden did the opposite. His reputation grew after his death as well, which is usually a good sign of merit.2021-09-211h 02

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Four, T.S. EliotT.S. Eliot has been embraced as a great poet on both sides of the Atlantic. Born in the United States, Eliot emigrated to England and remained there. He became the key figure of the Modernist movement. We discuss Eliot's poetry as well as the movement itself in this week's episode.2021-05-261h 17

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Three, ConradJoseph Conrad is an extraordinary figure, not least because he wrote his novels in his second language. His novella Heart of Darkness is justly famous for its depiction of the evil of the human heart in the context of the 'scramble for Africa'. It has been variously described as a 'colonialist' and a 'postcolonialist' novella. While there is no dispute that the expansion of the European powers into Africa is its contemporary context, and there is a critique of colonialism in the text, we dismiss it as reductive to see Conrad's work solely in that light.2021-05-171h 07

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode Two, Thomas Hardy and A.E. HousmanEpisode 2 of Season four again sets the foundation for the Modernist movement, looking at the two superb poetic craftsman, Thomas Hardy and A.E. Housman. What is noteworthy about the two, besides their aesthetic excellence, is the way they capture a fin-de-siecle cultural despair and express its pervasive sense of alienation. While the First World War will devastate much of Western Christendom, it is important to note that the dissonant notes to the leitmotif of social progress are already being sounded by these two important poets.2021-05-101h 17

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Four, Episode One, WildeSeason 4 of Paideia Today begins with the Irish writer Oscar Wilde. Wilde initiates literary modernism, which in turn sows the seeds of a sort of postmodernism rarely discussed by those tracing the history of ideas. It is vital, however, because it connects the pursuit of a rather ugly 'aesthetics' movement with an assault on goodness and truth. Goodness, beauty, and truth have been seen to be connected since the ancient world. But in literary modernism, we see the doctrinal severance of beauty from notions of morality and truth. Horaces's dictum for the poet was 'to teach and to delight'. Wilde's...2021-05-031h 09

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episdoe Fourteen, TolstoyFor the conclusion of season 3 of Paideia Today we look at the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy, like Dostoevsky, engages with the modern alienation from life that progressive ideology and commitment to material advances. Rather than one of Tolstoy's magisterial novels like War and Peace or Anna Karenina, we look at his brilliant novella, which addresses themes concerning wisdom and virtue, themes often very much ignored in fiction thereafter.2021-04-271h 02

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Thirteen, DostoevskyDostoevsky's Crime and Punishment catalogues the life of a young political idealist who commits two murders to fulfill his ambition. It is an exceptionally subtle and complex narrative, which not only leans on elements of Dostoevsky's own biography, but situates them within a Christian framework of guilt and redemption.2021-04-191h 08

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Twelve, TennysonAlfred, Lord Tennyson was the Poet Laureate during much of Queen Victoria's reign and until recently was one of the most popular British poets. But he has been seriously neglected in recent years. In this episode of Paideia Today, we discuss his most important poem.2021-04-131h 08

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Eleven, Mary ShellyToday's episode of Paideia Today looks at Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. This fascinating novel represents an amalgamation of various strands of the novel tradition, but arguably begins a new one, that of science fiction. In the process, Shelley also begins a prescient critique of the transhumanist impulse of the modern scientist, or modern Prometheus, as she calls him, and his abandonment of the ethics of love in pursuit of allegedly humanitarian progress.2021-03-3059 min

Slick Talk: The Hospitality PodcastToby Friesen: Building Experiences!I connected with Toby late last year during the launch of the Destinationaire Awards and I fell in love with his companies Instagram because of the beautiful properties and high attention to detail! Toby is a dreamer and an experience builder and it shows in his work! In this episode, you'll hear about the challenges but then you'll hear about the beautiful moments that he is able to make by going above and beyond and creating a destination! When you're in a beautiful beach town and your guests rarely go to the beach and spend most of t...2021-03-2638 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Ten, Jane AustenJane Austen is without doubt one of the finest prose stylists and keenest observers of human nature. We discuss Austen as a novelist in the light of that eighteenth century genre, noting that her clear satire is what marks her as a great moral writer. The focus of our discussion is her splendid novel Pride and Prejudice, a masterpiece in tracing the lineaments of fallen humanity, and the proud flaws of even its most admirable characters, here represented in the characters of Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett.2021-03-231h 05

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Nine, Samuel Taylor ColeridgeSamuel Taylor Coleridge is credited with giving the definitive take on the imagination, the faculty all the Romantics claim marks their distinctive poetic experiment. But is Coleridge's definition actually more a critique of Romantic poetics than an expression of it? This episode begins by discussing his Rime of the Ancient Mariner, but ranges to discuss a broad array of topics.2021-03-161h 03

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Eight, William WordsworthWilliam Wordsworth is the poet most strongly identified with a literary movement we call Romantic. Today's episode discusses many of the complex features of that movement while also engaging with some of the work by the great poet.2021-03-081h 00

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Seven, Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson (1709-1784) is a colossal figure who bestrides the age lying between the age of Pope and the Romantics. In acknowledgement of his extraordinary erudition, he is often referred to as Dr. Johnson. Dr. Johnson made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. He is an important figure not only for conservative thinking, but the English moral sense tradition. On today's episode, we discuss this much-overlooked but enormously important literary figure.2021-03-021h 00

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Six, Jonathan SwiftJonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal is the finest specimen of the age of satire and wit that succeeds that of Milton's age 2021-02-1956 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Five, MiltonThis final episode on Milton's Paradise Lost looks at the various ways in which Milton explores the area we now understand under the term psychology, seeing both paradise and hell respectively as the obedient or defiant relations of the character towards God. Milton in that sense 'internalizes' the landscape of the epic, as well as transforming what constitutes epic heroism.2021-02-091h 07

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Four, MiltonThe invocation at the outset of Milton's Paradise Lost announces that he will 'justify the ways of God to men." Yet most anthologies cut Book 3 of Paradise Lost, the Council of Heaven, in which the God explains the rationale for the lost paradise and all the events that ensue. This episode seeks to address what has been lost to a generation of readers of Paradise Lost.2021-02-011h 26

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Three, MiltonIn our third episode on Milton's Paradise Lost, we look at Book 2. We emphasize Milton's theological commitments, rejecting the popular contemporary view that he is mixing our ideas of good and evil, as does the pantheist. Quite the contrary, Milton's depiction of Hell and the creatures banished therein is consistent in following the Augustinian tradition in portraying evil as the privation of everything good. We discuss some of the famous passages and engage with the consequences of their aesthetic misconception by the critical tradition.2021-01-2548 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode Two, MiltonIn today's episode of Paideia Today, we get into book one of Paradise Lost. We start by looking at his invocation of the Muse, and how he invokes the Classical epics of yore in order to acknowledge the vehicle of epic narrative while at the same time asserting that his is as much greater as his subject, the fall and redemption of mankind, is greater. We then look to the description of the 'geography' of hell and its theological rationale as well as taking an extended look at the mind and character of Satan by attending to a few of...2021-01-1959 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Three, Episode One, MiltonSeason 3 of Paideia Today begins with the colossal figure of John Milton. Milton's Paradise Lost is arguably the greatest poem ever written, certainly the greatest in the English language. The church father Tertullian once famously asked, what does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Milton's answer would be that theologically speaking it has nothing. Nonetheless, in terms of its literary expression, Milton's Puritanism is inseparably linked with his Classicism. At the same time, the epic form that he uses for his greatest work is transformed by the content of his theological convictions. This is both a work of the utmost r...2021-01-111h 12

Paideia TodayPaidiea Today: Season Two, Episode Ten, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight IIIIn our final installment on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight we move on from discussing the symbolism of number to discussing the symbolism entailed in the 3 beasts that Gawain encounters. The author's artful use of parallelism leads to many interesting talking points throughout the episode 2021-01-041h 22

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Season Two, Episode Eleven, Chaucer's "Pardoner's Tale"Geoffrey Chaucer is often considered the 'father of English literature.' He is best known for his Canterbury Tales. He was also the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. But Chaucer was very much a Renaissance man, even before the Renaissance came to England. He gained fame as a philosopher (and as a translator of Boethius) and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier, diplomat, and member of parliam...2021-01-0449 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today, Season Two, Episode Seventeen, George HerbertGeorge Herbert is arguably the foremost devotional lyric poet in the English language. Prodigiously gifted, his intention to serve as an Anglican priest was interrupted by the positions he was offered in public service. He functioned for seven years as Public Orator at Cambridge University before briefly serving in Parliament. He returned to his initial vocation, however, by serving as the rector of the little parish of St Andrew's Church, Lower Bemerton, Salisbury. And it is there that he in all likelihood wrote the personal devotional poems - in English, Latin, and Greek - that are now his greatest lega...2021-01-0451 min

Paideia TodayPaidiea Today, Season Two, Episode Sixteen, John DonneJohn Donne is an extraordinary literary figure. In addition to his fame as a poet, the foremost representative of the Metaphysical poets, he also served as a soldier. But it was his religious position that made him most famous in his day. Although he had been born into a Catholic family, after considerable reflection he became one of the foremost Anglicans of his day, serving as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral in London (1621–1631). Donne's style is characterised by its drama. Abrupt openings and the use of paradox, irony and syntactic dislocation are commonplace in his writing. These reflect a revolt a...2020-12-281h 14

Paideia TodayPaidiea Today, Season Two, Episode Fifteen, The Cavalier PoetsMuch of the once most famous renaissance poetry was written by the Cavalier Poets, though most of it is not read today. These were the poets whose motto was Carpe Diem and who epitomize the swashbuckling, devil may care attitude we tend to attribute to the renaissance to this day. What this sometimes obscures is that their poetry is actually enormously subtle, elegant and rich.2020-12-211h 11

Paideia TodayPaidiea Today, Season Two, Episode Fourteen, Shakespeare's SonnetsShakespeare's sonnets are comparatively neglected today but they are what Shakespeare himself thought would be his lasting legacy. We look at a few representative sonnets to discuss how they reflect upon Shakespeare's Elizabethan worldview while also playing with the conventions of the Italian Renaissance.2020-12-2157 min

Paideia TodayPaidiea Today, Season Two, Episode Thirteen, Shakespeare, Hamlet IIDr. Masson and Dr. Friesen delve further into this fascinating play on the topics of evil, death and human agency.2020-12-0759 min

Paideia TodayPaidiea Today, Season Two, Episode Twelve, Shakespeare's HamletIn this episode, Drs. Scott Masson and Bill Friesen explore one of the most iconic plays in western history: Hamlet. This Shakespearean tragedy has been considered by many famous authors to be the greatest play ever written. 2020-11-3045 min

Paideia TodayPaidiea Today: Season Two, Episode Eleven, Chaucer's "Pardoner's Tale"Geoffrey Chaucer is often considered the 'father of English literature.' He is best known for his Canterbury Tales. He was also the first writer to be buried in what has since come to be called Poets' Corner, in Westminster Abbey. But Chaucer was very much a Renaissance man, even before the Renaissance came to England. He gained fame as a philosopher (and as a translator of Boethius) and astronomer, composing the scientific A Treatise on the Astrolabe for his 10-year-old son Lewis. He maintained a career in the civil service as...2020-11-2400 min

Paideia TodayPaidiea Today: Season Two, Episode Nine - Sir Gawain and the Green KnightIn our second of three podcasts on Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, we explore a wide variety of issues ranging from the appearance of the Green Knight; to the significance of the pentangle on Gawain's shield; to the identity and nature of the two ladies that greet Sir Gawain when he appears in the court on his way to receive his dint from the Green Knight.2020-11-091h 05

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Season Two, Episode Eight - Sir Gawain and the Green Knight IWe return to our series after a lengthy COVID-induced hiatus looking at the medieval Romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In this first of two episodes we do a great deal of establishing the context of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.2020-11-0248 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Season Two, Episode Seven - Dante IIIn today's episode, we begin by looking at cosmology and the medieval synthesis of science with Christian truth in Dante's Divine Comedy. We do so by looking at some pictorial representations of Dante's cosmology in order to be able to visualize Dante's integration of small and, to the modern mind, discrete fields of knowledge. We make it clear that this must be understood allegorically. We conclude this episode by discussing that it is love that moves what appears in the visual portrait to be a static thing. Love is the organizing principle of the whole of the Divine Comedy, and Prim...2020-05-1840 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Season Two, Episode Six, Dante IThis week's episode begins a series of episodes on the extraordinary work composed at the outset of the fourteenth century by the great Italian poet Dante Alighieri. With his Christian understanding of the soul, Dante's epic poem is an imaginative and moral vision of this earthly life in the light of what will happen after death. The narrative takes as its literal subject the state of souls after death and presents an image of divine justice meted out as due punishment or reward, and describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise or Heaven, while allegorically the poem rep...2020-05-1153 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Season Two, Episode Five, AndreasThis episode looks at a little-read but fascinating Anglo-Saxon poem called Andreas, named after St. Andrew. Andreas is plainly patterned after Beowulf, but is more explicitly Christian in its literary features, particularly its symbolism. In the tale, Andreas is a missionary to a cannibalistic tribe called the Myrmidonians, who are so savage that they violate the xenia taboo and even eat their guests. Andreas is sent by God to rescue Matthew, who has been thrown into prison and is soon to be eaten. The text is in many ways typological and engaging richly with various Biblical texts, as well as Beowulf. ...2020-05-051h 00

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Season Two, Episode Four, Beowulf IIThis week we discuss monsters and dragons! We begin by examining the qualities of Beowulf as an epic poem before going on to focus upon the three monsters that Beowulf faces. Each represents an aspect of evil more perilous than the last.2020-04-271h 06

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Season Two, Episode Three, Beowulf IThe great Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf is the subject of today's episode. We look at the strange history of the document, and its status as an epic. While it is very different than the Greco-Roman epics, we argue that it nonetheless deserves its status as an epic not only because of the magnificent heroism of the character Beowulf, but its sad, elegiac, majestic sweep that engages with notions of monstrosity. It largely owes its rise to fame thanks to the scholarship of the great Medievalist J.R.R. Tolkien. We look at the characteristic features of Anglo-Saxon culture that infuse the e...2020-04-2744 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Season Two, Episode Two, The Dark AgesA common presentation of the period extending from the fall of Rome until the Renaissance is that of the 'dark ages'. But were the entire Middle Ages actually characterized by oppression, ignorance, and backwardness in areas like human rights, science, health, and the arts? We take issue with the popular misrepresentation of the era. While we do see a dark age following the destruction of the Western Roman Empire, what light remained in it was salvaged by Christians in the monastic movement, which eventually led to the establishment of the university, a medieval Christian institution.2020-04-2743 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Saints' Lives, Season Two, Episode OneIn our first episode of Season 2 of Paideia Today, we look at the now-neglected genre of hagiography, and debunk the popular misconception that medieval hagiography was the product of weak artistry or even a form of propaganda, a type of embellished historical document recording superhuman individuals. We tend to read it as if hagiography were a Christian variation on the nineteenth-century accounts of the lives of great men, as Thomas Carlyle made famous. On the contrary, we explain that authors of hagiographic accounts had no interest in the Romantic obsession with originality as an indicator of artistic merit...2020-04-0648 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Augustine, Episode FourteenDrs. Masson and Friesen discuss one of the most influential thinkers in western history: Augustine, whose thought undergirds great ranges of the western worldview.2020-03-3053 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: The Aeneid, Episode ThirteenDr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss one of the most famous underworld scenes in western literature: Aeneas' journey to Dis.2020-03-231h 05

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: The Aeneid, Episode TwelveIn this episode, Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss what is, beside the Bible, the most influential text in western history: The Aeneid. 2020-03-1646 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Oedipus Rex, Episode ElevenIn this episode, Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss one of the most influential plays in western drama.2020-03-0953 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Greek Drama, Episode TenIn this episode, Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss the origins, structure and aims of ancient Greek drama, and its overwhelming influence on the course of western culture.2020-03-0232 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: The Odyssey, Episode NineDrs. Masson and Friesen discuss one of the earliest classical literary conceptions of death and the underworld as Odysseus journeys into Hades.2020-02-2531 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: The Odyssey, Episode EightIn this episode, Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss Telemachus, classical notions of coming of age and how this is bound up in the centrality of storytelling to the human experience.2020-02-1928 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: The Oyssey, Episode SevebnIn this episode, Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss Odysseus' son, Telemachus and the ways that domestic and heroic identity coincide in this epic.2020-02-1128 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: The Odyssey, Episode SixIn this episode, Drs. Masson and Friesen discuss a radically different form of heroism than encountered in The Iliad addressed in Homer's Odyssey.2020-02-0336 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Introduction to Epic, Episode FiveIn this episode, Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss the foundations of epic and nihilistic heroism from the ancient Greek worldview. This episode was recorded earlier, but lost through technical complications, and would have been aired before any of the other podcast. We think it necessary to understanding the texts we are discussing, and have therefore inserted it between a discussion of The Iliad and The Odyssey.2020-01-2849 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: The Iliad, Episode FourThis is the last episode on The Iliad, in which Dr. Masson and Dr. Friesen discuss the motif of death. *Note: this is the first episode with considerably improved audio quality.2020-01-2031 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: The Iliad, Episode ThreeProfessors Masson and Friesen discuss the power and artistry of rhetoric in the Iliad and how this exerts an influence on later great works of western literature.2020-01-0130 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: The Iliad, Episode TwoA conversation between Dr. Scott Masson and Dr. Bill Friesen, professors of literature, about one of the most important, studied and discussed books in all of western history: The Iliad. Until recently, this was considered one of the few texts that every learned man and woman had to have read and studied in depth in order to be considered cultured. (Apologies beforehand for the sound quality, which will improve greatly on Episode 4).2019-12-2347 min

Paideia TodayPaideia Today: Introduction, Episode OneIn this episode, Dr. Scott Masson and Dr. Bill Friesen, professors of literature, discuss a bit about how they came by their love of literature and their reasons for putting together this podcast series on the classics of western literature. They speak about ways of approaching such famous texts which can begin to unveil to the modern reader why these texts were so valued by 2800 years of readers. (Apologies beforehand for the sound quality, which will improve greatly on Episode 4).2019-12-2330 min