Words to Live With
Episode description
Marilyn McEntyre is a steward of words. She has taught courses on English and medical humanities, and she has written or edited over twenty books, including Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies. Marilyn joins Elise to discuss the meaning of four words: dwelling, compassion, truth, and awe. Marilyn discusses why she loves participles and how “Christianese” can constrict the meaning of a word. She also reads three of her own poems and explains the background and inspiration of each.
Words as building materials
How space shapes us
Particularity and universality
A productive relationship between loneliness and dwelling
Touch deprivation
The strength and resilience of compassion
Christianese
Our relationship to Industrial food system
A broader examination of conscience
Truth as embodied and relational
The act of translation
Convicted civility
Why do we lie?
Relationship between death and awe
Accompanying the dying
Links:
Dwelling in the Text by Marilyn McEntyre
Word Tastings: An Essay Anthology by Marilyn McEntyre
Teaching Literature and Medicine by Marilyn McEntyre
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies by Marilyn McEntyre
The Overstory by Richard Powers
Should Trees Have Standing?: Law, Morality, and the Environment by Christopher D. Stone
I MARRY YOU: A Sheaf of Love Poems by John Ciardi