In this special episode about Grace's new book, Jesus through Medieval Eyes: Beholding Christ with the Artists, Mystics, and Theologians of the Middle Ages, Grace gets interviewed on medieval ideas about Jesus in art and literature by none other than the inestimable Scott Hamman, her wonderful non-medievalist structural engineering husband (or in his words, "Mr. Dr. Grace Hamman"). Preorder Jesus through Medieval Eyes on Amazon , B&N , or your local bookstore....
Oct 25, 2023•49 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Grace welcomes Karen Swallow Prior to discuss her brand-new book, The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos, 2023), and from that book, the power of imagination and our formation through literature and products of culture. Karen Swallow Prior (Ph.D., State University of New York, Buffalo) is a reader, writer, and professor. She is the author of multiple books including The Evangelical Imagination, On Reading Well, and Fierce Convictions. ...
Oct 11, 2023•46 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Grace chats with Marianne Wright on the novels and sermons of the great Victorian writer and Presbyterian minister, George MacDonald. Why did this somewhat obscure (for us today, at least) novelist inspired some of the most well-beloved writers of the twentieth century, like C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton? Marianne Wright, a member of the Bruderhof , lives in southeastern New York with her husband and five children. She has edited two books for Plough, Anni and The Gospel in George MacDonald . S...
Sep 27, 2023•50 min•Season 4Ep. 2
In this first episode of season four, Grace chats with Reverend Elizabeth Felicetti, author of Unexpected Abundance: The Fruitful Lives of Women Without Children, on the dignity and humanity of women without children and their gift to the church. The Rev. Elizabeth Felicetti is the rector of St. David's Episcopal Church in Richmond, Virginia and the author of the new book Unexpected Abundance: The Fruitful Lives of Women Without Children. Her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Christian C...
Sep 13, 2023•49 min•Season 4Ep. 1
In the last episode of season three, Grace talks with Dr. Michael Lamb on the great African bishop and theologian, St. Augustine of Hippo, and the virtue of hope. Michael Lamb is the F. M. Kirby Foundation Chair of Leadership and Character, Executive Director of the Program for Leadership and Character, and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Humanities at Wake Forest University. He is also a Research Fellow with the Oxford Character Project. He holds a Ph.D. in politics from Princeton Univ...
May 31, 2023•54 min•Season 3Ep. 19
It's a magical confluence of Mother's Day week, Grace's actual birthday, and the 650th anniversary of Julian's experience with God, so Grace had to mark it in a special way herself. Yes, that's right, Grace is her own guest this week, and she even answers her own get-to-know you literary questions. The main star of the show, however, is the wondrous fourteenth-century contemplative writer, Julian of Norwich, and her beautiful vision of Christ as our Mother. Preorder Jesus Through Medieval Eyes: ...
May 17, 2023•23 min•Season 3Ep. 18
Normally, obviously, Grace talks about old books. But every now and then, OBWG presents an episode on old art. Because encountering old art is just as much about reading, interpretation, and attention as reading old books is! Today, Grace is delighted to welcome Dr. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt as a guest. Elissa Yukiko Weichbrodt (Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis) is an associate professor of art and art history at Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Georgia and author of Redeeming Visio...
May 03, 2023•51 min•Season 3Ep. 17
In this episode, Grace chats with Dr. Scott Newstok on William Shakespeare (whose birthday is this week!) and the principles of a renaissance education. Scott Newstok is Professor of English and founding director of the Pearce Shakespeare Endowment at Rhodes College. A parent and an award-winning teacher, he is the author of How to Think Like Shakespeare, as well as Quoting Death in Early Modern England, and the editor of several other books, including a forthcoming edition of Michel de Montaign...
Apr 19, 2023•1 hr•Season 3Ep. 16
This year’s Old Books with Grace Lent series, called “A Book that Changed Me,” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Books can be mirrors—they can help us to consider ourselves in new light. Books invite us into conversation and reflection we would not have known to participate in without their guidance. Each of the guests in this series has chosen a book that invited...
Apr 05, 2023•1 hr 2 min•Season 3Ep. 15
Welcome to the third episode of the Lent series on Old Books with Grace, exploring literature, self-knowledge, and transformation. In today’s A Book that Changed Me, Grace chats with Kaitlyn Schiess about Madeleine L’Engle’s marvelous young adult novel, A Wrinkle in Time. Kaitlyn Schiess is the author of The Ballot and the Bible: How Scripture has been Used and Abused in American Politics and Where We Go from Here (Brazos, 2023) and The Liturgy of Politics: Spiritual Formation for the Sake of Ou...
Mar 22, 2023•47 min•Season 3Ep. 14
Welcome to the second offering in this year's Old Books with Grace Lent series. “A Book that Changed Me” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Today, Jason Baxter is the special guest, and Dante's Inferno is the special book. Jason Baxter is a college professor, speaker, and author of five books, including A Beginner's Guide to Dante's Comedy and, most recently, The M...
Mar 08, 2023•51 min•Season 3Ep. 13
Welcome to the first offering in this year's Old Books with Grace Lent series. “A Book that Changed Me” offers four different conversations with guests on a book of their choice that changed them, made them think deeply about transformation, brought them closer to truth. Today, Joy Clarkson is the special guest, and George Eliot's Silas Marner is the special book. Dr. Joy Clarkson is the author of Aggressively Happy: A Realist’s Guide to Believing in the Goodness of Life, and a research associat...
Feb 22, 2023•40 min•Season 3Ep. 12
Have you heard of the midcentury fiction writer, Elizabeth Goudge, author of classics like The Little White Horse or The Scent of Water? Julie Witmer, founder of the Elizabeth Goudge Book Club, comes on Old Books with Grace to talk about Goudge's life and writings, from her talent for writing children, to her love for her characters, to her mischaracterization as a romance writer!
Feb 08, 2023•43 min•Season 3Ep. 11
Grace welcomes Dr. Anthony Domestico, author of Poetry and Theology in the Modernist Period and chair of the literature department at Purchase SUNY, to Old Books with Grace today to chat about modernist poetry including my favorite twentieth-century poet, T.S. Eliot. Warning: this episode is slightly longer than usual episodes because Grace lost track of time in her excitement about Eliot!
Jan 25, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Season 3Ep. 10
Today, Grace concludes the Advent series with some very, very old poetry. Poetry, in fact, that you’re already familiar with. You likely sing a form of it, or listen to it each year. Grace dives into Old English and Middle English translations of the Great O Antiphons, better known to us today as the foundation of the wonderful Advent hymn, O Come, O Come, Emmanuel. Let’s look for the Dayspring, the Dawn, the Sun of Justice on this darkest day of the year.
Dec 21, 2022•19 min•Season 3Ep. 9
Welcome back to this year's Advent series on Old Books with Grace. This episode meditates on Christina Rossetti's A Christmas Carol, and William Langland's Piers Plowman. An interesting duo, separated by 500 years--and you'll find out why Grace pairs them in a contemplation on nature imagery and incarnational love.
Dec 14, 2022•16 min•Season 3Ep. 8
In this second installment of the Advent series on poetry, Grace meditates on George Herbert's marvelous poem, "The Bag." Listen to Herbert command despair away as Christ becomes incarnate and carries our prayers in his very body.
Dec 07, 2022•20 min•Season 3Ep. 7
In the first episode of the Advent 2022 series exploring Advent & Christmas poetry from the past, Dr. Grace Hamman meditates on T.S. Eliot's The Journey of the Magi and our status as pilgrims in the world. Read The Journey of the Magi .
Nov 30, 2022•19 min•Season 3Ep. 6
Grace welcomes Robert Elmer, the editor of Piercing Heaven: Prayers of the Puritans and Fount of Heaven: Prayers of the Early Church, the first two books in the Prayers of the Church series from Lexham Press. Grace, a medievalist slightly suspicious of Puritanism, learns about the beauty of these prayers from the sixteenth & seventeenth centuries and about Robert's own processes of finding and selecting these historical and powerful prayers.
Nov 09, 2022•39 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Beauty is just as significant to our spiritual and moral lives as truth and goodness. Sarah Clarkson has often found this beauty in literature. Grace welcomes Sarah, author of This Beautiful Truth: How God's Goodness Breaks Into Our Darkness, to discuss the intersections between story, beauty, and suffering. Along the way, some very recognizable names come up as sources of profound beauty in literature: J.R.R. Tolkien, L.M. Montgomery, George Eliot, and more...
Oct 26, 2022•54 min•Season 3Ep. 4
Grace welcomes Gina Dalfonzo, editor of The Gospel in Dickens (Plough Publishing House) and founder and editor of Dickensblog, to chat all things Charles Dickens. What is the appeal of this wordy writer (whom, as Gina reminds us, was NOT paid by the word)? Join Gina and Grace for a fun conversation discussing why we love and return to Charles Dickens over and over despite his foibles and flaws.
Oct 12, 2022•57 min•Season 3Ep. 3
Dr. Eleanor Parker joins Grace to discuss the beauty of Old English and her delightful new book on the Anglo-Saxon calendar year, Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year. Eleanor Parker is Lecturer in Medieval English Literature at Brasenose College, Oxford. She is the author of Dragon Lords: The History and Legends of Viking England (2018), Conquered: The Last Children of Anglo-Saxon England (2022), and Winters in the World: A Journey Through the Anglo-Saxon Year (2022). Sh...
Sep 28, 2022•39 min•Season 3Ep. 2
On the season premiere of Old Books With Grace, Grace welcomes Dr. Zena Hitz, author of Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life, tutor at St. John's College, and founder of the Catherine Project. Why is it important to love learning for its own sake and not instrumentalize it? How can we cultivate an intellectual life? What does Augustine of Hippo mean by curiositas? Hear Grace and Dr. Hitz's thoughts on these questions and more...
Sep 14, 2022•59 min•Season 3Ep. 1
In this last episode of the season, Grace welcomes Dr. Fritz Bauerschmidt to chat about reading difficult authors of the past, like Thomas Aquinas, the love of God as the central feature of Christianity, and the flexibility and strength of tradition. Frederick Christian (Fritz) Bauerschmidt is Professor of Theology at Loyola University Maryland, specializing in medieval and modern Catholic theology, and a deacon of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, assigned to the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. He is ...
Jun 15, 2022•59 min•Season 2Ep. 28
Grace welcomes Dr. Chris Armstrong to the podcast to talk about his book, Medieval Wisdom for Modern Christians, and think through medieval Christian humanism's influence on C.S. Lewis, and how some of these medieval ideas might help think more creatively and faithfully about community, faith, and history today. Dr. Chris R Armstrong is an educator, academic entrepreneur, author, editor, and church historian (Duke Ph.D., Gordon-Conwell M.A.). He currently serves as Program Fellow in Faith, Work,...
Jun 01, 2022•53 min•Season 2Ep. 27
This week, Grace welcomes Kaitlyn Facista, creator of the online community Tea with Tolkien. Naturally, they drink tea and talk Tolkien! Topics of discussion include: the upcoming Amazon series (and Kaitlyn's sneak peek of it in London!), how to throw a Hobbit party, why the Silmarillion matters, and the ever controversial Tom Bombadil, among other things. Kaitlyn Facista is a Catholic convert, wife, mother to four babies at home + two in heaven, and hobbit at heart. She lives with her family in...
May 18, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Season 2Ep. 26
Beth Allison Barr, author of Making Biblical Womanhood, is here and we are talking about history and how it shapes us, resisting the urge to impose our norms and ideas back onto the past, about medieval women, gender-bending medieval saints, good places to start reading medieval texts, and more fascinating topics... Larissa Tracy's Women of the Gilte Legende: A Selection of Middle English Saints Lives Beth Allison Barr (PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) is James Vardaman Professo...
May 04, 2022•1 hr•Season 2Ep. 25
Grace welcomes Sophfronia Scott, author of The Seeker and the Monk, and director of the MFA creative writing program at Alma College. Sophfronia and Grace discuss learning to have meaningful dialogue with books as you read, even when they were written by long-dead writers, and Sophfronia shares her wisdom on reading Thomas Merton and on the practice of reading contemplatively.
Feb 16, 2022•47 min•Season 2Ep. 16
This week, Grace welcomes Jessica Hooten Wilson to Old Books With Grace, to chat about her new book, The Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints, and the power of literature to reveal the subtleties of the good life. Sometimes holiness can be alarming, bizarre, and fascinating... and novels and their novelists, like Flannery O'Connor, C.S. Lewis, and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, can help us to conceptualize the holy life in all its difficulty and otherworldliness....
Feb 02, 2022•42 min•Season 2Ep. 15
Grace welcomes Kayla Craig, author of To Light Their Way, a collection of prayers and liturgies for parents, and the creator of the wonderfully helpful @liturgiesforparents instagram account. We talk prayer books, the definition of liturgy, how written prayers help us find words, and the wonderful, ecumenical prayer sources and books that Kayla has enjoyed and recommends.
Jan 19, 2022•48 min•Season 2Ep. 14
