St. John's College (Annapolis) Lectures

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, ...

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...

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 t...

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 gr...

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 introduc...

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 Leup...

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 o...

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 (clas...

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.