Best Griffin Cork Podcasts (2024)

1
Carlos M. N. Eire, "They Flew: A History of the Impossible" (Yale UP, 2023) 53:57

3h ago53:57

53:57

In the early modern era, seemingly impossible stories of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft were common and believable. The important question of the time was not if these things happened, but why. This was particularly true as the rise of Protestantism began to challenge Catholic beliefs in miracles and continued to be the case even after scie…

1
Laurence M. Geary, "The Land War in Ireland: Famine, Philanthropy and Moonlighting" (Cork UP, 2023) 27:59

1h ago27:59

27:59

In this interview, he discusses his new book The Land War in Ireland: Famine, Philanthropy and Moonlighting (Cork UP, 2023), a collection of interconnected essays on different aspects of agrarian agitation in 1870s and 1880s Ireland. The Land War in Ireland addresses perceived lacunae in the historiography of the Land War in late nineteenth-century…

1
Timothy Morton, "Hell: In Search of a Christian Ecology" (Columbia UP, 2024) 1:07:01

1h ago1:07:01

1:07:01

Hell on earth is real. The toxic fusion of big oil, Evangelical Christianity, and white supremacy has ignited a worldwide inferno, more phantasmagoric than anything William Blake could dream up and more cataclysmic than we can fathom. Escaping global warming hell, this revelatory book shows, requires a radical, mystical marriage of Christianity and…

1
Bronagh Ann McShane, "Irish Women in Religious Orders, 1530-1700: Suppression, Migration and Reintegration" (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) 37:56

15h ago37:56

37:56

Irish Women in Religious Orders, 1530-1700: Suppression, Migration and Reintegration (Boydell & Brewer, 2022) by Dr. Bronagh Ann McShane investigates the impact of the dissolution of the monasteries on women religious and examines their survival in the following decades, showing how, despite the state's official proscription of vocation living, rel…

1
Late Have I Loved You (with John Michael Talbott) 1:04:56

1d ago1:04:56

1:04:56

John Michael Talbott is a tremendously successful musician and writer; he is also the founder of a monastery—the Brothers and Sisters of Charity at Little Portion Hermitage in Arkansas—where he is Minister General today. He started as a Methodist and a country rock musician in the seventies and the story of his journey is amazing, from the encounte…

1
Sergio M. González, "Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging and Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin" (U Illinois Press, 2024) 1:21:29

2d ago1:21:29

1:21:29

“Wisconsin has always been my home. It’s not a place, however, where I’ve always felt at home,” (ix) declares Dr. Sergio M. González in the first two lines of his acknowledgments for his recently published book Strangers No Longer: Latino Belonging & Faith in Twentieth-Century Wisconsin (University of Illinois Press, 2024). These two sentences are …

1
Stephanie Joy Mawson, "Incomplete Conquests: The Limits of Spanish Empire in the Seventeenth-Century Philippines" (Cornell UP, 2023) 47:34

11d ago47:34

47:34

"When the Spanish colonization of the Philippines began in 1565, early reports boasted of mass conversions to Christianity and ever-increasing numbers of people paying tribute to the Spanish crown. This suggests an uncomplicated story of an easy imposition of Spanish sovereignty. But as Stephanie Mawson shows in her book, Incomplete Conquests: The …

1
Helen J. Nicholson, "Women and the Crusades" (Oxford UP, 2023) 35:30

13d ago35:30

35:30

The crusade movement needed women: their money, their prayer support, their active participation, and their inspiration. Helen J. Nicholson's book Women and the Crusades (Oxford UP, 2023) surveys women's involvement in medieval crusading between the second half of the eleventh century, when Pope Gregory VII first proposed a penitential military exp…

1
Jerome’s Tears (with David Bonagura Jr.): Death and Mourning in Christian Late Antiquity 45:46

14d ago45:46

45:46

Professor David Bonagura, theologian and Latinist, has translated and edited seven of St. Jerome’s letters dealing with death and mourning. This doctor of the church consoles his friends in first centuries of Christendom, describing death as sleep, and dying as our journey back home to God. And though the Mediterranean is big and fourth-century tra…

1
Lauren Horn Griffin, "Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England: History, Rhetoric, and the Origins of Christianity" (Brill, 2023) 32:26

1M ago32:26

32:26

Fabricating Founders in Early Modern England: History, Rhetoric, and the Origins of Christianity (Brill, 2023) argues that in order to understand nationalisms, we need a clearer understanding of the types of cultural myths, symbols, and traditions that legitimate them. Myths of origin and election, memories of a greater and purer past, and narrativ…

1
Jaime M. Pensado, "Love and Despair: How Catholic Activism Shaped Politics and the Counterculture in Modern Mexico" (U California Press, 2023) 1:02:51

26d ago1:02:51

1:02:51

The 21st century has witnessed a revolution in how historians approach the study of Roman Catholicism. Long trapped in an unbridgeable chasm between confessional scholars taking revealed truth as a point of departure & secular scholars ignoring the intellectual and experiential richness of religion, Catholicism has increasingly benefited from vibra…

1
Knocking at the Brothel Door (with Michael John Cusick) 48:57

1M ago48:57

48:57

Michael John Cusick argues that our addictions and disordered sexual desires are really a misdirected effort to reach God and live in connection with Him. How can this be? The crude simulation is but at poor substitute for the real thing, for the Truth. Yet in this fallen world, sinners repeatedly fall into the snares. “I do not understand my own a…

1
Marion R. Casey, "The Green Space: The Transformation of the Irish Image" (NYU Press, 2024) 29:41

1M ago29:41

29:41

Marion Casey is a professor at Glucksman Ireland House at New York University where she also serves as Director of Undergraduate Studies. She has published widely on various aspects of Irish-American history and in 2006 she co-edited Making the Irish American: History and Heritage of the Irish in the United States with Joe Lee. In this interview, s…

1
Julia G. Young, "Mexican Exodus: Emigrants, Exiles, and Refugees of the Cristero War" (Oxford UP, 2019) 52:29

1M ago52:29

52:29

In Mexican Exodus: Emigrants, Exiles, and Refugees of the Cristero War (Oxford University Press, 2019), Julia G. Young reframes the Cristero War as a transnational conflict, using previously unexamined archival materials from both Mexico and the United States to investigate the intersections between Mexico's Cristero War and Mexican migration to th…

1
Markus Vinzent, "Resetting the Origins of Christianity: A New Theory of Sources and Beginnings" (Cambridge UP, 2022) 43:01

1M ago43:01

43:01

How do we know what we know about the origins of the Christian religion? Neither its founder, nor the Apostles, nor Paul left any written accounts of their movement. The witnesses' testimonies were transmitted via successive generations of copyists and historians, with the oldest surviving fragments dating to the second and third centuries - that i…

1
Charles E. Curran, "Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian" (Georgetown UP, 2006) 59:35

2M ago59:35

59:35

Over the course of our 60th anniversary in 2024, we'll be revisiting some classic Georgetown books. First up is Loyal Dissent by Charles E. Curran. Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian (Georgetown UP, 2006) is the candid and inspiring story of a Catholic priest and theologian who, despite being stripped of his right to teach as a Catholic…

1
Philip Freeman, "Two Lives of Saint Brigid" (Four Courts Press, 2024) 24:09

2M ago24:09

24:09

St. Brigid is the earliest and best-known of the female saints of Ireland. In the generation after St. Patrick, she established a monastery for men and women at Kildare which became one of the most powerful and influential centres of the Church in early Ireland. The stories of Brigid's life and deeds survive in several early sources, but the most i…

1
Catholic in Palestine (with Fr Firas Abedrabbo) 44:03

2M ago44:03

44:03

There have been Christians in the Holy Land for two thousand years; “we are the first church,” says Father Firas Abedrabbo who is from Bethlehem and works in Ramallah. He studied law in France and speaks excellent English and spoke with me about his experience as a priest in Palestine (the West Bank) during the Gaza War. We talk politics and histor…

1
Claudio Ferlan, "The Jesuits: A Thematic History" (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2023) 57:08

2M ago57:08

57:08

In The Jesuits: A Thematic History (Institute of Jesuit Sources, 2023), Claudio Ferlan provides an exploration of the tradition of the Society of Jesus. Instead of focusing solely on the Society’s historical milestones and changes, Ferlan traces the continuity of key Jesuit themes over time—covering education, mission, social engagement, and more. …

1
Paola Tartakoff, "Between Christian and Jew: Conversion and Inquisition in the Crown of Aragon, 1250-1391" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2012) 53:51

3M ago53:51

53:51

In 1341 in Aragon, a Jewish convert to Christianity was sentenced to death, only to be pulled from the burning stake and into a formal religious interrogation. His confession was as astonishing to his inquisitors as his brush with mortality is to us: the condemned man described a Jewish conspiracy to persuade recent converts to denounce their newfo…

1
Marie de Vignerot, Richelieu's Forgotten Advisor and Heiress 52:47

3M ago52:47

52:47

Despite being one of the most influential women of 17th century France, Marie de Vignerot has been largely forgotten. The niece, heiress, and advisor to the infamous Cardinal Richelieu, Marie was deeply motivated by her Catholic faith, yet never re-married after she became a widow at 18. She shaped France and the French empire's political, religiou…

1
The Wood Between the Worlds (with Brian Zahnd) 1:05:12

3M ago1:05:12

1:05:12

For Christians, the central event in history and in universe is the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ 2000 years ago. This killing of God (or deicide) is so mysterious and terrible that it’s hard to even approach: what kind of a God would choose to be tortured and murdered by his rebellious creatures? Pastor Brian Zahnd’s poetic theolog…

1
Miracle Man (with Joe McGivney) 1:03:55

3M ago1:03:55

1:03:55

Lifelong alcoholic Joe McGivney drank himself into brain damage and permanent disability. The day after being placed into the assisted care he would need for rest of his life, he sprang back to full recovery, restored health—it was a medical impossibility—for which he credits the intercession of Blessed Father Michael McGivney, his distant relative…

1
Harriet Lyon, "Memory and the Dissolution of the Monasteries in Early Modern England" (Cambridge UP, 2021) 59:46

4M ago59:46

59:46

The dissolution of the monasteries was recalled by individuals and communities alike as a seismic rupture in the religious, cultural, and socio-economic fabric of early modern England. It was also profoundly important in shaping contemporary historical consciousness, the topographical imagination, and local tradition. Memory and the Dissolution of …

1
Robert Louis Wilken, "Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom" (Yale UP, 2019) 1:02:49

4M ago1:02:49

1:02:49

Robert Louis Wilken, the William R. Kenan Professor Emeritus of the History of Christianity at the University of Virginia, has written an intellectual history of the ideas surrounding freedom of religion. Liberty in the Things of God: The Christian Origins of Religious Freedom (Yale University Press, 2019) offers a revisionist history of how the id…

1
Gwyn McClelland, "Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests and Catholic Survivor Narratives" (Routledge, 2019) 1:01:20

4M ago1:01:20

1:01:20

On 9th August 1945, the US dropped the second atomic bomb on Nagasaki. Of the dead, approximately 8500 were Catholic Christians, representing over sixty percent of the community. In Dangerous Memory in Nagasaki: Prayers, Protests, and Catholic Survivor Narratives (Routledge, 2019), Gwyn McClelland presents a collective biography, where nine Catholi…

1
Ed Simon, "Relic" (Bloomsbury. 2024) 48:14

4M ago48:14

48:14

Object Lessons is a Bloomsbury series of short, beautifully designed books about the hidden lives of ordinary things. This book, Relic, by Dr. Ed Simon was published in 2024. Every culture, every religion, every era has enshrined otherwise regular objects with a significance which stretches beyond their literal importance. Whether the bone of a Cat…

1
Homo sapiens catholicus (with Jeremy Holmes) 1:20:45

4M ago1:20:45

1:20:45

Theology Professor Jeremy Holmes of Wyoming Catholic College teaches a class called “Science and Theology,” which is about the Darwin’s theory of evolution and related topics, including the problems we encounter in the fossil record and our understanding of genetic change. I ask him about the discussions he has with his students and his colleagues …

1
Anthony Kaldellis, "Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium" (Harvard UP, 2019) 49:29

4M ago49:29

49:29

Though commonly used today to identify a polity that lasted for over a millennium, the label “Byzantine empire” is an anachronism imposed by more recent generations. As Anthony Kaldellis explains in Romanland: Ethnicity and Empire in Byzantium (Harvard University Press, 2019), this has contributed to the denial of the ethnic identity that most deni…

1
The Good Fire: Theology of Stewardship & Controlled Burning (with Peter Hess) 56:00

5M ago56:00

56:00

Peter Hess (Ph.D, FFT2) is a theologian, an environmental scientist, a wildland fire practitioner, and firefighter type two. I ask Peter about this work which is a collaboration of firefighters and indigenous communities, about the Catholic Theology, stewardship of the Earth, and Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudatus Si’. Peter Hess’s webpage at “Clim…

1
Eugenio Refini, "Staging the Soul: Allegorical Drama as Spiritual Practice in Baroque Italy" (Legenda, 2022) 53:13

5M ago53:13

53:13

As per William Shakespeare, ‘all the world’s a stage’. But what if the human soul was a stage too? What if the stage of the world and the stage of the soul coincided? And what if the soul was also the main character of the play? These questions are at the core of Eugenio Refini's book Staging the Soul: Allegorical Drama as Spiritual Practice in Bar…

1
Nicholas Morton, "The Crusader States and their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187" (Oxford UP, 2020) 1:00:34

5M ago1:00:34

1:00:34

Nicholas Morton’s The Crusader States and their Neighbours: A Military History, 1099-1187 (Oxford UP, 2020) explores the military history of the medieval Near East, piecing together the fault-lines of conflict which entangled this much-contested region. This was an area where ethnic, religious, dynastic, and commercial interests collided and the ca…

1
Jane Ohlmeyer, "Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World" (Oxford UP, 2023) 1:00:32

5M ago1:00:32

1:00:32

Empire and imperial frameworks, policies, practices, and cultures have shaped the history of the world for the last two millennia. It is nation states that are the blip on the historical horizon. Making Empire: Ireland, Imperialism, and the Early Modern World (Oxford University Press, 2023) by Dr. Jane Ohlmeyer re-examines empire as process—and Ire…

1
"Apocalypto" and Mel Gibson (with Jonathon Fessenden) 1:04:31

5M ago1:04:31

1:04:31

The 2006 Mel Gibson movie, Apocalypto, takes us into a decadent Maya civilization in the Yucatan on the eve of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. It could be a commentary on ancient Rome or the present-day US, but, because it is a new world for both the viewer and the forest-dwelling protagonists, we get to see it through ‘new eyes’ and a ‘beginner’s …

1
Matthew Carr, "Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492-1614" (Hurst, 2017) 1:51:07

5M ago1:51:07

1:51:07

A centuries-old story with remarkable contemporary resonance, Blood and Faith: The Purging of Muslim Spain, 1492-1614 (Hurst, 2017) is celebrated journalist Matthew Carr's riveting and "richly detailed" (Choice) chronicle of what was, by 1614, the largest act of ethnic cleansing in European history. Months after King Philip III of Spain signed an e…

1
The Men We Need (with Brant Hansen) 1:09:35

5M ago1:09:35

1:09:35

“What is a man?” asks Hamlet. If all he does is “sleep and feed,” then “a beast, no more.” That’s not enough for Hamlet, and it’s not enough for Brant Hansen, who spreads the Gospel by radio and in print. He’s written a number of books, including his new one, The Men We Need, which asks and answers questions about men’s special role in our world, a…

1
Marcy Norton, "The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492" (Harvard UP, 2024) 1:00:38

6M ago1:00:38

1:00:38

In The Tame and the Wild: People and Animals after 1492 (Harvard University Press, 2024), Dr. Marcy Norton offers a dramatic new interpretation of the encounter between Europe and the Americas that reveals the crucial role of animals in the shaping of the modern world. When the men and women of the island of Guanahani first made contact with Christ…

1
Margaret M. McGuinness, "Katharine Drexel and the Sisters Who Shared Her Vision" (Paulist Press, 2023) 1:07:56

6M ago1:07:56

1:07:56

Although Katharine Drexel has been the subject of several biographies, they have tended to treat her as a perfect human being whom the Church later transformed into a saint. Katharine Drexel and the Sisters Who Shared Her Vision (Paulist Press, 2023) moves beyond the story of the heiress’s individual life devoted to God and shines a light on the wo…

1
Max Deardorff, "A Tale of Two Granadas: Custom, Community, and Citizenship in the Spanish Empire, 1568–1668" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:38:20

6M ago1:38:20

1:38:20

In 1570's New Kingdom of Granada (modern Colombia), a new generation of mestizo (half-Spanish, half-indigenous) men sought positions of increasing power in the colony's two largest cities. In response, Spanish nativist factions zealously attacked them as unequal and unqualified, unleashing an intense political battle that lasted almost two decades.…

1
John Christopoulos, "Abortion in Early Modern Italy" (Harvard UP, 2021) 56:30

6M ago56:30

56:30

Today we have John Christopoulos, Assistant Professor of History at the University of British Columbia, to talk about his new book, Abortion in Early Modern Italy (Harvard University Press, 2021) In this authoritative history, John Christopoulos provides a provocative and far-reaching account of abortion in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Italy.…

1
Kathy Stuart, "Suicide by Proxy in Early Modern Germany: Crime, Sin and Salvation" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2023) 1:06:57

6M ago1:06:57

1:06:57

Suicide by Proxy became a major societal problem after 1650. Suicidal people committed capital crimes with the explicit goal of “earning” their executions, as a short-cut to their salvation. Desiring to die repentantly at the hands of divinely-instituted government, perpetrators hoped to escape eternal damnation that befell direct suicides. In Suic…

1
Genealogies of Modernity Episode 6: A Medieval Anti-Racist 52:08

6M ago52:08

52:08

What if racism shared an origin with opposition to racism? What if the condemnation of injustice gave rise both to an early form of anti-racism and to the racial hierarchies that haunt the modern era? Rolena Adornol, David Orique, María Cristina Ríos Espinosa tell the story of how Bartolomé de las Casas, a Dominican missionary to New Spain, came to…

1
Our Lady of Guadalupe and Aztec True Myth 1:08:18

6M ago1:08:18

1:08:18

It turns out that our familiar narrative of the Virgin of Guadalupe, when Mary appeared to Juan Diego in 1531 and left her image on his tilma, resembles an indigenous Mexican myth. And this myth of the Flower World in “Cuicapeuhcayotl” (“Origin of Songs”) has led some secular historians and anthropologists to conclude that the Catholic version must…

1
Gregory J. Goalwin, "Borders of Belief: Religious Nationalism and the Formation of Identity in Ireland and Turkey" (Rutgers UP, 2022) 1:39:04

7M ago1:39:04

1:39:04

Despite theories to the contrary, religious nationalism, and the use of religion to determine membership in the national community, has continued to play a role in processes of identification in societies all around the globe ... and such processes seems likely to continue to structure the ways in which communities view themselves even in today’s g…

1
Anna M. Grzymała-Busse, "Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State" (Princeton UP, 2023) 55:38

7M ago55:38

55:38

In Sacred Foundations: The Religious and Medieval Roots of the European State (Princeton University Press, 2023), political scientist Anna Grzymała-Busse corrects a long-standing distortion in the study of state formation in Europe, writing religion back into the story and examining, at once pithily and methodically, the multiple contributions of t…

1
J. Christopher Edwards, "Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus" (Fortress Press, 2023) 1:15:15

7M ago1:15:15

1:15:15

In his book Crucified: The Christian Invention of the Jewish Executioners of Jesus (Fortress Press, 2023), J. Christopher Edwards explores the early Christian teachings regarding who actually killed Jesus. Historians of early Christianity unanimously agree that Jesus was executed by Roman soldiers. This consensus extends to members of the general p…

1
Daniel Jütte, "Transparency: The Material History of an Idea" (Yale UP, 2023) 1:03:03

7M ago1:03:03

1:03:03

Transparency is a mantra of our day. It is key to the Western understanding of a liberal society. We expect transparency from, for instance, political institutions, corporations, and the media. But how did it become such a powerful—and global—idea? From ancient glass to Apple’s corporate headquarters, Transparency: the Material History of an Idea (…

1
D. L. d'Avray, "The Power of Protocol: Diplomatics and the Dynamics of Papal Government, c. 400-c.1600" (Cambridge UP, 2023) 1:21:58

7M ago1:21:58

1:21:58

The Power of Protocol: Diplomatics and the Dynamics of Papal Government, c. 400 – c.1600 (Cambridge University Press, 2023) by Dr. David d’Avray asks: How did the papacy govern European religious life without a proper bureaucracy and the normal resources of a state? From late Antiquity, papal responses were in demand. The 'apostolic see' took over …

1
Jenny Benham, "International Law in Europe, 700–1200" (Manchester UP, 2022) 1:13:07

7M ago1:13:07

1:13:07

Was there international law in the Middle Ages? Using treaties as its main source, International Law in Europe, 700-1200 (Manchester University Press, 2022) by Dr. Jenny Benham examines the extent to which such a system of rules was known and followed in the period 700 to 1200. It considers how consistently international legal rules were obeyed, wh…

1
Darwinian Accident or Divine Architect? (with Jay Richards) 1:16:26

7M ago1:16:26

1:16:26

Jay Richards PhD, OP discusses the new book to which he contributed a chapter, God’s Grandeur: The Catholic Case for Intelligent Design (Sophia Institute Press, 2023), edited by Ann Gauger. We take on the insufficient explanations of Darwinian orthodoxy which insists that our world—from the vast cosmos to the also vast (in its complexity) genetic c…

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