Ep. 29 - Marie Kawthar Daouda: Baudelaire and the Creation of the Poetic Self
Release Date: 10/13/2022
Dr Iain McGilchrist on the Cultivation of Wisdom
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A conversation between Dr Iain McGilchrist, neuropsychiatrist, philosopher, and literary critic, and Dr Stephen Blackwood, President of Ralston College, on the occasion of Dr McGilchrist’s March 2024 visit to Savannah to deliver Ralston College’s annual Sophia Lectures. Dr McGilchrist discusses his experience spending time with Ralston College students, his reasons for accepting the College’s invitation to deliver the Sophia lectures, and the necessity of leisure for deep thought. Applications for Ralston College’s MA in the Humanities program are now open.
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The Education of Iain McGilchrist, Part II: Medical School and Beyond
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The second part of a conversation between the renowned literary scholar and psychiatrist Dr Iain McGilchrist and Ralston College president Dr Stephen Blackwood about Dr McGilchrist’s remarkable educational trajectory. In this episode, Dr Iain McGilchrist explains how he left his successful career as a literary scholar to pursue training as a psychiatrist and how his combined study of literature, philosophy, and neuroscience informed his later academic work, including his books The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World (Yale University Press, 2009) and...
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info_outlineRalston College presents a lecture by Marie Kawthar Daouda on the infamous French poet, Charles Baudelaire. Baudelaire published one collection of poems in his lifetime, 'Les Fleurs du mal,' which was met by outrage and led to a scandalous lawsuit because of some poems’ graphic content. The problem with Baudelaire was not so much that he was writing about sex, drunkenness, and violence; it was that he wrote about ugly things—at times horrible things—while using the classical perfection of the French verse, and merged the longing for a lost ideal with the modernity of Haussmanian Paris. As such, Baudelaire's art is not about gruesome indecency, but about acknowledging horror as a non-negotiable part both of the human condition and of the creation of the self. Dr Daouda’s lecture focuses on two particular sonnets, 'À une passante' and 'Recueillement,' which offer emblematic examples of Baudelaire’s poetic technique and his philosophical heritage, and help to explain why, although he died in utter misery, he was one of the most influential artistic figures of the century that followed.
This lecture and discussion were recorded with a live online audience on June 23rd, 2022.
Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in this Episode
Charles Baudelaire
Eugene Delacroix, 'La Liberté guidant le peuple'
Chateaubriand
Benjamin Constant
Alphonse de Lamartine
Victor Hugo, 'Les Miserables'
George Sand
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Voltaire
Victor Hugo, 'Les Chansons des rues et des bois'
Édouard Manet
Blaise Pascal
Joseph de Maistre
Edgar Allan Poe
Platonism
Neo-Platonism
Edgar Allan Poe, 'The Imp of the Perverse'
Charles Baudelaire, 'L’art romantique'
Charles Baudelaire, 'Les Fleurs du mal'
Carlos Schwabe, 'Spleen et idéal'
Oscar Wilde
Charles Baudelaire, 'À une passante'
Petrus Borel, 'Champavert'
Charles Baudelaire, 'Recueillement'
Charles Baudelaire, 'Le Spleen de Paris'
Michael Edwards, 'Bible et poésie'
Vladimir Jankélévitch, 'La Mort'
Carlos Schwabe, 'Les Noces du poete et de la Muse ou L’Ideal'
Gustav Maureau
Lord Byron
Links of Possible Interest
Dr Marie Kawthar Daouda's biography
https://www.ralston.ac/people/marie-k...
Dr Stephen Blackwood
https://www.stephenjblackwood.com
Ralston College
https://ralston.ac
Ralston College Short Courses
https://www.ralston.ac/humanities-sho...
Ralston College Humanities MA
https://www.ralston.ac/humanities-ma