A left-wing university professor argues that “great books” education is not a conservative project but a deeply humane one. Drawing on Paulo Freire and classroom experience, the essay makes a case for classical education as a path to freedom, community, and the good life.
February 01, 2026
The Left Case for Great Books
What does the body reveal about vocation and our search for communion? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with Alicia Coyle about Theology of the Body, motherhood, feminine formation, chastity, education, and the slow work of composing a life around gift rather than competition. Their conversation moves from John Paul II and Edith Stein to Little Women, Aristotle, Mary at Cana, and the daily patterns of homeschooling, prayer, reading, and family life. For parents seeking a wiser way through cultural confusion, Alicia offers a thoughtful vision of embodiment as something neither limiting nor abstract, but deeply human, practical, and full of invitation. Together, Christine and Alicia consider how ideas become incarnate through teachers, friendships, families, and habits. They ask what it means to see the body as meaningful, how women and men can offer distinct gifts without rivalry, and why formation begins not with rules alone, but with anthropology, wonder, and the truth of the person made in the image of God.
What does it take to form a life with roots, discipline, and courage in an age of distraction and drift? In this episode of Forged, Brian Williams talks with R. R. Reno about the ordinary practices that shape the soul: family dinners, church, books, marriage, friendship, cooking, architecture, and the demanding craft of rock climbing. Reno reflects on growing up in Baltimore, learning endurance in Yosemite, finding stability in marriage and worship, and pursuing excellence as a teacher, writer, and Christian. Along the way, he considers why beauty trains our affections, why embodied disciplines matter, and what it means to “do battle without hatred.” The conversation moves from childhood rhythms and the gift of rootedness to the spiritual trial of physical risk, the public nature of architecture, and the vocation of First Things as a guide for readers seeking clarity in a fractured cultural moment.
What does it mean to grow up classical, and how can the great books help form a young person’s moral imagination? In this episode of Composed, Christine Perrin speaks with Olivia Reardon, a graduating senior at Messiah University, about literature, ethical formation, and the classical Christian classroom. Drawing from Olivia’s senior honors thesis and her upcoming ClassicalU course, Journeying with the Great Books: Ethical Formation in the Classical Christian Classroom, the conversation explores how stories give students language for their deepest questions, offer “handholds” for living in a broken world, and invite readers to return again and again as they grow in wisdom. Together, Christine and Olivia reflect on reading as a relational and formative act, one that happens best in a community of trust, conversation, and shared attention. Olivia offers the images of mirrors, windows, and doors as a way of understanding how books help students see themselves, encounter others, and enter experiences beyond their own. The conversation also considers the breadth of the Great Conversation, not as a narrow inheritance for a few, but as a living tradition shaped by many voices and offered for the formation of all.
