Episode 381 - Zena Hitz

Author & St. John's College tutor Zena Hitz joins the show to talk about her wonderful new book, Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life (Princeton University Press). We get into the nature of learning for its own sake, the corruption of academia and its potential reform, how St. John's prepared us for the world by not preparing us, and why the Newton's Principia is the toughest thing on the SJC curriculum. We also talk about the joy of autodidacts and our shared love of The Peregrine, why she disagrees with the notion that learning-for-its-own-sake is a privilege of the elite, the challenges of leading seminars by Zoom, and how bureaucracy creeps into every system. We also tackle my lightning round of questions for SJC tutors, what she'd add to the curriculum and what she'd subtract, and answer the long-standing question: What is virtue and can it be taught? Follow Zena on Twitter • More info at our site • Support The Virtual Memories Show via Patreon or Paypal