Old Books with Grace

William Blake with Paul Pastor

Today, Grace chats with the poet Paul Pastor on another poet, the revolutionary thinker and artist William Blake. 
Paul J. Pastor is Executive Editor of Nelson Books at HarperCollins, an essayist, critic, and poet, writer of The Rose Fire on Substack, and author of several books, most recently The Locust Years: Poems, from Wiseblood Books. He lives in Oregon. 
Grace is going to take a sabbatical from Old Books with Grace for a few months as she and her family are in the middle of several big projects and changes. You can keep up with her at gracehamman.substack.com while she's taking a break from the podcast, though!
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Vices in the Modern World with Elizabeth Oldfield

Today Grace welcomes Elizabeth Oldfield to recast these ancient ideas of vices and virtues into contemporary language. Why should we care about these ancient and sometimes worn-thin concepts? How can they speak to our world today--even if that world does not believe the same things as the church believes?
Elizabeth Oldfield is the author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times. She is a speaker, coach, and consultant, and the host of The Sacred podcast. Elizabeth has a masters in Theology and the Arts and lives in an intentional Christian community in South London with her family.

Learning from the Desert Fathers and Mothers with Lisa Colón DeLay

Today, Grace welcomes author Lisa Colón DeLay to discuss the fascinating ancient Christians that we now call the Desert Fathers and Mothers. People like Evagrius, Amma Theodora, St. Moses the Black, St. Anthony the Great, and many others offer deep wisdom in their own time and to us today.
Lisa Colón DeLay is the author of The Wild Land Within and has an MA in spiritual formation. She writes, teaches, and creates products and resources related to spiritual formation. Since 2015, she has hosted Spark My Muse, a top-rated religion and spirituality podcast. DeLay grew up in Pittsburgh, having left her native country of Puerto Rico, and now resides near the Appalachian Trail in a small town in Pennsylvania. Discover more, including more links and more information on her new book and the desert fathers and mothers, at lisadelay.com.
Learn more about Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life.

Chatting Chaucer with Jessica Ward

This week, Grace welcomes her dear friend from graduate school, fellow medievalist Dr. Jessica D. Ward, to discuss one of their favorites: Geoffrey Chaucer, author of the great Canterbury Tales! Come for Middle English, discussions of why Chaucer deserves his reputation, and continuing discussion of the backgrounds in Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths, as Grace and Jessica discuss their mutual interests in the Parson's Tale and penitential literature.
Dr. Jessica D. Ward is an early English literature scholar. She has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on medieval and early modern literature, culture, and language and has written for various academic journals and collections on these topics.  She has served as a dramaturg for professional Shakespeare productions in New York as well as in Texas, where she now lives with her husband, toddler son, and their spunky little lion dog, Oscar, the shih tzu. She enjoys delighting in Middle English and its muses and legacies on Substack in her newsletter Middle English Delights. 
Buy Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life. 

The Seven Capital Vices with Rebecca DeYoung

Grace invites on one of her heroes (!), Professor Rebecca Konyndyk DeYoung, professor of medieval philosophy and author of Glittering Vices. They talk Aquinas, vices, Jane Austen, and more in this delightful conversation. 
Rebecca DeYoung (Ph.D. University of Notre Dame) has enjoyed teaching ethics and the history of ancient and medieval philosophy at Calvin College for over 20 years.  Her research focuses on the seven deadly sins, and virtue ethics, as well as Thomas Aquinas’s work on the virtues. Her books include Glittering Vices, Vainglory, and a co-authored volume entitled Aquinas’s Ethics.  Awards for her work include the Book and Essay Prize from the Character Project and the C.S. Lewis prize for Glittering Vices. She speaks widely, including opportunities to teach in prison. She and her husband Scot live in Grand Rapids, near the beautiful Lake Michigan shoreline. They have four adult children.
Check out Grace's new book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life

Virtues & Vices with Scott & Grace Hamman

Welcome to season six of Old Books with Grace! Today, the tables are turned. Grace welcomes her very own husband, the wonderfully handsome, talented, and clever structural engineer, Scott Hamman, to interview her on her new book, Ask of Old Paths: Medieval Virtues & Vices for a Whole & Holy Life. This episode kicks off a lovely series on virtues and vices this fall featuring many wonderful thinkers.
Get Ask of Old Paths on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Thriftbooks, Target, Bookshop.org, or best of all, contact your local bookstore, or ask your library to purchase a copy!
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Beauty, Art, and Thomas Aquinas with Daniel McInerny

In today's episode, Grace welcomes Dr. Daniel McInerney to think about some big questions: what is the relationship between beauty and art? Art and imitation? This conversation ranges from Aristotle to Austen in its exploration of literary, visual, and dramatic art.
Daniel McInerny is associate professor and chair of the philosophy department at Christendom College in Front Royal, Virginia. Daniel is the author of Beauty & Imitation: A Philosophical Reflection on the Arts. He is also a novelist and dramatist and writes the Substack newsletter, The Comic Muse, a review of culture and the arts. Daniel and his wife Amy have three grown children and two adorable grandchildren and live in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.
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Little Gidding with Lisa Ampleman: Four Quartets, Lent 2025

Welcome to Old Books with Grace! Today marks the final episode in the Old Books with Grace Lent Series, on T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets.
Today we read Little Gidding as poet and editor Lisa Ampleman joins Grace for a thoughtful conversation.
Lisa Ampleman is the author of a chapbook and three full-length books of poetry, most recently Mom in Space (2024) and Romances (2020), both with LSU Press. Her work has appeared recently on Poetry Daily and Verse Daily and in journals including 32 Poems, Colorado Review, Cortland Review, Ecotone, Georgia Review, The Rumpus, Shenandoah, and Southern Review. She lives in Cincinnati and is the managing editor of The Cincinnati Review and poetry series editor at Acre Books.
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