[00:00:01] Hey everyone Lynn Vartan and you are listening to the A.P.E.X Hour In this show you get more personal time with the guests who visit Southern Utah University from all over. Learning more about their stories and opinions beyond their presentations on stage. We will also bring you some new music and hope to turn you onto new sounds and new genres. You Can find us here every Thursday at 3:00p.m. or it on the web at SUU. suu.edu/apex But for now. Welcome to this week's show here on Thunder 91.1
[00:00:47] OK. Welcome. Well here we are. It's Thursday and we're at Southern Utah University and this is the A.P.E.X Hour My name is Lynn Vartan and we are joined in the studio today with our wonderful guest who spoke today and one of our awesome faculty members this week for our apex events lectures we are focusing on the liberal arts and one of the things that's really interesting is that this is part of a five year collaboration where we're going to be taking one of our apex events to focus on liberal arts education. The value of it what does it mean where are we going and all of these kinds of thing. So let me tell you a little bit about who's in the in the studio with us today our speaker for this week was Bradley Thompson Professor Bradley Thompson who teaches political philosophy at Clemson University and is the executive director of the Clemson Institute for the Study of capitalism. We've been talking about his writings. He's a well-known author of many books and four published books right now and many more on the way which will get into the award winning John Adams and the spirit of liberty neoconservatism an obituary for an idea the revolutionary writings of John Adams an antislavery political writings from 1833 to 1860. Welcome Professor Thompson. Thanks for being here.
[00:02:13] Hi Lynn thank you very much. It's great to be back in Cedar City and at Southern Utah University.
[00:02:20] Yes. You've been here several times. From what I understand.
[00:02:23] I was first here in 1982 competing in the Rocky Mountain Conference Track and Field Championship. And then came back again in 2000 with my family visiting the area and I've been back a couple of times since then to visit both the city and the university.
[00:02:42] And you lived in Utah for a little while I understand.
[00:02:45] That's right. In 1999-2000 we lived in Logan for the year.
[00:02:50] Well welcome back to our great state of mind. Also joining us in the studio is one of our great faculty members who's who you are man of many talents not just in philosophy is a faculty member but also I know you're a great musical scholar and great writer. Welcome. Kirk Fitzpatrick.
[00:03:09] Thank you very much.
[00:03:11] What courses are you teaching this semester.
[00:03:13] I'm teaching.
[00:03:14] Introduction to ancient Greek second year Greek translation and ethics and basic logic.
[00:03:23] Great. And I definitely want to talk to you at some point more about music but you were just telling me that you have a Greek lyre kind of on the way for you.
[00:03:35] On the way.
[00:03:36] I can't wait to see it when it comes and maybe we can have you back to talk about it.
[00:03:40] That sounds great.
[00:03:41] Well this week we've been talking about and Professor Thompson's talk was all about the liberal arts and I'd love to just kind of open the conversation up and maybe Kirk we'll start with you because you are sort of the instigator of this five year series and maybe talk to us about how that came to be and why it came to be and how Professor Thompson came to be with us.
[00:04:07] Thank you as provost fellow. I was working with Provost cook and we were talking about generating facilitating discussion on the liberal arts. Southern Utah University and ways we could do that. And one of the ideas that we came up with would be to bring speakers out that are involved in liberal arts education and talk to our students and faculty about the value of an education in the liberal arts and how it can enrich and enhance your life.
[00:04:44] Great. And how did you come because you are the one who suggested Brad to me and how did you come to know his work.
[00:04:52] Well we have a committee. The first thing I did was to put together a committee of faculty across SUU and the liberal arts and then to meet with them and talk about suggestions we went through a number of different suggestions. And Professor Thompson was the one in the room that we picked so it was a group effort and we will take the same approach as we started thinking about a speaker for next year.
[00:05:19] Great. Well I'd love to kind of just you know with a radio show where people listening live. They may be taking their kids home from school or who knows where they are sitting in the coffee house listening. We'd love to just sort of open the discussion about maybe just for anybody who might not know what are we talking about when we talk about a liberal arts education. And so Brad do you mind sort of giving us a little overview. I know it may be a sort of a a simple definition. Or maybe not but just the kind of start the conversation.
[00:05:51] Yeah. So for me liberal education is an education that has I think as its ultimate goal. The confrontation with the great books the great novels works of philosophy. Great pieces of music great literature great architecture of Western civilization and it's to try and understand the peaks of human excellence. So you know over the course of twenty five hundred years we have a we have traditions in philosophy and literature and music and painting which I think rise to levels transcendent levels even of human greatness to which I think we are. We all benefit by being exposed to. So for me liberal education is introducing young people to too. In my case to great books and having them engage with these books and having them enter a world which is entirely foreign to the world from which they have come because that's that's what a great book does right it takes you into a new world where you were you're introduced to characters who you might not have ever experienced in your life before. And those characters take us to new places. Sometimes they take us to higher places sometimes they take us to lower places right. And it's our engagement with these ideas that I think improves us as human beings. So for me that's what a liberal education is all about. It's about an exposure to the best within us to the best that our civilization has produced over 2500 years. And I think that makes us better people as a consequence.
[00:07:47] Yeah that's a fantastic definition. Thank you it's so clear and really well put. Kirk, Do you have anything to add to that from your experience.
[00:07:56] One thing I think that might surprise people about the history of the liberal arts is that we have abstract mathematics and geometry higher mathematics involved in the tradition of the liberal arts. We have music involved we have the fine arts involved we have history and philosophy and literature and today we often think about those things as being very distinct and we fail to see the relations that are there to be seen in studying those subjects together. And in thinking about our theoretical commitments and our commitments to values and I think the older tradition of the liberal arts shows us connections that are harder to see and the way that we have compartmentalize our contemporary approach to education.
[00:08:51] That's a really good point and that's something that we've been getting into quite a bit in the conversation today is that when we talk about the liberal arts we're not just talking about one thing we're not just talking about history or literature but not mathematics science music all of these things are part of this great liberal arts conversation. To wit sometimes we call it more classical education. Do you prefer that term.
[00:09:20] I do like the idea and I often use the term of a classical education. And this is the kind of education that for instance America's Founding Fathers had. So part of I think a liberal education and one that we're trying to create it. My university Clemson University is actually based on the kind of education that John Adams and Thomas Jefferson had when when they were young men. And so it's an engagement with the classical texts of ancient Athens and Rome primarily sometimes Jerusalem and and these are texts that have I think as their primary concern the formation of a complete human being the formation of the soul considerations of the of the sort of the great perennial questions that confront all of us as human beings. Right. What is justice. What is freedom. What is friendship. What is human excellence. What is nobility and maybe for me the most important question is How should I live my life. And that's that's what these texts do. They challenge us to think seriously and deeply and oftentimes maybe for the first time in our lives about. That kind of question How should I live my life. And there's you know there's not a there's not a human being alive. And throughout all of history who hasn't in some way thought about that question and were often asked. I'm sure this is true Kirk as well for you. We're often asked well you know what can one do with a degree in the humanities or the liberal arts. And for me it's the most practical degree there is because it's concerned with the overarching of the architectonic concern of human life right. It teaches us to think seriously about the meaning of our lives and our role in the world as as as as parents as friends as as sons and daughters as colleagues. And it encourages us to be better than we otherwise would be.
[00:11:30] That is so true. I think it's a great. I want to just sort of zero in on one of those points about these degrees being practical degrees and I know that you said that earlier today and I think we've all experienced that and you've probably experienced that too and I know it came up even yesterday in our discussion with the philosophy club people saying that you know I get sort of angry responses from parents from their kids who want to major in philosophy but you're really turning the table on that that this is one of the most practical degrees and that that these degrees in the humanities are actually highly desired in the workforce. I think you probably have some backing information either of you for that. Do you have anything to comment more on that.
[00:12:15] Well in philosophy the American Philosophical Association has recently put up on their website under the title Why study philosophy. A number of statistics about the study of philosophy and what our graduates go on to do that are really very surprising to people not familiar with the discipline. We turn in some of the highest scores on the LSAT exam. Oh along with mathematics and that's over the past 30 years we have one of the highest acceptance rates to medical school of any undergraduate degree over 50 percent. We turn in some of the highest scores on the Graduate Record exam. So one thing that becomes clear about the study of philosophy is that you're able to read and critically analyze and write about issues and complex issues. We practice on some of the great tasks historically and they give us the opportunity to work at a very high level with those things and those skills transfer directly into problem solving and as we see in those exams.
[00:13:31] So true we see it in the arts as well you know and we have some similar things where people really we have a lot of research that shows that people really want to hire people who come out of the arts because they know how to take a project to completion. They know how to problem solve all these all these great skills so it's great to hear that those degrees are worthwhile. Great. Well it's already time for our first musical break which is amazing when we come back. I'd love to get into talking Brad with you about your writing and how that process unfolds and your upcoming projects and all those things. But first we have a couple of songs to play. I'm going to play you one song I've been playing this album all day today and this is this band. It's called Kashmere Stage Band and this is the album that was newly found. It's an album from the early 60s and it's actually a high school jazz band so check it out and see what you mean what you think. This is the Kashmere Stage Band The song is called cash register and you're listening to KSUU Thunder 91.1
[00:19:06] All right well welcome back. Once again this is the A.P.E.X Hour I'm Lynn Vartan and you're listening to KSUU Thunder 91.1 in the studio. Today we are discussing the liberal arts and education and also the work of Professor Bradley Thompson. So welcome back into the studio.
[00:19:26] Great to be here.
[00:19:26] And we're joined with our fellow faculty member at SUU Kirk Fitzpatrick. Welcome back.
[00:19:31] Thank you.
[00:19:32] I'd love to get into the second segment to talk to Professor Thompson about some of your writing and we've been digging into it. I mean you are just such a scholar of John Adams and you have two books. We have the spirit of liberty and then that collection of his writings. Can you tell me a little bit about how that passion or that research for him started in your life.
[00:20:01] Well my interest in John Adams and all things American and more particularly the American Revolution actually actually goes back to the time when I was 7 years old. 77 a little boy living in Ontario Canada and I read a book called The how and why wonder book The American Revolution.
[00:20:23] Wow.
[00:20:24] And this was probably one of the most important books I ever read in my life. Because from that moment forward I knew that I was an American born in the wrong country.
[00:20:35] That's great.
[00:20:37] And so I've had this lifelong interest and passion for and love of the United States of American history and of the revolution in particular so it's something that's been with me since the time I was a boy and when I went to graduate school I went and I studied with I found the world's greatest historian of the American Revolution Gordon S. Wood and spent several years with him studying the revolution in great depth and I came to realize that John Adams was the most neglected of all of America's founding fathers so over the course of the 20th century there were dozens scores maybe hundreds of books on Thomas Jefferson for instance. But there was just a small handful of books on John Adams and there hadn't been one written in 40 years. So I started reading a lot of John Adams and I realize that he was not only the most neglected founding father but he came to be in my view the greatest of America's founding father. So I wrote a doctoral dissertation on John Adams and then a couple of years after after I finished the dissertation I published it as a book. And what's been really gratifying is the book was published in 1998. And I think if I can say this from that point forward that was a kind of a wave of books that had been published on John Adams. And he's really come back to the forefront of our understanding of the American Revolution. And so that's essentially how I got into all things American first and then into John Adams in particular.
[00:22:27] That's just amazing that as a boy you had that connection with you. I mean do you remember any more detail about those thoughts. Was it just the ideological concept of freedom here what what particularly drew you.
[00:22:45] Yeah no I think you just identified the exact word freedom and Canada at the time I was growing up in the 60s 70s and 80s was a relatively free place. But I saw the United States as as the land of the free. And I actually lived relatively close to the American border. So I was born and raised in the honeymoon capital of the world Niagara Falls Ontario. So we were just across the river from Niagara Falls and are from the United States. And so I watched American television regularly and we always vacationed in the United States so let's put it this way I never felt at home in Canada from the time I was a boy. I never felt as though it were my country. And I always identified as an American even as a boy.
[00:23:41] That's fascinating. Well I'd love to get a little more into the discussion about John Adams because there's a few things that I've heard in other interviews that really stuck out to me and they've sort of come full circle with some of the other things. One of the things that you said that you do for your own sort of betterment of self is that you take a long walk or a long run and have a question that you ask yourself. And I wonder that sort of ties in you talk about John Adams and his concept of self self-government and how he really didn't let one moment pass where he wasn't trying to improve himself. Can you share with us a little bit about your process and his process and and those kinds of things.
[00:24:27] So I'll start with John Adams So when he was a very young man just after he graduated from Harvard College he started keeping a diary and he used this diary as a tool for self improvement and self examination and self perfection. And it's an essay it's an extraordinary document and there are these wonderful passages where he's imploring himself to overcome his lethargy and his weaknesses of one kind or another and he challenges himself to become a better person to become a better person academically to become a better person morally to become a better son about a brother a better friend. But what was most interesting about Adams is from a very early date. You can see him mounting the ladder of fame by which I mean as a young man in his early 20s he was obsessed with the idea of greatness. So here you have this young man who was actually at the time he was teaching in a one room schoolhouse in Worcester Massachusetts. And at that time was literally on the edge of Western civilization.
[00:25:43] Right.
[00:25:44] And he is obsessed with how he can become how he can become a great man. And so he imagines what he might be if he had the opportunity. And then when the Stamp Act is passed in 1765 he saw he saw that as his opportunity. And that was the moment when he launched his career. So in my own life I believe it's important to not just talk the talk but to walk the walk when it comes to questions of moral character. And so I spend I try to spend far less time judging other people and more time judging myself. Right. And what's most important to me in my life is to become a better person than I have been or that I am at any given moment. That way I will be a better son a better husband a better father a better colleague a better friend and maybe most importantly I'll be able to accomplish all the things in life that I want to accomplish. So yes I every day I go for a long run or a long walk and at a certain point in these excursions I ask myself everyday this one question. Am I right with myself. By which I mean have have every day have I been living up to my own avowed moral principles.
[00:27:13] Right.
[00:27:14] Right. And sometimes the answer unfortunately is no. Now sometimes I haven't produced as much as I would have wanted. You know I slept in till 6:00 in the morning right.
[00:27:28] Doesn't sound like sleeping in.
[00:27:30] I I didn't. I didn't get up and get out after it. Right. And I didn't produce as much as I should have or I may have said something cross to somebody close to me or to a colleague. And so anyway the point being is I find it incredibly useful thing to introspective turn inward on myself. Examine who I am and what I am every day and am I living up to my own avowed values.
[00:27:58] I'd love to kind of turn that lens a little bit for both of you to teaching because I think that that that. Well several of those things not only just the introspection but the pursuit of greatness and that kind of observation is something that I know I love to try to get into my teaching and how how do either of you I mean impart this in your teaching how how can we get some of these concepts and and just to get past not just that well we should study the liberal arts and that's the answer. I mean but to get a little bit more deeper into it. And for anybody listening who may be looking for ways either as a parent or as a teacher how can we start to inspire some of these ideas that that we see from John Adams or that we've incorporated our own lives this pursuit of greatness or this introspection or the striving quality. Do you have either of you have any thoughts about the.
[00:28:57] Well in my classes. We often read challenging material that pushes the students and they will often ask questions and I often have to admit that I don't know the answer to that question. And I think that's a good start. And from there hopefully I can consistently go out and try and remedy that and come back to them and tell them what I found out or what the possible answers suggested answers have been and so one way I think that we can do that with our students is to try and model the very behavior that we're asking them to demonstrate. We don't expect them to know at all. Otherwise there is nothing to learn. And so if I can demonstrate to them that I'm in the same process that I'm engaging them in and inviting them to explore that we can do this together then hopefully that shows them that this is a process that can go on through life and I can show them what it looks like for better or worse.
[00:30:13] I love that I and I know I remember learning that myself. Oh I don't really need to have all the answers. I mean it's not the point to have all the answers. I mean there's so much more to it than that I love that.
[00:30:25] Yeah.
[00:30:26] And that's I think that's because we are on a journey right when we're on a journey together with our students. And I tell my students all the time that that I'm just the guide that's that's my role in the classroom as I'm the guy. And we're we're hiking to the mountaintop and I'm just I'm guiding you up but we're walking together. We are struggling together we're engaging ideas together. I'm not here to tell you what to think. You need to come to that on your own terms and I want them. I want my students to feel as though they are in a shared intellectual experience with with me their their their professor. I also want my students to be ambitious. So this semester I'm teaching a course at Clemson University on the political thought of the American founding. And on the first day I told my students I guarantee them that at the end of the semester they would know this subject the political thought of America's founding fathers better than any other college students in America including students at all the Ivy League universities. If they did one thing they worked hard. If they stuck with me reading this difficult material and they worked as hard as they possibly could that at the end of the semester they could legitimately say that they know as college students more about the American founding than students than any other college in America. And that's to them. I think it's inspiring. The kind of sparks something in them and then the final thing I would say. In my own classes. I do take my teaching seriously and when I walk into class every single day I want that class that day to be the best class I have ever taught in my life. Right. And so I want my students to think to feel to know that not only are they getting their money's worth and they should be getting their money's worth but I want them to see that that this person who's standing in front of them cares enough about them as students that they're willing to give it all laid on the line every day in the classroom because. When they leave my classroom I want them to go out into the world. And to do the same thing right. I want them to go out when when they graduate from college and go out into the world. I want my hope for my students is that they will that every day that they'll they'll give it their very very best.
[00:33:07] I think that's fantastic. And I I really subscribe to that and I love hearing that and other people you know that that modeling of excellence from our own desire for excellence in our teaching. Yesterday we were having this great conversation with the philosophy club and we got into a little bit about what it takes to teach. And I really connected with the three things that you've said about the three things that it takes to teach and if I if I'm remembering right it was one the knowledge of the subject to the passion for it. And then three that that mastery of teaching the ability to teach that is much more elusive. And I was wondering if in this time together you could elaborate a little bit more on that and or or even just repeat it in more detail because I just found it so so very valuable and really impactful to me and my ideology.
[00:34:04] Sure. Well you know I think unfortunately even tragically that in our school system both in the elementary and secondary schools I think we have unfortunately a deficit of great teaching. And the reason why we have a deficit of great teaching although there are truly fabulous wonderful teachers in in our K through 12 schools. But I think one of the one of the problems that inhibits greatness in teaching in the schools is that we don't require our future teachers to have degrees in the subjects that they will be teaching. So for instance if you're going to be a chemistry or a mathematics teacher or a history teacher in a secondary school for instance you should have in my view a major in that subject. Because I mean when you when you actually stand in front of a classroom oddly enough it's important that you actually know what you're talking about right that you have a deep and abiding knowledge of the subject. And then the second thing you have to have in the classroom because the students they see this you have to have a love and a passion for the subject. But it turns out you can only love and passion for the subject. If you've actually studied the subject you have to. You have to know what it is. That's how you get the love and the passion for it. So the two worked together hand in hand and then the third thing I think is teaching is not a science. Teaching is an art. And the best way to learn the art of teaching is to is to observe great teachers. And I think we have to find a better way and this is true not only at the elementary and secondary level levels but even I think at universities we have to put our future teachers and professors in front of master teachers to see how they do it because it's it is an acquired skill right. And there are tricks to the trade. And and but it's something that can be learned but you don't learn about how to be a great teacher. From a textbook on how to be a great teacher you learn how to be a great teacher by watching great teacher.
[00:36:20] Yeah. And Kirk how about you. How do you feel about the teaching of teaching.
[00:36:27] Well I think those are great observations by Professor Thompson and I entirely agree. You really need to know the subject. But the passion for the subject I think is really important. The students recognize that and they get excited about it as well. If you're teaching a subject in a way that has no Verve it's hard to expect them to have any passion for the subject. For heaven's sakes you don't write. So that is something that can go an awfully long way in getting students they can watch your excitement and your passion and love for the subject. And that's often infectious when we see someone do something that he or she loves to do and is good at doing then. We want that.
[00:37:23] Right.
[00:37:23] We want that experience.
[00:37:25] Yeah great. Well it's time for another musical break and when we come back I'd love to talk to both of you about your writing process. I'm very interested in how we do what we do and ask as creators and writing and doing all different kinds of things and so I loved it. Sort of. I see some questions about how both of you view your own writing processes but in the meantime we have a song and this is a special song for Professor Thompson. Because of the song that he mentioned yesterday when we had one of our meetings this is a song from the Smashing Pumpkins and it's 1979 and you had mentioned this song sort of as an icon of your childhood. Is that right.
[00:38:12] Yes so the YouTube video of this song basically summed up my life as a profligate teenager in southern Ontario. So I I recognize myself in the video.
[00:38:27] Well there you have it. OK well this is the Smashing Pumpkins and it's 1979 and this is the A.P.E.X Hour Thunder 91.1.
[00:42:52] Ok Well welcome back to the A.P.E.X Hour That was the Smashing Pumpkins 1979 in that particular version was the remastered version from 2012. This is KSUU Thunder 91.1 and we are back with Brad Thompson and Kirk Fitzpatrick and now we're going to get into talking a little bit about the writing process. So Kirk if I could start with you I'm curious about your writing process. Is it something that you work on at certain periods of time or is it something that's kind of always ongoing. Do you have certain rituals you have a lot of editing. What's the process like.
[00:43:29] It's something that goes on and on and on and on and on. And I know a project to finish and you'll take a little break a couple of weeks and be glad. And then you start to miss the process. And once it becomes habitual. Get right back to it. I'm often surprised in the process of writing with reading what I've written as I write. And most of it gets on the on the floor on the cutting room floor. And I see things connections that maybe have developed over a period of weeks that I didn't see happening as they happened and then I start reading a manuscript and seeing things even though I wrote it seeing things that I connections I hadn't seen. I enjoy the process an awful lot. It's a labor of love. It's a lot of work. It's often frustrating. Most of what I write never sees the light of day but sometimes it comes together and you can say OK I've thought through that important or interesting idea. I think I understand it better than I did.
[00:44:43] And you mention the cutting room floor or the editing process. Do you keep everything or once it's gone it's gone never to be seen again.
[00:44:52] Well they're in the electronic files so I don't actually put them in the trash and take it out usually but in the multiple drafts as we get up into 20 and 30 drafts there's an awful lot there that just didn't end up. Sometimes it's not that it wasn't well done but it doesn't end up fitting in the final project. And those are sometimes the hardest cuts to make. You write something in your attached to it and it works well and it doesn't end up fitting in the paper as the paper comes together.
[00:45:27] And what are you working on right now. Where is your research taking you.
[00:45:30] Right now I'm over the last 10 years I've been working on a series of essays on Plato's Republic leadership in Plato's Republic and I correlated the musical modes with constitutions and specified what those notes were and then went through the proper meters and correlated them with the constitutions and the content of stories and talked about the constitutions and then realized after about eight years nine years of this oh my gosh this is actually a coherent work. And when I put them together I now can actually play the musical notes that Plato has attached to the aristocracy and democracy oligarchy democracy and tyranny. So I hope in you mentioned the Greek lawyer I hope in the next six months to get those put together and actually let the world hear exactly what it was that Plato was referring to in the Republic.
[00:46:34] That is so cool. Fascinating. I can't wait and are are those articles in they're separated form available right now if anybody's interested in getting at them or should they wait for the compiled version.
[00:46:46] Yes. They've all been published independently because I didn't know they would I didn't know if they would fall fall apart or fall together. And so they've all been published out in different sources and so now I have to book and chapters I need to write an introduction to the book. And then the appendix which will actually have hopefully access to a file to hear the music that just sounds like such a great project it will be on the lookout for that. Thank you.
[00:47:17] And as soon as it is published we will have to have you come back and talk about all of it and maybe play some of it for us. Thank you. I would love to. That sounds great. Well Brad we were talking a little bit about you or about your writing process and I'd love to know more and more detail and I know you have a book that's just finished and coming out already out or coming out.
[00:47:37] It will be coming out next year.
[00:47:38] Okay great. Can you tell us a little bit about that.
[00:47:41] Sure. So I've just completed a book the title of which is America's revolutionary mind: a moral history of the American Revolution and the declaration that defined it. Wow. And it's the intellectual history of the American Revolution that focuses on the Declaration of Independence. And there's kind of an interesting story behind the writing of this book. So in June of 2016 I read a very bad book on the Declaration of Independence that offended all of my sensibilities the sensibilities that I had formed when I was 7 years old when I read the how and why wonder book of the American Revolution. And so I said this can't stand. And I was actually in the middle of almost three quarters of the way through finishing another book project. I said this cannot stand. I've got to write my own book on the Declaration of Independence so I gave myself the following task which was I said you can take some time off from finishing the other book and write a book on the Declaration of Independence. But the caveat was it had to be written in one year.
[00:48:55] Oh wow.
[00:48:55] So on July 1st 2016 I started writing this book which would become America's revolutionary mind and to my my own surprise 600 pages later I finished it on June 30th 2017 exactly one year to the day. How did you pace yourself. So I have a pretty strict writing regiment. I get up every morning seven days a week at four thirty five o'clock now and I get a cup of coffee and I'm writing or just working by 6:00. And I usually try to work until about noon so I get six hours in every day seven days a week. Wow. So I just block out this big chunk of time. And this particular book I'm very proud to say I wrote in a new office that I have which I call my redneck office. I love it. And my redneck office is two Adirondack chairs put together side by side with a cooler beside one of them and I have my laptop on the armrest and all of my books sitting on the cooler beside me on the other side and my redneck office is at the very bottom of my driveway facing the backyard. That's so and because you know South Carolina's reasonably warm and throughout the year. I mean I was able to to right outside in my redneck office and then the the only time I can is when it rains and I just move it into my garage. And so this book was written at the bottom of my driveway and we're in my garage last year.
[00:50:54] I think that's beautiful. Within a year's time with this gorgeous view and just having the air hit your skin and everything it's just an incredible thing. I love it. That's fantastic. Tell us one more time for our listeners the title and when it would be available right.
[00:51:08] So the title of the book is America's revolutionary mind. A moral history of the American Revolution and the declaration that defined it. And it's going to be published with a trade publisher Encounter Books and I'm not sure on the exact publication date but it'll be sometime in 2019.
[00:51:32] Okay great. Well we'll be on the lookout for that. Well I can't believe we're almost out of time but I have to do my favorite thing which we do every week here which is what's turning you on this week and it's this can be anything it can be. TV it could be a podcast that could be music it could be a song. It could be a movie. It could be a book. It could be anything. It's just sort of one of these off the cuff questions. You know what kind of something that really caught your fancy this week. Anybody have an idea of when they want to start.
[00:52:07] Well sure for me and it comes as a result of being here in Cedar City and giving my talks today on liberal education. I had cause to listen again to my absolute favorite piece of music which is Gregorio which I really honestly think is the single most beautiful piece of music ever composed. And it's a piece of music that when I was a very young man in my early 20s it it had a profound impact on me.
[00:52:44] Ah that's beauty and we've been talking about this piece quite a bit. Would you care to share that story because it's actually quite unique. I mean we almost didn't have this piece or know about this piece.
[00:52:54] Yeah. No it's it's an extraordinary story. So it was composed by Gregorio Allegre in 1638 approximately. And it was it was only to be played in the Sistine Chapel at the Vatican twice a year. And so for almost 150 years the only people in the entire world who heard this piece of music were people who were visiting the Sistine Chapel on those two days. And there was a the pope's all Pope's between the time was composed until 1770 had forbade it from being transcribed and shared with the rest of the world. And then in 1770 a 14 year old boy was visiting the Vatican in the Sistine Chapel and they just happened to be playing a flag raised Missouri on. On that day and it was a boy genius and he went home to his apartment after he heard it and he transcribed it from memory. And that 14 year old boy's name was. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
[00:54:05] That's a great story. Oh I haven't heard that piece it's really a beautiful vocal ensemble work and it's two different vocal groups that are are playing and singing. One is in a more sort of traditional style and one is a little bit more of an ornamented style. So definitely check it out. Well Kirk how about you. What's turning you on this week.
[00:54:29] One thing I've been playing around with this week is investigating the difference between the older style of tuning the just tuning as opposed to the well tempered by mathematically some of the differences that happened when we went to the well tempered system and I got an app tuner that allows me to use the just tuning and to I've been tuning some of my guitars to ancient Pythagorean modes and playing around with them getting ready for my life to come. And so hopefully I'll be ready. I'm just fascinated that music changed so much that there's so much dissonance in and in modern music contemporary music and how pure like almost sweet the older tuning methods were.
[00:55:26] Yeah and that that is so that's so amazing. I mean I've when I've worked with some vocal ensembles for example the Hilliard Ensemble is one of these great British singing group and they they specialize in a lot of this older style of tuning and basically just to put it in a nutshell that the distance between the notes on the piano is not the same as it has been for the last 250 years then. And so what Kirk is speaking about is this difference in tuning that has happened in instruments but that is quite a topic to be tuning in playing in those tuning system. Fascinating. That's amazing.
[00:56:04] It's very strange how different it sounds and trying to train your ear absolutely hear the difference.
[00:56:11] Absolutely yeah. Well that's a that conversation we're going to have at a time. Well thank you for sharing that. Well that's about all the time that we have today. I'd like to say thank you so much to my guests Professor Thompson and Professor Kirk Fitzpatrick. Thank you so much for being with me today and sharing your time I really appreciate it.
[00:56:30] Thank you very much.
[00:56:32] All right well we're going to sign off for now and we will look forward to seeing you next week and listening to the A.P.E.X Hour
[00:56:39] So much for listening to the A.P.E.X Hour here on KSUU Thunder 91.1 Come find us again next Thursday at 3pm for more conversations with the visiting guests at Southern Utah University and new music to discover for your next playlist. And in the meantime we would love to see what our band on campus. Find out more. Check out suu.edu/apex Until next week. This Lynn Vartan saying goodbye from the A.P.E.X Hour here on Thunder 91.1
