Episodes
Saturday Feb 12, 2022
The Time That is Given Us: Productivity and Leisure in the Modern Age
Saturday Feb 12, 2022
Saturday Feb 12, 2022
“I now see that I spent most of my life in doing neither what I ought nor what I liked”.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Risking Enchantment is back for 2022, and in our first episode back Rachel is joined by Phoebe, to discuss our resolutions for how we hope to spend our time in the coming year. Using the above quote as inspiration, we discuss how to balance productivity with leisure, how schedules enable us to achieve our goals but can also lead us into the tyranny of efficiency, and how leisure is part of God’s plan for us but in our modern age true leisure is hard to achieve. We look to literary references to help us understand how best to spend our time, whether it’s the story of nuns and the tolling bell of their schedule in Rumer Godden’s book In This House of Brede, or Fran Lebowitz’s life of idleness as listed her humorous book Metropolitan Life.
Music: Ashton Manor by Kevin MacLeod
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Phoebe Watson
Follow me on social media: @seekingwatson
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
Works Mentioned in this Episode:
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis
“The Lost Art of Intentionality” - Word on Fire
From The Writing Life by Annie Dillard
Idle Moments: Literary Loafers through the Ages and Pages - The Slightly Foxed Podcast
The Fran Lebowitz Reader by Fran Lebowitz
Heretics by G.K. Chesterton
The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien
In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden
The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise by Cardinal Robert Sarah
Wonder in a Digital Age - Born of Wonder podcast
“Burnt Norton” by T.S. Eliot
“The Three Sicknesses of U.S. Society: Racism, Poverty, and War” by Martin Luther King Jr
What We're Enjoying at the Moment:
Phoebe: The Lord of the Rings, audiobook read by Rob Inglis
Rachel: That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis
Thursday Dec 23, 2021
The Humility and Extravagance of Christmas
Thursday Dec 23, 2021
Thursday Dec 23, 2021
“The more we are proud that the Bethlehem story is plain enough to be understood by the shepherds, and almost by the sheep, the more do we let ourselves go, in dark and gorgeous imaginative frescoes or pageants about the mystery and majesty of the Three Magian Kings.” - G.K. Chesterton
For our last episode of 2021, Phoebe is back again to discuss the wonderful paradox in celebrating Christmas that calls for both humility and extravagance. We discuss the mystery of the Christmas story, and the deep humility that Christ demonstrates to us in coming as a child in a manager, as well as our responding call to humility and generosity. We also discuss our need for splendour in our liturgies but also in our culture and our surroundings. We delve into the magic of The Nutcracker Ballet and the splendour to be found in our own Christmas decorations.
We hope you enjoy the episode and wish you all a very Merry Christmas and blessings for the new year ahead.
Music: Ashton Manor by Kevin MacLeod
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Phoebe Watson
Follow me on social media: @seekingwatson
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
The Nutcracker - Royal Opera House
“The House of Christmas” by G.K. Chesterton
Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany by St. Augustine
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham
By the Shores of Silver Lake by Laura Ingalls Wilder
What’s Wrong with the World by G.K. Chesterton
Adela Cathcart by George MacDonald
“A Letter About Christmas” by Ronald Knox
“Preface to Paradise Lost” by C.S. Lewis
All Things Considered by G.K. Chesterton
What We’re Enjoying at the Moment
Phoebe: The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald
Rachel: Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives by Pope Benedict XVI
Friday Dec 10, 2021
Stories that Endure: Reading the Classics
Friday Dec 10, 2021
Friday Dec 10, 2021
“A classic is a book that has never finished saying what it has to say.” - Italo Calvino
In this episode Rachel and Phoebe are back to discuss Classic literature, what is it and why does it matter? We take a look at our own reading journeys and our hopes to try to become “well-read”, as well as a look at what Classic literature means to us, the question of whether all reading is good reading, and the tips and tricks that have helped us tackle bigger and more imposing books.
We’d love to hear your own experiences and favourite classics, as well as any feedback about what the classics mean to you, and what books you think should be included.
Music: Ashton Manor by Kevin MacLeod
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Phoebe Watson
Follow me on social media: @seekingwatson
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
Works Mentioned
Why Read the Classics by Italo Calvino
“On the Reading of Old Books” by C.S. Lewis
84 Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
The Collected Letters of CS Lewis, volume III: Narnia, Cambridge, and Joy 1950-1963
The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis
“Little Gidding” by T.S. Eliot
“The need for more Catholic authors” by Niall Gooch
Slightly Foxed Quartley Magazine
“End of audiobook snobbery as scientists find reading and listening activates the same parts of the brain”
What We’re Enjoying at the Moment
Phoebe: Wolfwalkers (2020) (Listen to our episode about Cartoon Saloon’s film’s here)
Rachel: Journals and Magazine - Slightly Foxed, The Lamp, Leaven, Country Living Magazine
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Meaningful Remembrance: The Great War and its Commemoration
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Tuesday Nov 16, 2021
Who will remember, passing through this Gate,
the unheroic dead who fed the guns?
Who shall absolve the foulness of their fate,-
Those doomed, conscripted, unvictorious ones?"
Siegfried Sassoon, 'On Passing The New Menin Gate'
November has for many centuries held a place for Catholics as the Month of the Dead, a time to reflect and pray for the departed. In the last century it has also become the month of commemorating The First World War as well as soldiers and veterans more broadly. In this episode of Risking Enchantment, Greg Daly joins us to discuss The Great War, how we remember it, how we commemorate it, and the complexities surrounding these commemorations.
We discuss the prevalence of poppies in Remembrance services, where that tradition comes from and why there is more to commemoration than paper flowers. We look at the experiences of those on the Western Front in the First World War and the soldier’s own complex feelings about topics such as heroism, morality and commemoration. Finally we also touch on the importance of incorporating their Christian faith into our remembrance of them.
Music: Ashton Manor by Kevin MacLeod
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Greg Daly
Follow me on social media: @seekingwatson
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Follow Greg on social media: @GregDalyIC, @thirstygargoyle
http://thethirstygargoyle.blogspot.com/
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Find out more about Leaven Magazine at https://leavenmagazine.ie/
Works Mentioned
“Why has Remembrance become weird?” by Niall Gooch
“The Future of Memory: Remembrance In Years To Come” by Niall Gooch
“In Flander’s Field” by John McCrae
“We Shall Keep the Faith” by Moina Michael
“On Passing the New Menin Gate” by Siegfried Sassoon
Blueprint for Armageddon - Hardcore History, podcast by Dan Carlin
They Shall Not Grow Old, dir. Peter Jackson
The Two Towers by J.R.R. Tolkien
Now It Can Be Told by Philip Gibbs
What we’re enjoying at the moment:
Greg: Fraiser, Purgatorio, and Hell Boy Mark Minola
Rachel:
O Brother Where Art Thou,
The Hound of Death, by Agatha Christie, audiobook read by Christopher Lee
Friday Oct 22, 2021
Friday Oct 22, 2021
"I looked at her, with my mind full of that other lovely face which had so ominously recalled her to my memory on the terrace by moonlight. I had seen Anne Catherick's likeness in Miss Fairlie. I now saw Miss Fairlie's likeness in Anne Catherick."
- Wilkie Collins, The Woman in White
We are joined for this episode of Risking Enchantment by Catholic author Eleanor Bourg Nicholson. Eleanor has recently published two Gothic novels, A Bloody Habit (2018) and Brother Wolf (2021). She joins us to talk about the Gothic genre, and why it's both relevant and interesting to Catholic writers and readers. We also delve into the theme of gothic doubles, a theme powerfully explored in many of the classic novels of the genre including Dracula, Frankenstein and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
We also look at how the trope is explored in Sensation fiction, a genre adjacent to Gothic fiction, in particular in the novel The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. While Gothic fiction has the source of its uncanny doubling in the preternatural and phantasmagorical, Sensation fiction looks to the find the horror in the real societal problems found in the Victorian Age. Where the former genre examines how find ourselves reflected in the falleness of literal monsters, the latter genre examines how we find ourselves reflected in the villany and duplicity of our society.
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
Follow Rachel on social media: @seekingwatson
Follow Eleanor on Facebook here.
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
Buy A Bloody Habit by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson here.
Buy Brother Wolf by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson here.
Find out more about Eleanor Bourg Nicholson's work with Homeschool Connections here.
Related Risking Enchantment Episodes:
Dracula: The Presence of Evil and the Power of Sacramentals
Monsters and Morality in Romanticism
Works Mentioned:
A Bloody Habit by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
Brother Wolf by Eleanor Bourg Nicholson
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins
Dracula by Bram Stoker
Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Victorian Age in Literature by G.K. Chesterton
What We're Enjoying at the Moment:
Eleanor: The Lord of the Rings on Audiobook
Rachel: The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke
Monday Oct 11, 2021
Stranger Things in Stranger Times: Navigating Nostalgia in the Digital Age
Monday Oct 11, 2021
Monday Oct 11, 2021
“For us, we like going back to a time—and I’m sure nostalgia is feeding into that—where cell phones and the internet weren’t around. If you went off with friends, it felt like you really could get lost on a grand adventure.”
- The Duffer Brothers
In this episode of Risking Enchantment I'm joined by Robyn Conroy, a professional animator who previously joined us for our episodes 'Cartoon Saloon: Celtic and Christian Coexistence' and 'The Prince of Egypt: An Epic in Animation'.
This time she joins us to discuss the hit Netflix series Stranger Things. Set in the 1980s in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, Stranger Things is a sci-fi horror series centered on the supernatural events occurring around the town, including the appearance of a girl with psychic and telepathic abilities.
In the episode we discuss our love for the show and it's grounding in the virtues of loyalty, friendship and courage. We also talk about the complicated relationship our society has with the past and nostalgia, as typified by the success of Stranger Thing's 80's setting. We look at the negative effect of an over reliance on nostalgia, as well as a look at how the digital age might be impacting our ability to embrace the present and even encounter the mystery of our faith.
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Robyn Conroy
Follow Rachel on social media: @seekingwatson
Follow Robyn on Instagram: @robynconroyart
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
Works Mentioned:
Stranger Things, created by The Duffer Brothers
"Why do we like 'Stranger Things' so much? A BYU professor explains"
On Fairy Stories by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Past Is a Foreign Country—Revisited by David Lowenthal
"Jack Antonoff has a 'Strange Desire' for the '80s"
1999 by Charli XCX
2002 by Anne-Marie
The 90s by Finneas
Coney Island ft. The National by Taylor Swift
"‘Stranger Things’ is all too familiar"
"The Strangness of Stranger Things"
What We're Enjoying at the Moment
Robyn: Take the Sadness out of Saturday Night by Bleacher
Rachel: An American in Paris
Friday Sep 24, 2021
Tolkien: A Thoroughly Modern Medievalist featuring Dr. Holly Ordway
Friday Sep 24, 2021
Friday Sep 24, 2021
"One writes such a story [The Lord of the Rings] not out of the leaves of trees still to be observed, nor by means of botany and soil-science; but it grows like a seed in the dark out of the leaf-mold of the mind: out of all that has been seen or thought or read, that has long ago been forgotten, descending into the deeps."
- J.R.R. Tolkien
For this episode we are delighted to be joined by Dr. Holly Ordway, Fellow of Faith and Culture at the Word on Fire Institute. We discuss her recent title, Tolkien's Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages, which addresses the claim that Tolkien read very little modern fiction, and took no serious notice of it. What Holly reveals is that Tolkien was in fact was intimately connected with the literature of his own time and concerned with the issues and crises of modernity.
In this episode we discuss Holly's book and also take an in-depth look at some of the themes in Tolkien's writings that may have been influenced by this interest in modern literature.
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Dr Holly Ordway
Follow Rachel on social media: @seekingwatson
Follow Holly on social media: @HollyOrdway
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Find out more about Holly at http://www.hollyordway.com/
Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
Music: Ashton Manor by Kevin MacLeod
Works Mentioned
- Tolkien’s Modern Reading: Middle-earth Beyond the Middle Ages by Dr Holly Ordway
- "Imaginative Apologetics" by Dr Holly Ordway - Word on Fire Institute Course
- The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien
- The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
- Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
- Tolkien and the Great War by John Garth
- The House of the Wolfings by William Morris
- “The Ruin”, Anglo-Saxon elegy
What We’re Enjoying at the Moment
Holly: Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
Rachel: Inside by Bo Burnham
Wednesday Sep 08, 2021
Dante and Creation: Encountering God in Eden, Featuring Matthew Rothaus Moser
Wednesday Sep 08, 2021
Wednesday Sep 08, 2021
"[T]he first aim of Dante, in his landscape imagery [in the Earthly Paradise], is to show evidence of this perfect liberty, and of the purity and sinlessness of the new nature, converting pathless ways into happy ones."
- John Ruskin
For the first episode back from the summer Rachel is joined by Theology Professor Matthew Rothaus Moser to discuss Dante's Divine Comedy and its themes of nature and Creation.
Matthew Rothaus Moser is Theology Professor at Azusa Pacific University. He has a recently published title Love Itself is Understanding: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Theology of the Saints and has a forthcoming title Dante and the Poetic Practice of Theology.
To mark the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death, in this episode Rachel and Matthew discuss the depictions of nature in The Divine Comedy, in particular the end of Purgatorio where Dante enters Eden. We trace how Dante builds the imagery of forests, trees, rivers and more over the course of the Comedy. We discuss the various themes and theology that Dante is exploring with this imagery, from humanity’s current state of exile from the Garden of Earthly Delights, to the power of natural contemplation to turn us towards God, to the ways in which God reveals himself to us through his creation.
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Matthew Rothaus Moser
Follow me on social media: @seekingwatson
Follow Matthew on Twitter: @M_Rothaus_Moser
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
Music: Ashton Manor by Kevin MacLeod
Works Mentioned:
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri
La Vita Nuova by Dante Alighieri
Sacred and Profane Love Podcast: Episodes 32,33,34
The Divine Ideas Tradition in Christian Mystical Theology by Mark A. McIntosh
“Narrator and Landscape in the "Commedia": An Approach to Dante's Earthly Paradise”
Kenneth A. Bleeth
After Dinner Scholar Podcast: Dante: “The Infinite Beauty of the World” with Dr. Jason Baxter
Dante: Knowing Oneself, Knowing God, by Christian Moev
“Scripture as Enigma: Biblical Allusion in Dante's Earthly Paradise” by Eleanor Cook
“All Smiles: Poetry and Theology in Dante” by Peter S. Hawkins
Orchestra: or a Poeme of Dauncing by Sir John Davies
What We’re Enjoying At the Moment
Matthew
Looking East in Winter Contemporary Thought and the Eastern Christian Tradition by Rowan Williams
The California Mountains
Rachel
The Rat Catcher’s Olympics by Colin Cotterill
Friday Jun 04, 2021
Keeping Your Word: Unfashionable Virtues in North and South
Friday Jun 04, 2021
Friday Jun 04, 2021
“[God] gave you strength to do what your conscience told you was right; and I don’t see that we need any higher or holier strength than that; or wisdom either."
- Elizabeth Gaskell, North and South
In this episode Rachel and Phoebe discuss North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell. Often dubbed ‘The Victorian Pride and Prejudice’ it is a wonderful love story but also a story of class struggles, the industrial revolution and religious turmoil. Throughout all these themes is Gaskell’s exploration of the importance of following your conscience, maintaining your principles and speaking and acting honestly. Rachel and Phoebe look at the ways in which each of these ‘unfashionable virtues’ are represented in the novel, and why they still apply to us in the modern day.
After this episode, Risking Enchantment will be taking a break over the summer and will return in September. To get notified when it returns, or to keep up to date with any additional content, sign up to our newsletter at: Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Phoebe Watson
Follow me on social media: @seekingwatson
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
Music: Ashton Manor by Kevin MacLeod
Works Mentioned:
North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
Story of a Soul: The Autobiography of St. Thérèse of Lisieux by Thérèse de Lisieux
Illustrated London News by G.K. Chesterton
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
What's Wrong with the World by G.K. Chesterton
"The Inner Ring" by C.S. Lewis
What We're Enjoying at the Moment
Phoebe: Garden's World
Rachel: From Up on Poppy Hill (film. 2013), Whisper of the Heart (film. 1995)
Friday May 21, 2021
Lost in the Cosmos: Exploring Modernity and the Self with Walker Percy
Friday May 21, 2021
Friday May 21, 2021
“Why is it that of all the billions and billions of strange objects in the Cosmos - novas, quasars, pulsars, black holes - you are beyond doubt the strangest”
- Walker Percy Lost in the Cosmos
In this episode Rachel is joined by Shane Jenkins to discuss Walker Percy’s satirical self-help book Lost in the Cosmos. In this book Percy explores ideas of the self, as well as the problems of modernity, scientism, identity crisis, and the breakdown of meaning in the modern age. Lost is the Cosmos is a complex and often troubling book but it also contains many keen observations and humorous moments.
Hosts: Rachel Sherlock, Shane Jenkins
Follow us on social media: @seekingwatson @shanekins
Follow the podcast on Instagram: @riskingenchantmentpodcast
Find out more at www.rachelsherlock.com
Sign up for our email list at www.rachelsherlock.com/podcast
Music: Ashton Manor by Kevin MacLeod
Works Mentioned
Lost in the Cosmos by Walker Percy
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
“Everything is Broken” Tablet by Alana Newhouse
Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor
Thoughts after Lambeth by T.S. Eliot
“Is Pope Francis Anti-Modern?” The New Atlantis by M. Anthony Mills
What We’re Enjoying at the Moment
Shane: Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr.
Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Hippo Campus (band)
Rachel: Tickets to my Downfall by MGK (album)