The Brass Spittoon Podcast

Living Outside the Machine

Ashley Colby, founder of the Rizoma Field School, digs up inspiring true stories of resistance and restoration (with references to donkeys, elephants, and our 49th state).   Bill Kauffman, author and regular conference closer, weaves Wisconsin professors of the past and the robo-umps of tomorrow into a seamless and side-splitting...

Brian Miller on Kayaking with Lambs

Brian Miller visits the porch to talk about his new book chronicling life on a Tennessee farm. Highlights 1:30       Bayou Bengal Volunteer farmer 5:45       A monastic text 11:15    Man of letters 14:00    Pesto chango 15:30    Remote control 18:00    Growing pains 23:00    Lamb on the lam 27:15    The rest of the story Resources Buy the book An excerpt at FPR Brian’s farm...

Humane Politics

Adam Smith, a philosopher at the University of Dubuque, counterattacks the disenchanted War on Suffering.  FPR President Mark Mitchell goes biblical to bring down a heightened politics of insanity.  Brass Spittoon podcaster John Murdock looks at a key architect of religious politics and wonders what might happen if his...

Human Responses to Technology

Jeff Bilbro, FPR’s super-beaver EIC and Grove City College professor, looks to ancient mythology to assess modern technology and fiction of the future.  Cassandra Nelson of the University of Virginia’s Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture is stuck in the middle, a bit like AI itself.  Author, teacher, and...

Imagining Life Beyond the Machine: Eric Miller and Jason Peters

Eric Miller, biographer of Christopher Lasch and a professor at Geneva College, plus longtime porcher Jason Peters of Hillsdale College address the role of imagination in shaping our shared reality.  Matt Stewart, an associate editor of the FPR website, introduces this duo that has impacted his life in important...

Paul Kingsnorth and “The Blizzard of the World”

Paul Kingsnorth delivered the keynote address at the 2023 FPR conference in Madison, Wisconsin.  With help from a diverse band of fellow travelers including Jewish-Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, Anglo-Catholic social critic Malcolm Muggeridge, and the prophetic French-Egyptian Sufi Rene Guenon, the unexpectedly Irish Orthodox Kingsnorth takes listeners on a...

Paul Kingsnorth’s Opening Prayer

Paul Kingsnorth, the keynote speaker at the 2023 FPR conference in Madison, Wisconsin, begins things with a bonus talk on the power of prayer in a desecrated western world.    Highlights  1:15 Mark Mitchell’s welcome  4:00 Paul flies in  5:30 A long list of labels  7:30 Roots and power  8:15 My neighbor Vinny (and his dying...

Bill Kauffman in Conversation

Bill Kauffman, author of multiple books including Poetry Night at the Ballpark and long the closing speaker at FPR conferences, talks about the origins of Front Porch Republic and his unique life of letters.    Host:     John Murdock Guest:  Bill Kauffman Highlights 1:30       Defending the homeland 2:30       The Closer 7:45       Muckdog memories 12:15    Perfectly sized 15:00   ...

After Virtual: Civic Life

The After Virtual conference podcast series closes with a focus on civics and cemeteries.  Mark Mitchell, author of Plutocratic Socialism, talks on, well, plutocrats and socialism (plus the importance of property ownership to maintaining the republic).  Rachel Ferguson, author of Black Liberation Through the Marketplace, highlights the historic role...

After Virtual: Health

The penultimate session from the FPR conference After Virtual:  The Art of Recovering Lost Goods addresses health.  Philosopher Adam Smith from the University of Dubuque and medical doctor Brian Volck, author of Attending Others: A Doctor’s Education in Bodies and Words, take on the medical/industrial complex (with assists from...

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