Vanquishing the Enemy: Sports, War, and... Seminar, with Sarah Davis and Julie Reahard

Continuing the Conversation: a Great Books podcast by St. John’s College

What is the relationship between sports and war? And what is seminar's relationship to both? In this episode, Santa Fe host Sarah Davis and tutor Julie Reahard talk about Reahard’s passion for sports, her long-running commitment to the St. John's ice hockey team, and whether her experiences on the court are similar to those that play out on the battlefield of great texts like the Iliad and War and Peace.

As the conversation continues, the two stumble across an unexpected connection to sports and war: the competitive instincts that can arise in seminar, in which participants desire to vanquish their ideological opponents; these instincts are common and real, but also stand in tension with the college's dialectical approach to conversation.

From conversational cooperation to sportsmanlike competition to brutal war, this episode takes us on a journey through the best and worst of human nature.