Clarion

A LIBER FOR RON DART: THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY

Apr 20, 2024 |

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THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY:

Thrownness, Memoricide & the Great Tradition

Liber Amicorum for RON S. DART

Volume 1&2 

 

Edited by

Matthew Steem & Wayne Northey

Upon Dr. Ron Dart's retirement in 2023 from a long teaching career at the University of the Fraser Valley, Abbotsford BC, Canada, friends suggested doing a Festschrift in his honour — not uncommon for a retiring academic. Ron wanted something different, though: a "Liber Amicorum" — A Book of Friends. So, as if to a Banquet, we asked him to send out the invitations. But in this case, it was to be a potluck, with the guests providing all the main courses. Thus was this two-volume work born: a veritable smorgasbord of delectables for heart, mind, and soul.

In it readers will find, interwoven with the overarching grand theme of friendship — a lost art in our pathologically individualistic Western world — reflections on art, poetry, politics, Christianity, justice, peace, Friedrich Nietzsche, Hermann Hesse, The Beats, Simone Weil, George Grant, George Herbert, German Pietism, Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Evelyn Underhill, Erasmus of Rotterdam, Islam, T. S. Eliot, C. S. Lewis, Jonathan Swift, liberalism/conservativism, High/Red Tories of North America, The Great Tradition, mountaineering, Ancient Greek Wisdom, Israel-Palestine tragedy, environmentalism, pedagogy, mentoring, the apophatic and cataphatic ways of knowing God, contemplation, theology, philosophy, modernity/post-modernity, etc. — all themes in Dr. Dart's voluminous writings (over 40 books), academic courses, and more!

Ron explains further:

I have titled this reflection “The Scholar-Gipsy” for the simple reason that many a decade ago, when doing a class in Victorian Prose, I was held and addressed by Matthew Arnold’s longer poem of the same name. I have many an affinity with the “scholar-gipsy” and have never wavered in my attraction to this evocative poem — so a portal and doorway into my soul. Quietly and meditatively, I sit with “The Scholar-Gipsy.”

May we the readers follow Ron's example.

A hearty welcome to the Banquet!
 
Available Now on Amazon and Kindle

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