This collection of essays aims to explore fundamental questions about God, human nature, and political life through careful readings of the Greek poets, the Hebrew Bible, and Shakespeare. The volume investigates the abiding tension between the Hebraic and the Hellenic dimensions of the Western soul through an examination of profound literary, philosophic, and theological reflections on topics as various as friendship, marriage, tyranny, sovereignty, sin, forgiveness, comedy, tragedy, and contemplation. Offered in honor of Mera J. Flaumenhaft, the essays reflect the intellectual rigor, moral seriousness, and disciplined imagination of her scholarship and teaching.

No, that diminutive but independent vocable, begins its great role early in human life and never loses it. For not only can it head a negative sentence, announcing its judgement, or answer a question, implying its negated content, it can, and mostly does, in the beginning of speech, express an assertion of the resistant will sometimes just that and nothing more. The adult antiphony to the toddler's incessant no is another no, that of preventive command, and the great commandments of later life continue to be prohibitions: Nine of the Ten Commandments are in the negative. Eva Brann explores nothingness in the third book of her trilogy, which has treated imagination, time and now naysaying. If we want to understand something of imagination, memory and time, she argues, we must mount an inquiry into what it means to say something is not what it claims to be or is not there or is nonexistent or is affected by Nonbeing.

Responding to volatile criticisms frequently leveled at Leo Strauss and those he influenced, the prominent contributors to this volume demonstrate the profound influence that Strauss and his students have exerted on American liberal democracy and contemporary political thought. By stressing the enduring vitality of classic books and by articulating the theoretical and practical flaws of relativism and historicism, the contributors argue that Strauss and the Straussians have identified fundamental crises of modernity and liberal democracy. This book emphasizes the broad range of Strauss's influence, from literary criticism to constitutional thought, and it denies the existence of a monolithic Straussian political orthodoxy. Both critics and supporters of Strauss' thought are included. All political theorists interested in Strauss's extraordinary impact on political thought will want to read this book.

In "Feeling Our Feelings," Eva Brann considers what the great philosophers on the passions and feelings have thought and written about them. She examines the relevant work of Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, Aquinas, Descartes, Spinoza, Adam Smith, Hume, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, and also includes a chapter on contemporary studies on the brain. "Feeling Our Feelings" provides a comprehensive look at this pervasive and elusive topic.

Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for fifty years. She holds an MA in classics and a PhD in archaeology from Yale University.

Plato's "Sophist" takes the form of a conversation between four characters - Socrates, the great philosopher who is shortly to be tried for impiety and corruption, Theaetetus, a brilliant young mathematician, Theaetetus' elderly teacher Theodorus, and a stranger introduced as "a very philosophical man". The conversation, often considered one of the greatest of all Platonic dialogues, concerns "the purveyor of ignorance" - the sophist. In the Greece of Socrates' time there was a group of travelling professors who gave themselves the honorary title of "sophists", or "wisdom-pliers". Their principle activity was to sell their expertise, particularly of rhetorical techniques and of philosophical opinions. This trading of philosophical insight by those believing themselves to be universal experts is politely but devastatingly undermined by Socrates and his interlocutors, in this, one of the most important of Plato's extant philosophical texts.

A first rate translation at a reasonable price. --Michael Rohr, Rutgers University

"It is a wonder and a delight to be led by Eva Brann through the Socratic conversations. She begins from first impressions and moves through perplexity to clarity, without losing the thread. Those who do not know the "Republic," will be initiated into its treasures. Those who believe that it is a great book will understand better what they already know. And all who teach the dialogues will find their souls expanded in the presence of this most generous teacher."--Ann Hartle, Emory University

In this collection of essays, Eva Brann talks with readers about the conversations Socrates has with his fellow Athenians. She shows how Plato's dialogues and the timeless matters they address remain important to us today. From introductory pieces on the "Republic," the "Phaedo," and the "Sophist" to an account of the less well known "Charmides," each essay starts where Plato starts, without presupposing a critical theory. In the title essay's brilliant account of the "Republic," Brann demonstrates its central importance in Plato's work. Other essays consider Plato's notion of time, discuss how to teach Plato to undergraduates' and contend that a thoughtful text-based study of Plato can have a very personal impact on a reader. Encouraged to befriend the dialogues, readers will join in the great Socratic conversations.

Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for more than fifty years.

Translation in English, with an introduction and glossary of key terms. Socrates on death, dying, and the soul. The glossary of key terms is a unique addition to Platonic literature by which concepts central to each dialogue are discussed and cross-referenced as to their occurrences throughout the work. In such a way students are encouraged to see beyond the words into concepts. Modern Students can now appreciate the wisdom of the world's greatest thinkers. Through clear, faithful translations, renowned scholars have made classical philosophical texts accessible and inspirational.

Eva Brann examines the great philosophers and their articulations of the idea of "will." The diversity of thought found in the roughly fifty writers considered here suggests that the term refers not to just one fixed constituent of the "soul," but to many senses--perhaps linked, perhaps disparate.

In her latest collection of essays and lectures, "Homage to Americans," Eva Brann explores the roots and essence of our American ways.

In "Mile-high Meditations," her flight's late departure from the Denver airport prompts a consideration of her manner of waiting (i.e.,"being"). As she looks around, she notes (and compares to her own) the ways her fellow travelers pass their time. These observations lead her to wonder how each of us lives with ourselves and how we live together--and put up with one another.

With these questions in mind, the next two essays carefully examine two famous political documents that have shaped American self-understanding: James Madison's "Memorial and Remonstrance," which is the essential argument for separation of church and state; and Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, which enlarged and refashioned our understanding of the American political character, first given formal expression in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

In "Paradox of Obedience," a lecture delivered at the Air Force Academy, Brann considers the puzzling character of obedience in a country dedicated to liberty.

The concluding piece, "The Empire of the Sun and the West," takes us to Aztec Mexico at the time of the Spanish conquest. What allowed Cortes and his handful of men to overcome a great empire? In pursuit of an answer, Brann describes a human type whose fulfillment she sees in the American character.

Eva Brann has taught at St. John's College in Annapolis for fifty years. Paul Dry Books has published four of her books.

Fifty years of reading Homer -- both alone and with students -- prepared Eva Brann to bring the "Odyssey" and the "Iliad" back to life for today's readers. In "Homeric Moments," she brilliantly conveys the unique delights of Homer's epics as she focuses on the crucial scenes, or moments, that mark the high points of the narratives: Penelope and Odysseus, faithful wife and returning husband, sit face to face at their own hearth for the first time in twenty years; young Telemachus, with his father Odysseus at his side, boldly confronts the angry suitors; Achilles gives way to boundless grief at the death of his friend Patroclus.

Eva Brann demonstrates a way of reading Homer's poems that yields up their hidden treasures. With an alert eye for Homer's extraordinary visual effects and a keen ear for the musicality of his language, she helps the reader see the flickering campfires of the Greeks and hear the roar of the surf and the singing of nymphs. In "Homeric Moments," Brann takes readers beneath the captivating surface of the poems to explore the inner connections and layers of meaning that have made the epics "the marvel of the ages."

"Written with wit and clarity, this book will be of value to those reading the "Odyssey" and the "Iliad" for the first time and to those teaching it to beginners."--"Library Journal"

""Homeric Moments" is a feast for the mind and the imagination, laid out in clear and delicious prose. With Brann, old friends of Homer and new acquaintances alike will rejoice in the beauty, and above all the humanity, of the epics." --Jacob Howland, University of Tulsa, Author of "The Paradox of Political Philosophy"

Eva Brann is a member of the senior faculty at St. John's College in Annapolis, Maryland, where she has taught for over forty years. Brann holds an M.A. in Classics and a Ph.D. in Archaeology from Yale University. Her recent books include "The Ways of Naysaying"; "What, Then, Is Time?"; and "The World of the Imagination." A volume of her selected essays, "The Past-Present," was published in 1997.

This collection of aphorisms and thoughts gathers 30 years of observations about the external world and on the nature of our internal selves. Compiled from scraps of paper dating from the early 1970s, these bits of wisdom include notes about the world around us that are often thought, but not often said; sightings of internal vistas and omens; and observations on music, the passage of time, America, the body, domesticity, and intimacy.