Chavagnes International College

Recorded 7.50pm, 4th March 2021. We hear him calling for hours from spring onwards... he seems to alternate with ordinary owls.

The natural sounds at midnight in March 2021 ... owls, moorhens and cows.

“Arthur Rimbaud: Catholicism and the Art of Blasphemy”, Robert Asch. A talk delivered at the Chavagnes 2020 Summer Conference (online.)

Following calls from recent popes to a rediscovery of the theological virtue of hope, this paper examines a poem dealing specifically with that subject, by Charles Péguy, a French poet who died in 1914 in the early fighting of the First World War. He is a key figure of what has been called the French Catholic revival. His dramatic monologue takes the form of a catechism lesson lesson addressed to the young St. Joan of Arc, in which Hope is portrayed as a little girl. Rooted in a rediscovery of the “real” and under the influence of the philosopher Bergson, Péguy’s message seems to be that a childlike Hope could be the key to a renewal of Faith and Love, and perhaps to a re-energizing of the Christian message. Péguy wrote his poem at a time when France was deeply traumatized by the Franco-Prussian war, the Dreyfus scandal and the anti-clerical purge of the early 20th century. It was a society that had lost is bearings. Many themes of his day are strangely current in our own. This talk was delivered (online) as

OLIVE CUSTANCE WAS the long-suffering wife of Lord Alfred Douglas, the beautiful young man over whom Oscar Wilde lost his reputation, livelihood and family. But at the same time Lord Alfred was holding court in Oxford, his future wife, Olive, was already holding court in London. She ventured into literary society very young, at the age of sixteen in the London of the 1890s, surrounded by admirers of both sexes. A Catholic convert, like her husband, she was also an accomplished poet and her work is now being rediscovered.  This talk was delivered (online) as part of the Chavagnes 2020 Summer conference: Faith and the fin de Siècle.

Join me, Ferdi McDermott, Headmaster of Chavagnes, for a friendly chat about the good old days, with a gathering of young friends, and of course (especially for this subject) some of my oldest and best friends ... Let's talk about nostalgia. Is it innate in man? Is there a gene for it? Or is it a folk memory of Eden? Or is it something that comes out when times are hard? Is it a comfort mechanism? Or a a survival mechanism ? With us this evening are Chavagnes Young Masters Philip Marhsall (Durham and Oxford) Charles Eric Lorin (McGill), Antoine Bureau (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon), Antoine Bertier (ESCP), plus three extremely fine Old Masters : my friend for over 25 years, Charles Coulombe (ITI, Austria), celebrated writer and journalist, then dear friend of 20 years and literary scholar Robert Asch  (Montréal), former professor at Chavagnes from 2002 to 2012  ... and last but not least, former Chief Librarian at the Manchester University Rylands Library and international authority on Cardinal

Headmaster Ferdi McDermott asks the Young Masters of Chavagnes International College "What was the point of the French Revolution and did it succeed?" Featuring Philip Marshall (Durham and Oxford), Keir Martland (Cambridge), Charles Eric Lorin (McGill), Antoine Bureau (Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon), Antoine Bertier (ESCP) and Ferdi McDermott (Edinburgh and Buckingham).

Professor Anthony O'Hear asks why do we educate?  And then he explores the arguments for the defence of Liberal Arts education in today's world. Recorded at the 2019 Chavagnes Summer Conference.  http://www.chavagnes.org/conferences

In an extended interview with Vatican Radio, Ferdi McDermott nd three pupils explain why they like their school and what makes it so special.

 Splintered Fragments of the True Light of Homer, Sophocles, and Virgil. Recorded at the 2019 Chavagnes Summer Conference.  http://www.chavagnes.org/conferences

Joseph Pearce - Muses and the Talents : Christian Theology and the Literary Imagination

At the 2019 Chavagnes International College summer conference, Joseph Pearce explores the later years of Shakespeare: his life, his work and his faith.

At the 2019 Chavagnes International College summer conference, Joseph Pearce explores the early years of Shakespeare: his life, his work and his faith.

Some archive footage of a Vatican Radio programme about Chavagnes International College.