Interviews

Unherd, December 26, 2025 Prof. Hankins speaks with Freddie Sayers of Unherd about the precarious state of the Western tradition and the burgeoning resistance movement in classical education. Moving through a 2,500-year narrative arc from the ancient Greek invention of reason to the modern-day “cult of innovation,” he warns that elite institutions are suffering from a dangerous cultural amnesia. But, despite the degradation of the canon, he offers a defiant hope rooted in his

Conversation with Michael Fontaine of Cornell University, Classical Wisdom, December 4, 2025 Have We Broken the Golden Thread? Why the West's Future Depends on Remembering Its Past The West’s greatest peril is forgetfulness, its loss of cultural memory. Without knowing where we came from, how can we know what to defend, or even what to value?   In an age when history itself is contested ... when the past is either dismissed or distorted ... The Golden Thread reminds us why th

The Saad Truth, Oct. 20, 2025 On this episode of The Saad Truth with Gad Saad, Prof. Hankins discusses The Golden Thread , the deeper meaning of civilization and the West, the potential for cultural renewal, and his lifelong friendship with his coauthor Allen Guelzo. Prof. Guelzo continued the conversation with Gad Saad about The Golden Thread on December 2. The Saad Truth, Dec. 2, 2025

New Humanists, ep. 87 (May 1, 2025) In this podcast interview, Prof. Hankins joins Ryan Hammill and Jonathan Roberts of the Ancient Language Institute to discuss his book Political Meritocracy in Renaissance Italy , which focuses on the life and thought of Francesco Patrizi of Siena (1413–1494). Although Niccolò Machiavelli is often held up as the paradigmatic political philosopher, Hankins argues that he is in fact an outlier. Instead, it is Patrizi and his focus on virtue t

American Politics and Government Summit, Intercollegiate Studies Institute, June 10, 2024 This compelling conversation with Dan McCarthy...

September 24, 2020 James Hankins speaks with Luca Politi, graduate student in Italian at Harvard University, about the concept of virtue...