An incredible speech was given by the 14 year old composer Alma Deutscher upon receiving the European Culture Prize at the Vienna State Opera on October 20, 2019. At this prestigious ceremony, the young musician, whose works have sent shock waves through the musical world since she began composing at young age of 6 made…
Tag: Aesthetical Education
Brunelleschi’s Dome: The Project that Inspired a Renaissance
by Cynthia Chung To this day, over 550 years after its construction, the Santa Maria del Fiore cathedral remains a proudly cherished national treasure of the Italians, attracting tourists from all over the world to gaze upon its magnificence in person. It is not only appreciated for its incredible beauty but also as the largest…
Dante’s Commedia, or How to Escape a Modern Inferno
By David Gosselin This is the accompanying article to a lecture given by the same author, as part of the RTF Lecture Series “The Renaissance Principle Across the Ages“. Many today would consider Dante Alighieri a “Dead White European Male” of dubious relevancy. However, Dante is in fact alive and well, as are so many…
We Need a Renaissance, Not a Reset: Why the Singularity Point Is Not Coming
By David Gosselin Humanity has always had a story and it always will. Depending on our understanding of that story, individuals, or humanity as a whole, can be lead down fundamentally different paths. As part of a new series, “What the World Needs Is a Renaissance, Not a Reset,” we will be looking at some…
Rediscovering the Odyssey of Homer: Was it History or Myth?
Up until the late 19th century, humanity had presumed that the fantastical stories conveyed in the ancient works of Homer were little more than fiction. However, certain archaeologists choose to see in Homer’s work the metaphorical hand of truth, and following the author’s descriptions of lands contained in the Illiad, tracked down the exact locations…
Schiller’s William Tell: A People’s Fight for Freedom
Friedrich Schiller is a name beloved in Germany as the “poet of freedom”, and while festivals were once held in his honor across the English speaking world just a few generations ago, his memory has sadly fallen into the shadows. Despite that, Schiller’s life and works of drama and poetry inspired not only the greatest…
Germany’s Stockholm Syndrome and the Firing of Valery Gergiev
By Cynthia Chung “No, there is a limit to the tyrant’s power! When the oppressed man finds no justice, When the burden grows unbearable, he appeals with fearless heart to heaven, and thence brings down his everlasting rights, which there abide, inalienably his, and indestructible as stars themselves. The primal state of nature reappears, wherein man…
JFK’s Defense of the Poetic Principle: The Artist as the Unacknowledged Legislator of Society
Many know of John F. Kennedy as a great patriot and world citizen. Too many however are unaware of Kennedy’s profound understanding of the purpose of poetry in the moral education of society. Describing his understanding of the mind of Leonardo Davinci during a worldwide tour of the Mona Lisa, the young president said: “Today,…
C.S. Lewis’ That Hideous Strength: A Tale of Transhumanism, the Occult… & Merlin?!
In this third and final lecture unravelling the multifaceted layers of C.S. Lewis’ penetrating mind and playful style contained in his ‘science fiction trilogy’, Rising Tide Foundation President Cynthia Chung tells the tell of ‘That Hideous Strength’ as it has never been told before. In her presentation, Cynthia reviews a tale which serves as a…
The Epistemological Lessons of Frank Herbert’s Dune and Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy
Many have read Frank Herbert’s famous series of science fiction books titled ‘Dune’ (or at least watched the film versions of the story) and many have read Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Trilogy. Few have come to recognize the layers of geopolitical and epistemological insights bubbling under the surface of these works. On Wednesday February 1st 2023,…