James Matthew Wilson

James Matthew Wilson
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James Matthew Wilson is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Augustinian Traditions at Villanova University. An award-winning scholar of philosophical-theology and literature, he has authored dozens of essays, articles, and reviews on subjects ranging from art, ethics, and politics, to meter and poetic form, from the importance of local culture to the nature of truth, goodness, and beauty. Wilson is also a poet and critic of contemporary poetry, whose work appears regularly in such magazines and journals as First Things, Modern Age, The New Criterion, Dappled Things, Measure, The Weekly Standard, Front Porch Republic, The Raintown Review, and The American Conservative. He has published five books, including most recently, a collection of poems, Some Permanent Things and a monograph, The Catholic Imagination in Modern American Poetry (both Wiseblood Books, 2014). Raised in the Great Lakes State, baptised in the parish of St. Thomas Aquinas, seasoned by summers on Lake Wawasee (Indiana), and educated under the Golden Dome, Wilson is scion of a family of Hoosiers dating back to the early nineteenth century, and an offspring of Southside Chicago Poles whose tavern kept the city wet through the Depression (and prohibition) years.  He now lives under the same sentence of reluctant exile as many another native son of the Midwest, but has dug himself in for good on the margins of the Main Line in Pennsylvania with his beautiful wife, dangerous daughter, and saintly sons. For information on Wilson's scholarship and a selection of his published work, click here. See books written and recommended by James Matthew Wilson.

Recent Essays

A View from the Studebaker Servants’ Quarters

I’ve breathed its dust in, taken careful note how plastic urns break in the snow; how I can merely mock at stone’s sad history; pronounce its fate, perhaps, but just in quotes.

Timothy Steele: A Critical Introduction — An Update

Devon, PA.  I was delighted to announce, this last week, the publication of my second book, Timothy Steele: A Critical Introduction.  A few copies...

Buffy Slays the Academy

Devon, PA.  Insiderhighered.com reports:  Slate published an analysis of the relative popularity (as topics to academics) of various pop culture topics. Judging popularity by the...

My Second Book, Published Already

Last night, at the West Chester University Poetry Conference, my second book, Timothy Steele: A Critical Introduction, was released.  As its title indicates, it...

Provincializing the University: A Proposal for Reform

Last November, FPR readers may recall, some of our writers held a panel discussion on The Place of Education at the University of Notre...

The Mishawaka Cruisers

They make their measured circuit along three blocks of neon fast-food chains, the darkened panes of auto dealerships, the Checks-Cashed, and the boarded Dollar Store.

Misanthropy or Hymenopteraphilia? E.O. Wilson is Ant(i)-Gracehoper

Devon, PA.  DePaul University in Chicago has many distinguished qualities.  Most striking among them would seem to be that it is nominally a Catholic university,...

Uncle Joe Vs. “Too Big to Fail”

Devon, PA.  Outside of a few magazines and other fora on the conservative and collectivist fringe, one seldom hears the opinion that the banking...

Contraception and Signs of Contradiction: Part II

The Yoke of Nature and Human Vocation.  When it comes to marriage and the having of children we experience these gifts, burdens, and yokes...

Contraception and Signs of Contradiction: Part I

Contraception as Apparent Moral Good.  Most persons who use contraception conceive of it as a moral good.  They see an unruly, pullulating nature directed...

The Business Like Concerns of Elizabeth Bishop and George Herbert

Devon, PA.  In the first months of FPR's existence, I wrote a short essay on George Herbert, secularization, and devotion.  I return to that...

The Place of Religion and Literature

Devon, PA.  My talk from the annual Ciceronian Society Conference, held in joy and good company last weekend at the University of Virginia, has now been...