Students are invited to submit an essay for our 2025 essay contest.
Instead of appreciating the local and the staggering beauty of our God-given world, as FPR suggests we do, the good life requires million-dollar jaunts into outer space.
A Defense of College Football Rivalries as Local Culture
College football is a local endeavor that should be enacted by those with a connection to that place.
Away From Politics with Kathleen Raine (Then Back Again)
Are we capable of that on a scale that will regenerate our political life? Perhaps not, at least for now, but we can take heart from the knowledge that, over the long course of human events, peoples have built cities that embodied high civic ends.
Mary Shelley’s Grief
Mary writes with gentle pathos, patience, and calm—traits common to those who have endured terrible loss. Her observations on life’s many ironies offer catharsis for author and reader alike.
Saying No to AI in Education
To rush AI into the classroom or into daily life is to put student well-being at stake. And as Kingsnorth reminds us, refusal to accept certain forms of technology can “enrich rather than impoverish.”
The Student’s Dilemma
The promise of AI is utopian and seems futuristic, but its effects on the educational landscape will make students nostalgic for the pre-ChatGPT days of yore.
Hope Out of Despair: A Review of Byung-Chul Han’s The Spirit of Hope
But I suspect that this stirring book will strike a chord with many readers of Front Porch Republic.
Fighting Loneliness and Polarization with Chili
I am not sure if Garfield ever made chili for his supporters. The men and women who descended on his property were there to meet a future president. What Garfield understood, however, is that home is the best place to begin a movement.
Do-able Simplicities: On Letter Writing and Fountain Pens
Holding the letters was a delicate experience, noting the brittle nature of the paper, being careful not to let them tear at the aged folds, and yet the blue ink, obviously done with a fountain pen, was as clear as if it had been written yesterday.
Moana Revisited: A Better Disney Princess
Rather than forging a new identity, she returns to old paths. Moana is not following her inner voice. She is listening to the echoes of her ancestors.
Shopping Local in a Storm
I mourn the storm. It’s far from over. But I also do not mourn without hope.
The Very Online Culture Wars
The Very Online Right might be riding high now, but I anticipate that the election jackpot of the moment will not last and that this victory will soon look more like Las Vegas at noon, beaten down and tawdry under the merciless exposure of the midday western sun.
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From the Archives
Thoughts on Dallmayr and a Different Post-Liberalism
Donald Trump’s selection of J.D. Vance as his vice presidential running mate has put “postliberalism” back in the news, assuming it had ever left....
A Country Boy Can Thrive
You can leave your corner of the country without escaping it. And these memoirs testify to the importance of bringing something back.
Brass Spittoon: Conservatism, Inc.
Patrick Deneen, Jeremy Beer, and Jeff Polet respond to J.D. Vance's recent American Mind essay "End the Globalization Gravy Train" and consider the prospects for postliberal conservatism.