Front Porch Republic
From the Editor—Local Culture 7.2: Work and Leisure
Wading in a river and lumberjacking in the woods are at once work and play, play and work, and in this they resemble anything we might do for instrumental ends…
Don’t Shoot the Messenger
This stranger, rain or shine, snow or hail, more religiously than I prayed as a child, lifted the flap and dropped letters into my family’s home.
A Brightly Colored—and Toxic—Digital Childhood
The negative effects of digital poison can, as documented by Haidt, cause a sort of phantom anxiety and depression for an entire generation.
The Exciting Familiar: The American Revolution, by Ken Burns and Geoffrey Ward
No filmmaker is as concerned with engaging Americans in our own stories and in our own democracy.
Music in the House of Love
While I’m past the point of burning my records and musical books, and I’m no longer having to evacuate coffee shops because “Sympathy for the Devil” is playing, I still…
News, Notes, & Podcasts
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Attention, Housing, and Subscriptions
Ezra Klein wrestles with the limitations of liberalism in the face of big tech efforts to capture users’ attention.
That Special Kind of Sadness: Songs About Los Angeles
We’re spending some (virtual) time in Los Angeles, this week, as the weather starts to get cold most everywhere else.
Miłosz, Butz, and Han
Eric Miller pens a beautiful review of Wendell Berry’s new novel and reflects on the stories and structures that hold sustaining cultures in place.
Put a Candle in the Window: Songs About the Light
Just as the light becomes a little more precious and scarce this year, we’re going to listen to songs about it. Send me your song recommendations at symposiumofsongs@gmail.com!
More Articles
A Movement: Citizen Humanities?
The term "citizen humanities" argues for the complementary nature of work by academics and non-academics.
Pagans and Prophets: Nadya Williams on the Wisdom of the Ancients
Williams gives readers who may be either loosely familiar with or even quite ignorant of the authors she treats a brief introduction to their importance and what beauty can be found in each of them.
Large Language Models and the New Scholasticism
In trying to systematize relationships between words and humans, both medieval scholasticism and today’s automated dialogue sterilize the sources of human vitality.
Everything Was Once a Place
Practices that began as bounded places we visited have thinned into atmospheres we inhabit.
Passage to Joy: The Use of Poetry
There is nothing greater in which to delight and nothing vaster in terms of the scope of His Being or understanding than God.
Those Who Sow in Tears
Hicks's voice is that of a mature seeker, a seeker of hidden beauties and of home in a variety of places.
Architecture As Messaging
The endurance of the building itself reinforces implicit messages that foster good character.
To Assure, Not Persuade: A Review of Why Christians Should be Leftists
When does religious activity become characteristically “leftist?"
The Theological Problem of the “Choosy Womb”, Part 2: Hospitality in a Botanical Paradigm
The botanical paradigm enables me to better live with uncertainty. It enables me to avoid throwing the choosy female body under the bus. It lets me view my complex embodiment more tenderly, and it helps that bitter evolutionary pill go…
In Norman Maclean’s Life, There Was No Clear Line between Beauty and Tragedy
McCarthy's biography of Norman Maclean is a splendid addition for the Macleanophile.
From the Archive
From the Editor–Local Culture 4.1: The Civil Dissent Issue
Think not, then, of the ubiquitous screens and hideous architecture and suburban metastasis and microwave dinners. Think rather of Eric Voegelin’s famous quip—Voegelin, who said that “no one is obliged…
Spiritual Secession: A Conversation with Paul Kingsnorth
" None of your readers need me to tell them that the useful work is practical, particular, small and careful: to get away from screens as much as we can, get…
Tanya Berry’s Faithful Art
Women like Tanya bring artistry and honor to everything they touch: the homes they inhabit, the land they steward, the children they raise. These photographs are testimony to the clear,…
Can There be a National Conservatism?
Here’s the irony: a growing number of conservatives realize that it will require the assistance of the State to correct many of the problems that have been created by the…
Cheese Should Be Dangerous
The cheese crafted here came about as a byproduct of a larger whole, the natural dividend of a complete way of life, and this is the foundation of the best…