Aaron Weinacht

Aaron Weinacht
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Aaron Weinacht is Professor of History at the University of Montana Western. His research interests include Russian Nihilism and Philosophy of History. His true vocation involves building custom furniture and working on the 15 acres he hopes will someday be a homestead.

Recent Essays

Happiness Fit for Humans: A Review of A Web of Our Own Making

Barba-Kay argues that we tend to resolve our cognitive dissonance by outsourcing all the choices that do matter and consoling ourselves with a plethora of choices that don't.

Prophetic History: A Review of A History of the Island

Contemporary sensibilities tend to prefer the nihilist abyss to such salvation, even as we pathetically pursue the latest "cure" for that emptiness—be that radical politics, surgical revisions to our anatomy, or compassionate medical assistance in dying. It looks patronizingly at best and with hostility at worst, at the idea that our modern despair should prompt some deep rethinking.

Living When We Are: A Review of Brisbane

Vodolazkin's novels do for Time what Wendell Berry does for Space: We can't just live where we are, we have to live when we are, too. So thanks to Vodolazkin for the timely reminder. And requiescat in pace, Jack: thanks for doing just that.

Opting Out of the Outrage Machine: A Review of Bad News

My least-favorite bumper sticker of all time reads, "If you're not outraged you're not paying attention." As a remedy for this sort of dopamine-fueled attitude, the author suggests that we refuse to bow to the media outrage machine.

Don’t Cancel My Bandsaw: A Parable

Our disagreements are about real things, but people are real too.

Paul Kingsnorth and the Truer Path of Worship

A short review cannot do justice to the range of reasons visitors to the Porch should read Kingsnorth’s three novels, so I’ll begin simply by saying: Read them. These are thought-provoking, challenging, and linguistically creative novels.

Of Heat, Houses, and Heuristics

Thinking about ecology from a national perspective, my house with standard R-19 walls and R40 roof, standard windows, and so on, is a “problem.” From a local perspective, though, there’s a solution that’s far simpler than the ones proposed by national standards for green building: Get up from my library chair and throw another log in the wood stove.

Time and Place in Eugene Vodolazkin’s Imagination

We occupants of the Porch can profitably read Vodolazkin in light of our own concern to acknowledge human limitations and find ways to live well and more fully in our own communities.

Pilgrims Longing for Home

As someone who appreciates the value of place, rootedness, and limitations on my horizon of vision, I’m afflicted with deep sense of unease as...

History as Manifesto

Dillon, MT Having a personal and professional interest in what people think history is for, I read The History Manifesto with great interest. Jo Guldi...