Place. Limits. Liberty.
Join us for FPR’s 2025 Conference on “Work and Leisure”

Jeffrey Bilbro

Articles by Jeffrey Bilbro

Poetry, Parking, and Electricity

“Thinking as a Human Being.” David Weinberger reviews James D. Madden’s Thinking about Thinking: Mind and Meaning in the Era of Techno-Nihilism, which probes underlying questions about the nature of…

Italian Bears, Middle Age, and Rural Renewal

“Taking the High Road.” Nadya Williams issues a stirring call to root liberal education in a transcendent vision of what it means to be human: “what if the future of…
Jeffrey Bilbro
February 24, 2024

Flourishing, Paper, and Fake Meat

“Against Human Flourishing.” Paul Griffiths gently suggests that the paradigm of “flourishing” may be inadequate to ascribe meaning to our lives and efforts: “Damage, flourishing’s apparent opposite, may have contributions…
Jeffrey Bilbro
February 17, 2024

Farming Workshops, Music, and Apple Vision

“Growing, Fermenting, Canning, and Why?” The Maurin Academy is hosting a slate of discussions on home food production to get you ready for the growing season: “It’s time to plan…
Jeffrey Bilbro
February 10, 2024

Buffalo, Kitchens, and Control

“Red Dragonflies.” Steven Knepper offers a deeply informed consideration of Byung-Chul Han’s intellectual and spiritual trajectory. Knepper argues that Han’s emphasis on contemplation has much to offer: “The Church’s contemplative…

Bewilderment My Bow: A Review of Zero at the Bone

How are all these entries against despair? Insofar as metaphor is an act that creates meaning, it’s an act of hope: even intractable realities can be changed by placing them…
Jeffrey Bilbro
February 2, 2024

Taylor Swift, Foreign Policy, and Flannery O’Connor

“Swift Going.” It’s hard to describe this essay by Peter Bast. But you should definitely read it: “I’m still amazed that my folks allowed me to see the Grateful Dead…

AI, Bureaucratization, and NIMBYs

“Keep Your Money Close.” Jane Clark Scharl draws on the localist principle of subsidiarity to diagnose how online shopping leads to a scarcity of human interaction and to suggest some…

Alaska, Smartphones, and Realignment

“The Resurrection of the Bawdy.” J.C. Scharl ponders the strange, grotesque wisdom of Francois Rabelais: “there must be a reciprocal relationship between our high culture and our low. High culture…

Prudence, Sabotage, and Despair

I’ll be taking the next couple of weeks off from putting together these Water Dippers. I plan to resume in the new year. “The Case for Left Conservatism.” Ashley Colby…
Jeffrey Bilbro
December 16, 2023

Salmon, Hope, and Climatism

“A Great Historian’s Inner History.” Jeff Reimer reviews Peter Brown’s Journeys of the Mind and describes the particular genius Brown has for imagining the lives of those far separated from…

Stagnation, War, and Tyranny

“Where Can You Go to Grad School Without Going to Grad School?” Cat Zhang describes how The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research strives to make intellectual community available for those…

Home, Thanksgiving, and Mania

“Home Is Where One Starts From.” J.C. Scharl praises art that comes from and in turn feeds a commitment to a particular place: “Art should touch our wills; it should…
Jeffrey Bilbro
November 25, 2023

Michigan, Las Vegas, and Willa Cather

“George Scialabba’s Prejudice for Progress.” Come for Sam Adler-Bell’s summary of Scialabba’s appraisal of modernity, stay for his paean to the way Scialabba models what it means to be an…
Jeffrey Bilbro
November 18, 2023

Chicken, Water, and Elections

“Oiling the Chicken Machine.” Garth Brown brings his typically thoughtful and balanced perspective to bear on the question of lab grown meat. As he points out, detailing the horrific conditions…
Jeffrey Bilbro
November 11, 2023

Chalk, Fungi, and Goldenrod

We’ve posted videos of the conference talks. We’ll also release audio versions via the Brass Spittoon podcast in the coming weeks. “Porch Sittin'.” Nathaniel Marshall gives his recap of the…

Decentralism, Byung-Chul Han, and Cemeteries

“‘Living As Humans in A Machine Age’: Reflections on this Year’s Front Porch Republic Conference.” Dixie Dillon Lane reflects on last week’s conference and puts her finger on what unites…

Another Great Conference

Paul Kingsnorth opened his Friday evening talk by remarking that he traveled 4,000 miles to talk with us about localism. The many talks and conversations that followed over the next…
Jeffrey Bilbro
October 23, 2023

Suffering, Block Revitalization, and Faithful Presence

“Macedonia Morning.” Dana Wiser relates an inspiring account of a group of people committed to leading lives in the service of peace, despite the many attendant challenges: "Staughton once told…

Food Economies, College Football, and Deceit

“The New Colonialist Food Economy.” If you don’t want your blood to boil, then don’t read Alexander Zaitchik’s essay on the colonial efforts of NGOs and seed corporations to take…

Luddites, Reading, and Selfies

I'll be out of town the second half of next week for a book launch event in NYC. Since I'll be on the road, I probably won't have a chance…
Jeffrey Bilbro
September 23, 2023

Hermits, Homesickness, and Barbarians

“Inis Cealtra.” Paul Kingsnorth explains—sort of—what he’ll be writing about for the foreseeable future. What makes it challenging to explain is that he’s after something beyond words: “The silence of…
Jeffrey Bilbro
September 16, 2023

Digital Community, Dramatic History, and Suburban Sprawl

“The Community Community.” Nathan Beacom parses the effects that digital technologies have had on the way we imagine and experience community: “something important has changed about the way we think…
Jeffrey Bilbro
September 9, 2023

Friday Night Lights, an AI Boom, and Buggy Lanes

“The Kind of People We Need at the End of the World.” Elizabeth Oldfield shares her family’s journey into communal living and relates how the humble, daily acts of prayer…
Jeffrey Bilbro
September 2, 2023