Matt Stewart is a teacher at The Ambrose School in Meridian, Idaho. He holds a PhD in history from Syracuse University and has published essays and reviews with Current, Boom California, Fides et Historia, and High Country News. He is the author of Most Beautiful Place on Earth: Wallace Stegner in California.
Matt Stewart
Articles by Matt Stewart
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…
Small Isn’t Beautiful? Localism and Its Critics
The promise and peril of current forms of localism, with Trevor Latimer.
Planting Our Flag in the Real World: Parents Take the Postman Pledge
Do real things together. Celebrate. Take delight in the world—together. Don’t feel compelled to broadcast your views about the dangers of technology. Let your life speak, but be prepared to…
Focus on the Local: A Conversation with Carl Trueman
Though his recent bestselling books trace the roots of several deeply entrenched beliefs about human nature and our world that have led us into bewildering territory, Trueman concludes both books…
Jessica Hooten Wilson, Doug Sikkema, and Christine Norvell on Rescuing Socrates
One gets the clear sense from Montás that these voices from the past are not just texts with trivial information, but real presences, real friends who have had a significant…
Epistemology on the Front Porch: Esther Lightcap Meek
Esther Lightcap Meek on Wendell Berry, Michael Polanyi, and covenant epistemology.
Ordered for Fruitfulness: An Interview with Michael LeFebvre
In the context of the calendars for holidays, feasts, and Sabbath observance in Leviticus, LeFebvre argues that we need to attend to the creation account in Genesis as a calendar…
Grace Olmstead on Uprooted, Place, Idaho, and Prairie Lupines
Fidelity to place needn’t (and shouldn’t) result in stuckness, a condemnation of ever moving at all. But we must beware falling into that second trap: rejecting roots altogether.
Brass Spittoon: Bradley Birzer on Christian Humanism
Bradley Birzer on Christian humanism, judging the past, memory, and gratitude.
Brass Spittoon: Ken Myers on Three Decades (almost) of Mars Hill Audio
Ken Myers of Mars Hill Audio on place, the evangelical mind, and classical music.
Brass Spittoon: Wall Street vs. Main Street, 2020
Chris Arnade, Jared Woodard, and Sarah Hamersma on Wall Street versus Main Street.
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.
Brass Spittoon: Digital Fatigue and Pastoral Care During a Pandemic
Jay Y. Kim reflects on pastoral care during the pandemic in light of his recent book Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age.
Brass Spittoon: Classical Education
While the siren call of STEM is still music to most ears and classical schools are educating only a small percentage of American students, classical schools have grown steadily. Joshua…
Call Me Lucifer
Alexa is no doubt low-hanging fruit for the readers of Front Porch Republic. It is a place-contaminating, unlimited tyrant. If you've purchased one, watch out. When the lights start pulsing…
Brass Spittoon: Are Lab-Grown Foods a Good Idea?
Gracy Olmstead, Garth Brown, and Jason Peters on whether Solein can save the planet.
Brass Spittoon: Imagining Hope for 2020
Wilfred M. McClay, Bethany Hebbard, and Jake Meador consider what recent trends—considered at the local, regional, and global scales—give reason for hope in 2020.
Love and Fear, Expertise and Regulation
Much of the American reading public would be as surprised to find that there was once an environmentalist Right as they would be to find that there was once a…
Notes on Nike
An honest question: why was Zoolander III: Kendall Jenner and Pepsi Notice Some Serious Issues laughed into shameful corners of the internet immediately while Colin Kaepernick’s recent advertisement with Nike,…
A Digital Relation to the Universe
Matt's essay concludes our discussion of "Localist Social Media." You can view all the essays in this symposium here. When I first submitted my attempt at a jovial attack…
Stop Talking about Wendell Berry on Twitter
Editor's Note: Matt's piece kicks off a mini-symposium on the question of whether localists should use social media, and if so, how. As a Twitter user myself, albeit a somewhat…
“Anything Less than Ownership is Unacceptable!”
Many Americans do not need a data visualization to see that their places, especially their cities, are sharply divided along racial lines. Even so, the Weldon Cooper Center’s “Racial Dot…