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The Editors

Articles by The Editors

William James’s Grief

Decades of sorrow and searching for clinical evidence have strengthened his resolve, tempered now by experiences that add up to more than disparate bits of empirical data.

Confessions of a Caffeine Addict

My addiction, rather, is of a more respectable variety.
December 16, 2024

Life in the Cyborg Age: A Conversation with Josh Pauling

And Robin and I really hope that this book can be part of that movement to help people get outside the Machine, throw sand in its gears, and live as…
December 13, 2024

The True Face of Justice is Compassion

He took the words of Jesus to heart—he rarely judged others. When he passed this year, he left a memory not of condemnation, but of mercy.

Black Friday, Affluenza, and the Election

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.
December 10, 2024

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…
December 6, 2024

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…
December 4, 2024

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.
Steven Knepper
December 2, 2024

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…
November 29, 2024

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,…
November 28, 2024

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.
November 27, 2024

Shopping Local in a Storm

I mourn the storm. It’s far from over. But I also do not mourn without hope.
November 26, 2024

Jordan Peterson: From America’s Dad to America’s Guru

Christianity spread because people actually believed Jesus was their Lord and Savior. They believed in miracles not metaphors.
November 21, 2024

What is a Nation, Anyway?

Proper forgetting depends on the idea of a nation itself. For Renan, “a nation is a soul, a spiritual principle” built on two things, the past and the present.
November 20, 2024

Ode to Gettysburg at 161

To prove the American proposition, we must dedicate our lives to its truth with our deeds every day, and maybe someday with our lives themselves.
November 19, 2024

Belonging to the Garden

I belong to this place—if not for the next thousand years, at least for the summer. In such a displaced age, even that has to mean something.
Matthew Miller
November 18, 2024

Joan of Arc’s Grief

My grief would overwhelm me if I were not in God's grace. — Joan of Arc, February 24, 1431

At Home with James Matthew Wilson  

However, in St. Thomas and the Forbidden Birds, James Matthew Wilson shows that the seeds of a rebirth of civilization are to be planted and nurtured in the soil of…
November 13, 2024

Familiar Revolution

Like the very young and the very old among us, we must forget the learned delusion of independence that revolution prefers and accept the radical dependence of the human condition.
November 12, 2024

Two Cheers for E-Bikes

Automobiles shield you from the outside world, its sounds, its colors. But on my bike, I encounter my environment directly.
November 8, 2024

Else Lasker-Schüler’s Grief

Her work is certainly redolent of sorrow and, as she describes it, the eternity that dwells within her. But her words also carry hope and surprising faith that she will…

Nadya Williams and The Good News

Williams reminds us of a lesson that we should have already learned good and hard, namely that rejection of Christianity does not result in blissful liberation and self-expression.
November 5, 2024