The Nightstand 453
Dissonance, Harmony, and Expectation: On Music and Life
Sometimes in life, silence pervades our stories. The dissonance has passed, and we wait. We wait for resolution; we wait for harmony.
The Ignored Faces of Homelessness: A Review of There Is No Place for Us
When people are trying this hard and still end up sleeping with their children on the floor of a storage room, something has gone seriously wrong with our society.
Seeking the Sacred: Douthat’s Case for Religious Tradition in an Age of Uncertainty
We are pilgrims in this world. We must be content to wonder as we wander. Douthat is asking his readers to cast their nets into the deep.
Keeping A Culture: A Review of Thoroughness and Charm
Classroom culture may develop accidentally, but the truth is that a neutral classroom does not exist. Although her apologia is intended for classical Christian educators, Gerth speaks to all teachers
The Race to the Bottom: A Review of Ross Benes’s ‘1999’
It never fails—whenever Benes defends low culture, he does so in the exact terms that he ought to be using to criticize it
Crisis Response and the Remembering of Nightlife Hample
A peaceful crisis response paves the way for restoration and wholeness.
From Postliberalism to Preliberalism: A Review of The Church Against the State
Next time we’re drinking bourbon together, I look forward to telling him that he’s got all the right impulses and is coming to the wrong conclusions.
Lectors at the Lectern
I moved on, but I realized in that moment that I hadn’t adequately answered the student’s question
America’s Failure to Achieve Posture Perfection
Determining the exact role of posture is impossible, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t important for general human health.
The Black Intellectual Tradition: A Review
may they receive the many gifts the black intellectual tradition has to offer
Contemplation in Action: Booth Tarkington and the Art of Business
Tarkington hopes that more Americans will choose to trek that path of fruitful tension in this fragmented world, however difficult it may prove.
In Praise of Communitarian-not Corporate-Baseball
As Kauffman tells Bardenwerper, perhaps being cut loose from MLB will turn out to be a blessing.
Freedom and Friendliness in Byung-Chul Han: A Critical Introduction
Why does our relationship with technology seem so unhealthy?
What a Victorian Novel Teaches Us about Friendship and Civil Order
America has a crisis of friendship
Tolkien, Philosopher of War
Tolkien offers a cautious approval of brutalist buildings and a full-throated one of trees.
Between Spirituality and Literature
The resulting work is by turns wise and questioning, witty and candid, self-effacing and impassioned.
Let us Converse Together (Without Our Phones)
Bilbro’s book is a careful study through profound literary texts about how we live in a world that has no patience for careful study through profound literary texts.
Minding Laurie Johnson’s Gap
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] President Trump has been in office a month as of today, and the maelstrom of orders and actions which he has taken has elicited delight,…
On Nosferatu, Moloch, and AI
Sometimes, it’s okay to be scared. At the very worst, it’s just a story.
Why Can’t We Be Friends?
"Is Christianity only politically efficacious in helping us determine who are our friends and who are our enemies?"
Gárces’s Travels: A Review of Jeremy Beer’s Beyond the Devil’s Road
Much might be said about the neglect of the history of the American Southwest
