Articles 356

Here are three novels about three places in the world. Each conveys not just a perfunctory setting but a web of topography, livelihoods, pastimes, and lore. And in each the…

Holding up a sign, sitting at a lunch counter, sticking a flower in a gun, setting up a tent, and occupying a space in the face state and corporate power…

Belfast is a lovely movie for remembering the power that places have in defining who we are and the beauty of belonging well, even to a broken place.

Van Rys hopes readers are shaped by his tales of domestic comedy to see that love for the long haul, difficult as it is, is not only possible but greatly…

Dunstan Thompson's poetic prayer reminds me how necessary Advent is and leaves me grateful for Christ’s work that makes his former foes members of his household.

This is poetry that focuses its readers on the true, good, and beautiful. Here, we are reminded that Christ took on flesh like ours, that he was born as we…

There aren’t easy answers to the problems fracking creates, and, like many industries, fracking generates losers and winners. But by spending time up close with the issues, Jerolmack models a…

Life is ambiguous, murky, rife with situations that elude dogma’s capture. When the seas get rough, however, our tolerance of this is one of the first things hucked overboard. For…

If you do follow Woodlief's advice, you'll need a thick skin and a dogged commitment to first principles. Self-government takes time and effort, and too many people really do want…

Examining, with Paul Kemeny, Richard Gamble, and Ben Faber, fraught moments in history where questions about communication and censorship, politics and propaganda, freedom and government intervention came to a head.…

Immortality might not last forever. But I contend that Ed will—through his words and through the lives of those he touched with his generosity and his grace. All of which…

Neither Columbiana nor Sewickley perfectly realize the role of Cram’s ideal walled town, but Sewickley comes much closer. While not perfect, it offers a real-world example of an economically vibrant,…

The imagined student’s intentions are honorable: to promote racial justice. But when the conversation begins, she has already set herself against the teacher and the course. The task of the…

John Kennedy Toole denies Ignatius such a happy ending, subverting the traditional redemption narrative. In so doing, he arguably gives us a better portrait of what life actually tends to…

Michael J. Astrue has earned degrees from Yale and Harvard. He had a long and distinguished legal career and held several government positions as well as leadership posts in biotech…

Is there an alternative to the Ted Lasso cynicism-versus-optimism dichotomy, an alternative that recognizes human limitations but nonetheless offers hope? I might start with becoming attentive enough to our ignorance,…

I had seen the worst of America: the brittle surface of “good design” shattered by rage, and the reverse snobbery of the rest of America. Still, I wasn’t about to…

As we come to the supper table to feast upon pheasant breast or the backstrap of a whitetail deer, we gain an inkling of that invitation to the true Table…

I didn’t intend to welcome two children into an era marked by so much bleakness and turmoil. With James’s help, I’ve remembered that there is no project more local, no…

" None of your readers need me to tell them that the useful work is practical, particular, small and careful: to get away from screens as much as we can, get…

Catullus is not a saint. He is not a moral poet. But his crudity and madness still dance with the shadows of truth and echo with the cry of the…

What makes Blythe a joy to read is this rare combination of literary erudition, keen observation of both men and nature, and a reserved, peaceful piety. What is immediately apparent…

Sometimes an important change becomes evident only in retrospect - not while it’s happening across quiet broken days alone in a house while autumn succumbs to shadow and cold.

The tragedy of the hold Hoover’s rugged individualism continues to have on the American psyche in our increasingly atomized age is that his formulation risks presenting a false dichotomy between…