Short 494
Book Exhibit, Bison, and Homeschooling
“Notre Dame Press Virtual Book Exhibit.” Steve Wrinn and the University of Notre Dame Press are regulars at FPR conferences. Since we had to cancel this year’s main conference, the…
Affability, Simone Weil, and Cassiodorus
“Jason Peters Writes to Entertain his Friends and Exasperate his Enemies.” Bill Kauffman is the perfect reviewer for Jason’s new book. Read the review, then read the book: “Peters, the…
Infected Brand Ambassadors, Corporate Clergy, and Anarchy
“How to Save British Farming (and the Countryside).” This summer I read James Rebanks’s new book English Pastoral. My short take is that it’s excellent. My long take on Rebanks’s three…
Melville, G.D.P. Fetish, and Sheep Shearing
“The Things I Tell Myself When I’m Writing About Nature.” In this “not-too-serious and also quite serious list that is entirely non-prescriptive, and is absolutely not a set of instructions,”…
Salmon, American Chicken, and Scrutopia
“‘The Fish Rots from the Head’: How a Salmon Crisis Stoked Russian Protests.” Anton Troianovski traces the complex politics in an eastern Russian region where precipitous declines in salmon runs…
Serious Fun, Supernatural Justice, and a Wise Bald Eagle
“Reconsidering the Statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln.” Allen Guelzo reviews—and highly commends—Jon Schaff’s Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship: “The reader will come to the book’s end wishing that such a statesman as Schaff describes…
Hidden Wound, Living Bridges, and Local Food Processors
“What is Happening at Spring Arbor University?” I was informed this past week that this year will be my last at Spring Arbor University. I don’t have much to say…
Tech Monopolies, Church Forests, and Publish and Perish
“Closing Time: We’re All Counting Bodies.” Clare Coffey reviews two recent books that diagnose American rot: “Who is in any serious doubt that the American health-care system is cobbled together…
Cooperatives, Lasch’s Prescience, and Political Wisdom
I enjoyed some time off email and social media this past month, but I'm ready to resume these Water Dipper posts. I also want to take this opportunity to say…
Left Conservatism, Public Lands, and Flannery O’Connor
As I try to do each year, I’ll be taking a break from the internet for a couple of weeks. FPR will continue publishing under the able guidance of Matt…
No 2020 Conference, but Maybe a Local Porch
This announcement is a disappointment, although not a surprise. FPR has a few suggestions to temper your grief: Barbecue and pull some pork, then slather on homemade Nashville BBQ sauce.Read…
Poetry, Localism, and Postliberal Epistemology
“Verse Lines When the Streets Are on Fire.” James Matthew Wilson offers a stirring defense of poetry in a season of chaos: “Disease, disorder, and riot are reminders to us…
Science, Police, and Pigs
“The Intellectual Vocation.” Josh Hochschild reviews three recent books—by Scott Newstok, Zena Hitz, and Alan Jacobs—on liberal education: All three books, by testifying to fruitful intellectual life, remind us we…
Justice Caleb Stegall, Localist and Classical Liberal (Sometimes)
Caleb Stegall was one of the early guiding lights of Front Porch Republic, and his influence on the project, however distant, still endures. I've enjoyed, and learned much from, my…
Bartering, Caregiving, and a Failed State
“The Great Stagnation—or Decline and Fall?” Patrick Deneen reviews Ross Douthat’s latest book with the help of Henry Adams and suggests our society is not merely decadent and stagnant—it is…
COVID-19 Literature, American Conservatism, and Algorithmic Stories
A good rule of thumb is that literature about current events is terrible. I have, however, come across two recent exceptions to this general rule. The first is James Matthew…
Tending to One’s Garden
Two lives, well-lived, in environments well and lovingly (dis)ordered. In the end, whether it be Monty Don walking through his gardens, or the late Umberto Eco walking past his shelves…
Porches, Oedipus Rex, and Essential Workers
“Wendell Berry.” Silas House recounts a day he spent with the Berrys last summer: “It seems to me that joy, sorrow, and affection are the three things always present in…
Moots Family
These are difficult times for everyone, but for some more than others. As you may know, two dams broke in mid-Michigan causing severe flooding. Some people lost their homes. Among…
Liberal Arts, Chaos Gardens, and Ralph Meatyard
“Christians Need the Liberal Arts Now More Than Ever.” John Fea argues that the value of a liberal arts education has been made particularly apparent by the coronavirus: A nurse…
Elegy and Plenitude, Decline and Hope
We’ve been getting reports that the new issue of Local Culture is finally arriving in mailboxes. If your copy hasn’t yet come, there’s now a light at the end of the dark…
The Next City: A Workshop
On Tuesday, May 5, at 1pm EST, Solidarity Hall and Strong Towns will present a live 90-minute Zoom video session, titled "The Next City," during which Strong Towns president Chuck…
Decadence, Hope, and Eavan Boland
“Sources for Rebuilding.” Anthony Barr reviews Yuval Levin’s A Time to Build and puts it in conversation with a variety of other voices that also celebrate those quotidian but essential virtues of…
Tinned Fruit, Globalization Gravy Train, and Sigrid Undset
“Regeneration.” Plough Quarterly is publishing a special digital issue over the next several weeks with responses from a very promising lineup of authors. One excellent place to start is with Bill McKibben’s contribution.…