Buffalo, Kitchens, and Control
“Red Dragonflies.” Steven Knepper offers a deeply informed consideration of Byung-Chul Han’s intellectual and spiritual trajectory. Knepper argues that Han’s emphasis on contemplation has...
Taylor Swift, Foreign Policy, and Flannery O’Connor
“Swift Going.” It’s hard to describe this essay by Peter Bast. But you should definitely read it: “I’m still amazed that my folks allowed...
AI, Bureaucratization, and NIMBYs
“Keep Your Money Close.” Jane Clark Scharl draws on the localist principle of subsidiarity to diagnose how online shopping leads to a scarcity of...
Alaska, Smartphones, and Realignment
“The Resurrection of the Bawdy.” J.C. Scharl ponders the strange, grotesque wisdom of Francois Rabelais: “there must be a reciprocal relationship between our high...
Prudence, Sabotage, and Despair
I’ll be taking the next couple of weeks off from putting together these Water Dippers. I plan to resume in the new year.
“The Case...
Salmon, Hope, and Climatism
“A Great Historian’s Inner History.” Jeff Reimer reviews Peter Brown’s Journeys of the Mind and describes the particular genius Brown has for imagining the...
Stagnation, War, and Tyranny
“Where Can You Go to Grad School Without Going to Grad School?” Cat Zhang describes how The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research strives to...
Home, Thanksgiving, and Mania
“Home Is Where One Starts From.” J.C. Scharl praises art that comes from and in turn feeds a commitment to a particular place: “Art...
Michigan, Las Vegas, and Willa Cather
“George Scialabba’s Prejudice for Progress.” Come for Sam Adler-Bell’s summary of Scialabba’s appraisal of modernity, stay for his paean to the way Scialabba models...
Chicken, Water, and Elections
“Oiling the Chicken Machine.” Garth Brown brings his typically thoughtful and balanced perspective to bear on the question of lab grown meat. As he...