The Rust Belt, Ducks, and Lanternflies
“Barbara Kingsolver: ‘Rural people are so angry they want to blow up the system.’” Lisa Allardice talks with Barbara Kingsolver about her new novel:...
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...
Money, the Wild, and the Metaverse
“Living as Humans in a Machine Age.” Registration is now open for our fall conference in Madison, Wisconsin. Paul Kingsnorth will be the keynote...
Time, Pig Farms, and Peer Review
I’m helping to lead a study abroad trip in Rome for the next couple of weeks, so the Water Dipper will be on hiatus....
Precedents, Technosolutionism, and A Hidden Life
“Why I Choose Rural.” Benya Kraus explains why she chose to move to rural Minnesota after graduating from college: “Though I spent my childhood...
Mother Trees, Vaccines, and Charles Péguy
“Finding the Mother Tree: An Interview with Suzanne Simard.” In this interview with Emergence Magazine, Simard talks about her work on fungal networks and forest...
Conservation, Inflation, and Boeing
“‘This Will Finish Us.’” I finished reading Wendell Berry’s Unsettling of America this week with a group of students, so this heartbreaking essay by...
The End of the World, Pawpaws, and Local Journalism
“Not That Brothers K.” Ken Sundet Jones praises David James Duncan’s brilliant novel on the thirtieth anniversary of its publication: “It’s about American angst,...
Surveillance, Hope, and Poetry
“Police Seize on COVID-19 Tech to Expand Global Surveillance.” A team of AP reporters—Garance Burke, Josef Federman, Huizhong Wu, Krutika Pathi and Rod McGuirk—detail...
Integrity, Cape Breton, and Nationalism
“Living with Integrity.” Comment Magazine has a new issue out that focuses on how liberal individualism has perhaps warped our understanding of integrity. Along...