James Matthew Wilson
James Matthew Wilson is Associate Professor in the Department of Humanities and Augustinian Traditions at Villanova University.
Articles by James Matthew Wilson
Caritas in the Veritable Welfare State
We need not rely with some desperation on the Hope that is a gift, if we can gin up optimism of our own sort.
Local Bookstores and the Writers Who Love Them
Devon, PA. My old friend and classmate, Jeremiah Chamberlin, writes in to the FPR ombudsman of a new venture he has undertaken to help support, save, or at least treasure,…
Beauty and Other Transcendentals
Devon, PA. The penultimate installment of "Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic" has now appeared at First Principles. In Part V, I had treated of Jacques Maritain's theory of…
Jacques Maritain on Art and Work
Devon, PA. In the early pages of Jacques Maritain's Art and Scholasticism, he provides a philosophy of art that restores "art," in the sense of the fine arts, to its…
Their Time Up at State College
East Lansing, MI. Back home in the steady snows of Michigan, I came across an old poem of mine, the other day, that seems like an appropriate riposte to Jeffrey…
Foreign Policy and the Gift of the World
Devon, PA. In February 2007, as the Iraq war crept to the end of its fourth year, I published this short essay, proposing a few notions on foreign policy that…
FPR at Notre Dame this Weekend
Devon, PA. I'm pleased to announce that FPR will be holding a panel discussion at the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture's Annual Conference -- Summons to Freedom: Virtue,…
Bourgeois Beauty and Bourgeois Relativism
Devon, PA. For those FPR readers interested in keeping up with my ongoing series, Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic, the third and fourth parts have appeared on First…
Conservatism as Literary Movement
Devon, PA. Last month, I alerted FPR readers to the appearance of the first part of my essay, "Art and Beauty against the Politicized Aesthetic," in First Principles. The primary…
Eric Miller on The Lost Cause of the Midwest
Devon, PA. If you have not encountered Eric Miller's savage indignation elsewhere, here is a fine place to start: his review of David S. Brown's Beyond the Frontier: The Midwestern…
This Age of Christian Martyrs
Devon, PA. Everyone knows the "secularization hypothesis" of the West; the only difference between one person and another is whether one also knows that it is garbage. According to secularization…
A Prayer for Livia Grace
Devon, PA. This week marks my daughter's third birthday. As a way of tossing a little Front Porch confetti her way, I reprint here "A Prayer for Livia Grace at…