Jeffrey Bilbro
Website Editor-in-Chief
Jeffrey Bilbro is a Professor of English at Grove City College. He grew up in the mountainous state of Washington and earned his B.A. in Writing and Literature from George Fox University in Oregon and his Ph.D. in English from Baylor University. His books include Words for Conviviality: Media Technologies and Practices of Hope, Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News, Loving God’s Wildness: The Christian Roots of Ecological Ethics in American Literature, Wendell Berry and Higher Education: Cultivating Virtues of Place (written with Jack Baker), and Virtues of Renewal: Wendell Berry’s Sustainable Forms.
Articles by Jeffrey Bilbro
Chickens, AI, and the Legal Conversation
“Daughter of Forgottonia.” Liz Schleicher describes a family rooted in a plot of land near where the Illinois River joins the Mississippi. Guided by a matriarch, they have lived well…
Payne Hollow, Camels, and Distributism
“Who's Preserving Harlan Hubbard's Beloved Payne Hollow?” Bob Hill writes a lovely account of the Hubbards’ remarkable life and explains the hopes of the recently formed nonprofit organization Payne Hollow…
Dorothy Day, Humility, and Ed McClanahan
“Will the Real Dorothy Day Please Stand Up?” In this review of D.L. Mayfield’s new biography of Dorothy Day, Myles Werntz offers a masterclass in how we ought to befriend…
Wendell Berry, Ronald Blythe, and Oat Milk
“One of Our Most Beloved Environmental Writers Has Taken a Surprising Turn.” I don’t think Berry’s new book is “seething with resentment,” but Daegan Miller’s thoughtful review of Need to…
Scale, Science, and Polarization
“The Fourth Revolution.” Paul Kingsnorth’s latest essay is, I believe, out from behind a paywall. As always, he’s worth reading—in this case, on the ways that local, human-scale approaches to…
Important Elections, Art Vandals, and Going Home
“This Is Not the Most Important Election of Our Lives.” Here in Pennsylvania, there’s a lot of talk about the upcoming election that will apparently decide “the future of democracy.”…
TikTok, Bees, and Lab-Grown Meat
“Will Lab-Grown Meat Save Us?” Elizabeth Wainwright reads environmentalist George Monbiot’s latest book and considers its arguments in the context of two local communities she knows well, one in Devon…
Barns, Screens, and Whisky
“American Barn.” In a marvelous essay, Joshua Mabie reflects on the iconic meaning of barns in America: “Attention to barns’ actual history as well as to their cultural value can…
Conference Videos, Jon Stewart, and Frodo
If you weren't able to join us two weeks ago for our conference, you may want to set aside some time to watch the video recordings of the talks. We'll…
Practicing Authentic Conversation
If I attempt to follow Berry’s underwater route too closely, I’m afraid I will drown. Rather than try to summarize it, then, I will instead distill from it a set…
Conference Recap, Chess, and the Waste Land
The FPR conference this weekend was a great delight. The only problem is that I wanted to have long conversations with everyone who came. I was mollified, however, by seeing…
Lippmann, Property, and Swamp People
“Labor, Land, and Racism.” Brian Volck reviews Berry’s new book, which comes out next month: “For Berry, there are no autonomous people and no isolated social problems. Thus, while acknowledging…