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
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…
Free America, The Front Porch Republic, and America’s Decentralist Tradition
The contributors to Free America belonged to one another and to the vision of a humane society, one founded on distributed property. Just because this vision has been drowned out…
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…
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…
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…