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
Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Jimmy Dorrell
“Dorothy Day’s Radical Faith.” Casey Cep takes the recent discussions regarding Dorothy Day’s potential sainthood as an occasion to consider her rich and bracing legacy. Keep an eye out for…
Pandemics, Power, and Holy Week
On Good Friday, Pilate and nearly everyone else thought that he was in control. He wasn’t. And on this Good Friday, Pilate’s heirs have much less power than they think…
Food Sovereignty, Ed McClanahan, and Quarantine Notebook
“Beyond Originalism.” Adrian Vermeule is causing a stir with his conservative critique of originalism in the Atlantic. In its place, he advocates ”common-good constitutionalism.” I’m not sure the courts are the…
Local Food Systems, Good Stories, and Grassland 2.0
Many of the essays being published right now respond to the coronavirus, and while I’ll link to a few of these below, they all suffer from our fundamental ignorance of…
Wendell Berry’s Distractions, Productive Households, and Factory Farming
“Wendell Berry: The Poet of Place.” Silas House corresponds with Berry about the work of faithful dwelling and writing: I think my work also has benefited from distractions. There are…
Limits, Fantasy, and Pandemics
“To Live and Love with a Dying World.” This conversation between Tim DeChristopher and Wendell Berry is quite good. Berry is a wily old fox, repeatedly refusing to be baited…
Good Work, CAFOs, and Pseudo Events
“Working Together.” Gracy Olmstead’s March newsletter relates the myriad benefits of working—and feasting—alongside friends. “Uyghurs for Sale.” Vicky Xiuzhong Xu, Danielle Cave, James Leibold, Kelsey Munro, and Nathan Ruser report…
Mobile Butchers, An Oily Bible, and Phytomining
“Eastern Kentucky Has Been Underwater, but You Probably Didn’t Notice.” Silas House writes about the flooding in Kentucky and the lack of attention it’s receiving: “When trouble comes to rural…
Proximity, Beauty, and the Craft of Farming
“The Distance from Our Food.” Benjamin Aldes Wurgaft makes a nuanced case for moving eating withing a circle of moral regard. In other words, eating animals and plants we know…
Local Culture 2.1
We're finalizing the next issue of Local Culture. Take a look at the cover and table of contents. If you subscribe by the end of February, you'll receive a copy…
2020 Conference Announcement
We've got a date, location, topic, and keynote speaker for the 2020 FPR conference. Save the date--September 26--and make plans to join us. We'll update the conference page with a…
Public Health, Decadence, and Replacing the Elite
“A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Colosseum.” James Matthew Wilson writes about the hope-giving state of American Catholic letters. “Warning: Chinese Authoritarianism is Hazardous to Your Health.”…