Place. Limits. Liberty.
Join us for FPR’s 2025 Conference on “Work and Leisure”

Jeffrey Bilbro

Website Editor-in-Chief
Jeffrey Bilbro

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

AI, Bureaucratization, and NIMBYs

“Keep Your Money Close.” Jane Clark Scharl draws on the localist principle of subsidiarity to diagnose how online shopping leads to a scarcity of human interaction and to suggest some…

Alaska, Smartphones, and Realignment

“The Resurrection of the Bawdy.” J.C. Scharl ponders the strange, grotesque wisdom of Francois Rabelais: “there must be a reciprocal relationship between our high culture and our low. High culture…

Prudence, Sabotage, and Despair

I’ll be taking the next couple of weeks off from putting together these Water Dippers. I plan to resume in the new year. “The Case for Left Conservatism.” Ashley Colby…
Jeffrey Bilbro
December 16, 2023

Salmon, Hope, and Climatism

“A Great Historian’s Inner History.” Jeff Reimer reviews Peter Brown’s Journeys of the Mind and describes the particular genius Brown has for imagining the lives of those far separated from…

Stagnation, War, and Tyranny

“Where Can You Go to Grad School Without Going to Grad School?” Cat Zhang describes how The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research strives to make intellectual community available for those…

Home, Thanksgiving, and Mania

“Home Is Where One Starts From.” J.C. Scharl praises art that comes from and in turn feeds a commitment to a particular place: “Art should touch our wills; it should…
Jeffrey Bilbro
November 25, 2023

Michigan, Las Vegas, and Willa Cather

“George Scialabba’s Prejudice for Progress.” Come for Sam Adler-Bell’s summary of Scialabba’s appraisal of modernity, stay for his paean to the way Scialabba models what it means to be an…
Jeffrey Bilbro
November 18, 2023

Chicken, Water, and Elections

“Oiling the Chicken Machine.” Garth Brown brings his typically thoughtful and balanced perspective to bear on the question of lab grown meat. As he points out, detailing the horrific conditions…
Jeffrey Bilbro
November 11, 2023

Chalk, Fungi, and Goldenrod

We’ve posted videos of the conference talks. We’ll also release audio versions via the Brass Spittoon podcast in the coming weeks. “Porch Sittin'.” Nathaniel Marshall gives his recap of the…

Decentralism, Byung-Chul Han, and Cemeteries

“‘Living As Humans in A Machine Age’: Reflections on this Year’s Front Porch Republic Conference.” Dixie Dillon Lane reflects on last week’s conference and puts her finger on what unites…

Another Great Conference

Paul Kingsnorth opened his Friday evening talk by remarking that he traveled 4,000 miles to talk with us about localism. The many talks and conversations that followed over the next…
Jeffrey Bilbro
October 23, 2023

Suffering, Block Revitalization, and Faithful Presence

“Macedonia Morning.” Dana Wiser relates an inspiring account of a group of people committed to leading lives in the service of peace, despite the many attendant challenges: "Staughton once told…