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Russell Arben Fox

Russell Arben Fox is a Front Porch Republic Contributing Editor. He grew up milking cows and baling hay in Spokane Valley, WA, but now lives in Wichita, KS, where he runs the History & Politics and the Honors programs at Friends University, a small Christian liberal arts college. He aspires to write a book about the theory and practice of democracy, community, and environmental sustainability in small to mid-sized cities, like the one he has made his and his family’s home; his scribblings pertaining to that and related subjects are collected at the Substack “Wichita and the Mittelpolitan.” He also blogs–irregularly and usually at too-great a length–more broadly about politics, philosophy, religion, socialism, bicycling, books, farming, pop music, and whatever else strikes his fancy, at “In Medias Res.”

Articles by Russell Arben Fox

Local Identity and Cities In-Between

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] 2018 has been a busy year for those of us who aspire to--or are at least somewhat animated by--localism here in Wichita, KS, the 50th-most…

Losing (Some of) the Local Commons

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] The annual Prairie Festival at The Land Institute just outside Salina, KS, was held two months ago, but it's been much on my mind for…

What Kind of Democracy Do Localists Want?

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Last week the United States went through another one of our regular, mostly ritualized exercises in mass democracy. What did (or should) localists think of…
November 11, 2018

Jimmy Carter, Front Porch Republican

Via The Washington Post, a profile of the quiet, deeply local, exceptionally frugal, profoundly humble life lived by the only actual small-c "conservative" to have been elected President of the…
August 19, 2018

Catastrophe, Technology, Limits, and Localism

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Charles C. Mann's The Wizard and the Prophet, published earlier this year, is a fabulous book. Not a perfect book; sometimes, in order to bulk…

Should You Move?

Charles Mahron has opened up what I think to be a great, even essential, discussion that fans of localism and sustainability and community of every possible stripe ought to have:…
July 9, 2018

What Do Farmers Want?

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] The obvious response to the title of this post is: I don't know; why don't you ask one? Well, Robert Wuthnow and his researchers did,…

Naftzger Park, Planning, and the Problem of “Growth”

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Naftzger Memorial Park was a small, pleasantly run-down city block of trees, grass, and benches, near the center of downtown Wichita, KS, just a block…

The Reinvention of (a More Localized) America

New in The Atlantic is a long--probably a little too long, but stick with the whole thing; it's worth it--article by journalist James Fallows, "The Reinvention of America." The article…
April 27, 2018

What Wendell Berry’s Brush Teaches Us About Capitalism, Community, and “Inevitability”

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] The Art of Loading Brush: New Agrarian Writings, the latest collection of writings by Wendell Berry, isn't a perfect book, nor the perfect expression of…

From 1948, to 1968, to 2018 (and Beyond?)

A long, thoughtful, well-researched, and theoretically serious piece of historical reflection has just appeared in The Atlantic, one which examines the fate of liberalism in post-WWII America--though not so much…
April 7, 2018

An Invitation to Caleb’s Porch

Those of us who have been around Front Porch republican for a while will remember the trenchant, funny and (in my opinion) only occasionally incorrect musings of Caleb Stegall, Esquire.…
April 4, 2018