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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

In the Heart of the Empire, a Tiny Garden Grew

This wonderful essay--a sad, reflective, but also hopeful one--tells the story of Michelle Obama's long forgotten (by most people, anyway) backyard garden initiative, and the local farmer (the father of…
April 24, 2014

Jesse Winchester, Southern Regionalist, RIP

Jesse Winchester, a tuneful poet from a small corner of southern America who had to flee America--at a time when it was going through one of its more invasively imperial…
April 12, 2014

Rod Dreher Speaking in Wichita, KS

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] If it so happens that someone who sees this post lives in or within driving distance of Wichita, KS, then let me invite you: the…
March 20, 2014

A Genuinely Original Libertarian Argument?

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Yesterday evening, I participated in a symposium sponsored in part by Northfield School of the Liberal Arts, a private Christian academy, here in Wichita, KS.…
March 5, 2014

If On A Northeastern Ohio Winter’s Night a Traveler…

The good folks at Mackinaw Valley Institute ponder the passage of time and the provisioning of shelter, as people travel from place to place, needing to find a home in…
December 19, 2013

A Semester of Teaching Sustainability

[Cross-Posted to In Medias Res] The semester has come to an end here at Friends University, and students are leaving campus for their holiday break. Right now I'm grading, and…
December 14, 2013

What Does it Take to Keep Small Rural Towns Alive?

On the basis of this story out of Morland, KS (population 150, or thereabouts), the answer seems to me: community determination (citizens forming a local foundation to purchase and keep…
November 29, 2013

Being Thankful for National Communities and Civil Religion, Sometimes

[Cross-Posted to In Medias Res] Amongst those Americans who believe that the civic virtues which make both popular government and a fulfilling independence possible are themselves dependent upon, to a…
November 28, 2013

Thoughts on Elshtain

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Jean Bethke Elshtain, a profound and important political theorist and ethicist, died yesterday I was lucky enough to have met her perhaps a handful of…
August 13, 2013

Pondering St. Francisville, Gilead, and our Stories of Place

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Jeremy Beer's recent review of The Little Way of Ruthie Leming leads me to once again reflect upon Rod Dreher's excellent book (about which I've…
July 22, 2013

The Problem of Undertheorized Agrarianism in Most Actually Argued Localism

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] That's a terrible title for this post, I know. But hopefully it'll make sense, if you actually make it to the end. First of all,…
April 25, 2013

Fresh Water (Now at a Special Discount Price)!

[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Well, this is rather fascinating: here we have a video of the Austrian businessman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, who from 1997 until 2008 was CEO of Nestlé…
April 22, 2013