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Shop Class as Soul Craft 12

House Calls, Handicraft, and the Human Community

The reason I lament the loss of home visits is because in the doctor’s journey to see the patient as a person (which is essential to the therapeutic relationship) the…

Your Brains are in Your Hands: Doug Stowe on Forming Mind, Hand, and Culture

Stowe’s book is both timeless and timely. Our physical embodiment as human creatures is always essential, but it is especially so amid increasing digitality. The last two years of pandemic-related…

Building Something of Our Own

It may be the great sentiment of this American moment: “I want to build something of my own. How do you not understand that?”
February 4, 2010

An FPR Symposium: Shop Class as Soul Craft, by Matthew Crawford

During the course of this entire week, FPR will devote its main pages to a symposium on the recent book Shop Class as Soul Craft by Matthew Crawford. The book…
Patrick Deneen
July 17, 2009

Lessons from a Motorcycle Mechanic

Wichita, KS [Cross-posted at In Medias Res] Let's pause a moment and be grateful that the job market for political theorists is so bad. Because if it wasn't, Matthew Crawford,…
July 17, 2009

Dirty Hands, Clean Mind

Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. As I read Matt Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft, I thought often of Simone Weil, that young champion of the workers of the world who took it…

Shop Class and the Romantic Mode of Politics

It goes without saying that Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft is compelling.  Discussed on NPR, profiled in The New York Times and The New Yorker, it is attracting attention…
July 16, 2009

The Whole Hog

Alexandria, VA They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can sometimes tell how the book’s designers wanted the book to be judged at first glance.…

Recognition and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Matt Crawford is a good friend of mine, and I read and commented on early drafts of Shop Class as Soulcraft, and so I don’t have much in the way…

Working with Words

Our relationship was still in its early swoon when Nate came to pick me up from work one night. He was so obviously excited to see me that even my…

A Certified Deep Thinker

I don’t like machines. I find them dirty, confusing and, even worse, boring. I also don’t much enjoy working with my hands. I like reading books and telling people, in…

Gumbo as Soul Craft

When I read “Shop Class As Soulcraft,” I initially felt like a twerp. I’m the guy who was raised in the country by a father who tried to teach him…