Wendell Berry 210
Baseball: Official Sport of the Front Porch Republic?
“Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball” –Jacques Barzun Grove City, PA. Opening Day, 2011 Dutifully following the links provided by FPR’s editors, I…
Wendell Berry and the New Urbanism: Agrarian Remedies, Urban Prospects
The problem is a result of the underlying specialization—not of people but of places—for what could be more specialized than designing a town according to discrete zones designated by use?
Eating for Another Fifty (Centuries)
Wendell Berry and Wes Jackson would like you to think of the Farm Bill as an Eating Bill.
Wendell Berry Risks Arrest in Sit-In
A group of Kentuckians are protesting mountaintop removal.
Agriculture vs. Agribusiness
A visit to a CAFO makes it clear that to have sustainable agriculture, you have to make sustainable the lives and livelihoods of the people who do the work.
Against Cremation
One way to celebrate a culture of life is to cultivate our bodies in death.
The Gift of Good Work
What if every day was given to rest, eating, and relaxation?
Wendell Berry and the Great Economy
Economics has become a totalizing system claiming the power to explain all things. It is as much a religious system—by another name—as is Berry's Great Economy.
Independence Day Eve
Whenever I hear someone claim that “our enemies hate us for our freedom,” I think first of the USS Vincennes and July 3rd, 1988. Twenty-two years ago today, Vincennes was…
More On Berry vs. UKY
Wendell Berry explains his break with the University of Kentucky.
Contracepting Cultural Memory
R.J. Snell writes, "Contraception is already so normalized in our society that its use is presumed for both married and unmarried alike; in fact, so normalized is contraception that its…
Thoughts on Teaching Wendell Berry
Teaching Wendell Berry to students today isn't a thankless task, but the victories are small and far between (which, one might say, is all the best victories always are).
Tom Coburn Vilified
Coburn calls Nancy Pelosi a "nice lady" and earns the ire of conservatives.
The Homeless Modern
The disposition that characterizes the modern mind--a disposition that favors as its ideal a skeptical “view from nowhere,”--serves to undermine the very elements that make community possible.
Beyond Capitalism and Socialism: Rebuilding an American Economy Focused on Family and Community
In light of the the economic crisis - and the bright light it sheds on the failings of modern capitalism - there is a need to reconsider older arguments of…
Exploiting Antiquities
To him, the created world is merely “resources” and fodder for “job creation.”
The Roots of Originality
It is only our own town or neighborhood that is specific enough, and someday knowable enough, to enable a capable writer's imagination to imagine it clear and whole.
Fifty Dollar Tomato
Hillsdale, MI. When I first thought about writing this it was the “Ten Dollar Tomato.” But historians are more or less required to tell the truth, and it now costs…
The Stories We Tell…
Philadelphia, PA. If you have read just one of Wendell Berry’s novels or short stories, then you have glimpsed this Kentucky farmer’s love for family, place, and story. In a contemplative…
The Final Word On Cell Phones
Rock Island, IL In the early days of FPR, and then again more recently, I was impertinent enough to write disparaging remarks about cell phones, which as everyone knows are…
Dirt, Dollars, and Devices
Holland, MI. I confess: I hate farms. I hate everything about them. I hate the malodorous smells that take days to wash off. I hate the all-pervasive dirt which invades…
A Long, Long Row
“Hontar: We must work in the world, your eminence. The world is thus. Altamirano: No, Señor Hontar. Thus have we made the world. Thus have I made it.” From The…
The Reluctant Southerner: Reflections on Home and History
Moorpark, CA. In October of 1997 I attended the Southern Historical Association’s convention in Atlanta because I wanted to hear Paul Conkin’s presidential address, “Hot, Humid, and Sad.” What I…
“On the Grid”: When Electricity (and Other Things) Came to the Countryside
“Come in and look,” Quintín urged me, as he disappeared with a shuffle through the low doorway in his adobe house. I got up from the wooden bench on which…