There’s a challenge out there: you wear the same dress for one hundred days straight. The idea is to inspire creativity: look what you can do to make the same dress look different day after day (bonus: some who have […]
The Arena
Growing Up Absurd and human dignity
I recently picked up the NYRB edition of Paul Goodman’s Growing Up Absurd, which has a foreword by Casey Nelson Blake. In that foreword, Blake suggests that some aspects of the book are still relevant. For Blake, Goodman is part […]
Unicorn at the Arena
It’s a never-before-seen mythical beast: an eclectic links roundup of the week here at the Arena. This makes it a unicorn. Will I ever get organized enough on another Friday night to do this again? Unclear. But for this week […]
What I am reading: Jacob Hiserman on Gerard O’Shea’s Educating in Christ and takeaways for college classroom pedagogy
Oftentimes, we pick up books for one reason and discover more reasons why we’re reading them as we go along. That recently happened to me. I’m reading Australian teacher Gerard O’Shea’s Educating in Christ: A Practical Handbook for Developing the Catholic Faith […]
Bombs, justice, and historical humility
In 1982 The Gap Band had a hit record with the song “You Dropped a Bomb on Me.” That song was a rather unconventional take on the love song. I guess if someone drops a love bomb on you that’s […]
A reader responds: the future of evangelical scholars and scholarship
Adam Shields manages a small non-profit that focuses on developing prayer and church-based community ministries. He is also a spiritual director. He lives with his wife and two children in Marietta, GA. He has made it a spiritual practice to […]
Ideas in progress: Colleen Vasconcellos on Jell-O, the history of piracy, and Pirates of the Caribbean franchise
This is Part I of a two-part post. Stay tuned for Part II coming next week, which will focus more on Colleen’s on-going research on enslaved girls and manumission in Jamaica. As you are getting ready for a new academic […]
The future of evangelical scholars (and their scholarship too)
A year ago, a welcome second edition appeared of that most articulate of jeremiads (as it has been frequently dubbed) about the state of the evangelical mind and (related) evangelical scholarship: Mark Noll’s The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind. The […]
Liberal girls… sad!
It’s not news that teenage mental health is on the decline in recent years. But recently released data by the CDC indicates that the situation is most bleak for teenage girls. This was especially true for girls somewhere on the […]
What I am reading: books on motherhood and homemaking
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new ones—on your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on […]
What I am reading: Brian Scoles
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new ones—on your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on […]
What I Am Reading: Colleen Vasconcellos
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new ones—on your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on […]
The Baptist President you (probably) never knew was a Baptist
Years ago, a former colleague of mine and Dan’s at the University of West Georgia said something nice about President Warren Harding in a lecture that inspired students and colleagues to troll him for years thereafter. A President Harding bobblehead […]
What I am reading: John Ferling
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new ones—on your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on […]
Bret Devereaux on Sparta in Foreign Policy
Ancient military historian Bret Devereaux has a piece on modern fascination with Sparta in Foreign Policy that is very well worth reading. Ancient historians have argued for a while, indeed, that idealizing Sparta is bad history, but in this essay, […]
What are you reading?
Summer is the season for reading, whether re-reading old favorites or finding new ones—on your porch, in a cabin in the woods (bears optional), or at the playground or the beach. Because there have been so many wonderful essays on […]
Summer reading week at the Arena, 07/24-07/28
Earlier this month, the Williams family moved from Carrollton, Georgia, our home for thirteen years (for me) and eighteen years (for Dan), to Ashland, Ohio. Our earthly possessions will rejoin us in the coming week (hooray for books and furniture!). […]
The best road trip novel you’ve never read (probably)
A young man, bored with his life and searching for excitement, takes a road trip. He gets much more excitement, however, than he had bargained for, when his new girlfriend accidentally turns him into a donkey by smearing the wrong […]
Baraye: song of the day (or maybe the century, so far)
I think of this as the song of the century thus far (or one of them). It comes from the protests in Iran in 2022 sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini who had been arrested for improperly wearing her […]
Unschooling: homeschooling gone wild(er)
A few years ago, there was a massive row among the parents in one of the local homeschool co-ops we knew about, and it ended with the dissolution of the group. I heard about it a while later from one […]