If the United States House of Representatives grew to 736 members over the next forty years would we need a new Capitol to hold them all? Here is a taste of Danielle Allen‘s fascinating Washington Post piece: The Capitol has […]
Way of Improvement
“Is the New York Times becoming a more complex place that is open to the views of, well, half of America?”
Over at “Get Religion,” veteran religion writer Terry Mattingly responds to my recent Current piece “The New York Times’ ‘Come to Jesus’ Moment.” Here is a taste: …This brings us to a rather short John Fea “think piece” essay that […]
What would early 20th century Tampa cigar workers think about Ron DeSantis’s “working class roots”?
As Shawn Gude writes at Jacobin: “May Day is not a holiday for Florida governor Ron DeSantis, much as he might pose as a working-class champion. For a more robust vision of freedom, we can look to the Florida Socialists […]
MacIntyre vs. Rorty: The two sides of liberalism
Over at The Nation cultural critic George Scialabba reviews a new biography of Catholic moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre (Chris Shannon reviewed it for Current here) and a collection of essays by political philosopher Richard Rorty. Here is a taste: Fifty […]
The Washington Post praises recent moves to defend free speech on college campuses
Last month I wrote a post about Cornell University’s decision to reject a student resolution requiring faculty to issue trigger warnings for “traumatic conflict in the classroom.” Yesterday The Washington Post editorial board praised the Cornell decision and others like […]
Song of the day
RIP
Revolutionary War soldiers who died at the Battle of Camden will get a proper burial
Here is Kathleen Parker at The Washington Post: A Swedish mother visiting her daughter watched in wonderment at the crowd gathered for a funeral honors ceremony for Revolutionary War troops — replete with a parade, a play, prayers and a plethora of […]
When “a sixty-minute episode featuring an actor, a novelist, and a champion boxer might attract an audience of nearly 10Â million”
Over at Literary Review of Canada James Brooke-Smith reflects on the lost art of public conversation. Here is a taste of his piece, “Where’s Johnny?“ Executives at ABC tried to scotch the first episode of The Dick Cavett Show before it was […]
Evangelical roundup for May 1, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Do college educated evangelicals prefer DeSantis over Trump? Point Loma Nazarene University is the latest Christian college to deal with a controversy over LGBTQ issues. Evangelicals working with the climate lobby. Sometimes atheists and […]
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: Do professors have “tech paranoia?“ The end of Fort Lee. A Protestant cemetery in Rome. The extremism, aggression, and lack of restraint in MAGA world are spreading. The death of […]
Historian Linda Kerber revisits Women of the Republic
Last week in my American Revolution course we debated how the revolution influenced the lives of women. In the course of our discussion I introduced the students to Linda Kerber‘s idea of “republican motherhood.” This didn’t take too much pedagogical […]
The Christian postal worker case in historical context
Gerald Graff works for the U.S. postal service. He is also an evangelical who honors the Christian sabbath. In other words, he won’t deliver the mail on Sundays. His religious convictions cost him his job. The Supreme Court recently heard […]
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Arena blog:
Commonplace Book #264
The liberal method of taking part in the political contest cannot be qualified; it is not and cannot be either bourgeois or socialist, conservative or revolutionary, though its very nature tends to make it favor the forces of progress. As […]
Hidden holiness
Is “hidden holiness” the answer to celebrity culture? Here is Andy Stanton-Henry at Plough: There’s another word for “successful saints”: celebrities. There has been a lot of conversation lately about the dangers of celebrity Christianity, and I don’t want to […]
A socialist magazine on “wokeness” and “cultural Marxism”
Conservatives, including Turning Point USA pundit Charlie Kirk, like to scare people with threats of “cultural Marxism.” Here is Nick French at Jacobin: The American right’s long and venerable tradition of red-baiting has always involved branding any kind of efforts at progressive […]
“Good [humanities] teaching matters, but it can’t be measured”
Here is a taste of Johann Neem’s review of Gayle Greene’s Immeasurable Outcomes: Teaching Shakespeare in the Age of Algorithm: These are tough times for humanities professors. Flip through The Chronicle and the disillusionment jumps off the page. Post-pandemic students are disengaged. Colleges […]
Historian Barbara Fields on the 1619 Project
Here is the Columbia University historian on how to think historically about 17th-century Virginia:
Commonplace Book #264
All the signs are that the first disciples really did believe that Jesus was bodily alive again–albeit in a new body which seemed to possess properties for which they were quite unprepared–and that easily the best explanation for this is […]
President of South Korea sings “American Pie”
Here is South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol performing the Don McClean classic last night in the White House: