The South Carolina State Museum recently acquired the personal Bible of enslaver turned abolitionist William Turpin. Historians David Dangerfield (University of South Carolina-Salkehatchie) and Ramon Jackson (South Carolina State Museum) tell us more at Christianity Today: At first glance, William […]
Way of Improvement
You have to love Jack and Jackie Harbaugh
Coach Jim Harbaugh has taken Michigan football to the national championship game. As many of you already know, the Harbaughs are a football family. Jim’s father Jack Harbaugh is a former college football coach. Jim’s brother John Harbaugh coaches the […]
Taylor University lands a $30 million grant to help revitalize its surrounding neighborhood
Congratulations to Taylor University. It is good to see evangelical colleges serving the common good and loving their neighbors in this way. Here is Kathryn Post at Religion News Service: Taylor University, a leading evangelical institution about an hour northeast […]
Evangelical roundup for January 4, 2024
Happy New Year! What is happening in Evangelical land? The national director of the Church of England Evangelical Council ponders the future of evangelicals in the Church of England. Texas evangelicals come together to form the country’s largest food bank. […]
And then there were three (at least in terms of GOP debate qualifiers)
Three GOP presidential hopefuls have qualified for the final debate before the Iowa caucuses. They are Donald Trump, Nikki Haley, and Ron DeSantis. Haley and DeSantis will participate in the January 10 debate at Drake University, five days before the […]
When “a decade of ideological transformation” in the academy “comes undone”
After learning that Claudine Gay, the embattled president of Harvard, resigned her post I returned to Len Gutkin‘s December 22, 2023 essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education. It is titled, “A Decade of Ideological Transformation Comes Undone.” Here is […]
The Author’s Corner with Lindsay Schakenbach Regele
Lindsay Schakenbach Regele is Graduate Studies Director and Associate Professor of History at Miami University. This interview is based on her new book, Flowers, Guns, and Money: Joel Roberts Poinsett and the Paradoxes of American Patriotism (University of Chicago Press, […]
Jill Lepore on “the hold of the dead over the living”
Over at the Los Angeles Review of Books, historian Jill Lepore discusses her recent collection of essays, The Deadline, with the magazine’s law editor, Julien Crockett. Here is a taste of the interview: JULIEN CROCKETT: In the introduction to your […]
Frank Bruni offers his “best sentences of 2023”
Here is Bruni at The New York Times: Over recent days, I took on a daunting task — but a delightful one. I reviewed all the passages of prose featured in the For the Love of Sentences section of my Times […]
Back in 1962 The Twilight Zone tackled the crisis of the humanities
It seems like there is an article on the fate of the humanities published every week these days. For example, check out Agnes Callard’s recent essay at The New York Times: “I Teach the Humanities, and I Still Don’t Know […]
On the “poverty of anti-wokeness”
Over at Compact, writer Geoff Shullenberger reviews five books on “wokeness.” They are: Frederik deBoer, How Elites Ate the Social Justice Movement Richard Hanania, The Origins of Woke: Civil Rights Law, Corporate America, and the Triumph of Identity Politics Yascha […]
Yes, universities should offer courses on Taylor Swift
Should Harvard offer courses on Taylor Swift? Of course it should. Everyone is talking about a course at Harvard titled “Taylor Swift and Her World.” Here is some context from Stephanie Burt, the English professor who will be teaching the […]
Merry Christmas!
Notice that Linus drops the security blanket when he says “fear not.”
Album of the day
See Eric Miller’s reflection on this album here.
“Our founding fathers understood the absolute necessity for this nation to elect moral and upright statesmen to lead the people.”
That was Jerry Falwell Sr. on January 8, 1999 in the midst of the Bill Clinton impeachment trial. Here is the quote in context: “Our founding fathers understood the absolute necessity for this nation to elect moral and upright statesmen […]
A writer for The Atlantic discovers pizza
Over at The Atlantic, Saahil Desai calls our attention to Ora Dodd’s 1949 piece on pizza. Here is a taste of Dodd’s essay: The waiter moves aside the glasses of red wine, and sets before you a king-sized open pie. […]
Why good writing matters
Artificial intelligence cannot replace the act of writing. Here is a taste of Frank Bruni’s column at The New York Times: When my friend Molly Worthen, a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a […]
51.4% of books sell between 12 and 999 units
As Tajja Isen notes in her piece at The Walrus, these numbers are not “especially encouraging.” Here is a taste of her piece, “How Do You Even Sell a Book Anymore?“: All of which highlights the two faces of the […]
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:
“Unheard of in American history”
Today at La Presse, the French-Canadian online newspaper based in Montreal, is running a short interview I did with them about the Colorado Supreme Court decision that takes Donald Trump off the ballot in that state. Here is an English […]