Over at Zocalo Public Square, writer David Ulin offers some reflections on Joan Didion’s 1967 essay “Slouching Toward Bethlehem” and how her words continue to resonate. Here is a taste: What we’re seeing is not a matter of disagreement or...
cultural criticism
The Christopher Hitchens revival
I didn’t know such a Hitchens revival was happening until I read philosopher Andy Lamey‘s piece at Toronto Star. Lamey asks, “Is his brand of contrarian progressivism a welcome alternative to a Twitter-fixated, deplatforming Left?” Such a revival makes perfect...
“The danger of being a professional exposer of the bogus is that, encountering it so often, one may come in time to cease to believe in the reality it counterfeits.”
Alan Jacobs dug-up this gem from W.H. Auden’s 1941 review of Reinhold Niebuhr’s Christianity and Power. It was published in The Nation on January 4, 1941: A brother once came to one of the desert fathers saying, “My mind is...
Most Americans “do not learn piano from the age of five, do not attend private school” and “do not have SAT tutors”
According to Elizabeth Currid-Halkett, the members of the “aspirational class,” for all their tree-hugging and wokeness, have lost their way. Here is a taste of her piece at The Hedgehog Review: According to the French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu, cultural capital...
“The Stubborn Myth of the Great Gatsby”
Over at The Baffler, Matt Hanson reviews Greil Marcus’s Under the Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of The Great Gatsby. Here is a taste: We’re seeing now, from the ghoulish first family on down, exactly what that...
Episode 65: “What Would Lasch Say?”
The American historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch (1932-1994) had a powerful influence on the world of ideas. What would the author of the best-selling Culture of Narcissism (1979) have to say about Donald Trump and his particular brand of...
Chris Lehmann is the New Editor of *The New Republic*
I just learned this. Lehmann comes to The New Republic from his previous post as editor at The Baffler. He is a former graduate student of Christopher Lasch and the author of The Money Cult: Capitalism, Christianity, and the Unmaking of the American...
George Scialabba’s Latest Collection of Essays
Some of you may recall our 2105 post on the writer and cultural critic George Scialabba. Here is a taste of that post: I haven’t read much of George Scialabba‘s writing. Back in 2012 I did a post on a Scialabba piece on...
Alan Jacobs: “Demanding that others stop criticizing your preferred group is a cheap identity-politics move”
Baylor University scholar Alan Jacobs reflects on Mike Pence and the journalists who cover him: VP Mike Pence says, “Criticism of Christian education in America must stop.” No it musn’t. Nobody and nothing is above criticism. Demanding that others stop criticizing your...
Thomas Frank’s New Book
From the historian-turned-public intellectual who brought us The Conquest of Cool and What’s the Matter with Kansas, we now have Rendezvous with Oblivion: Reports from a Sinking Society. Ashley Hamilton writes about Frank‘s recent book at American Greatness. Here is a taste: And yet,...
Reinhold Niebuhr on the Court Evangelicals
Niebuhr died in 1971, but he certainly understood the court evangelical phenomenon. In 1969, the 77-year-old theologian and cultural critic was appalled at the way religious leaders flocked to the court of Richard Nixon. Billy Graham led the way. Here is...
The Declining Vocation of the Social Critic
Tom Whyman explores the decline of the social critic in the recent issue of The Baffler. He starts his piece by decrying much of what today passes for social criticism. Warning: Whyman pulls no punches: AS THE INTERNET AGE OF AUSTERITY...
George Scialabba on Christopher Lasch and the Family
Cultural critic George Scialabba revisits Christopher Lasch’s 1977 book Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged and tries to rescue Lasch’s argument from the feminists who bashed the book when it first appeared. Sciaballa writes at The Baffler: It was not […]
Who is George Scialabba?
I haven’t read much of George Scialabba‘s writing. Back in 2012 I did a post on a Scialabba piece on intellectuals, academia, and Christopher Lasch. But after I read Craig Lambert’s article on Scialabba’s retirement at The Chronicle of Higher...
Jerry Seinfeld Accepts His Clio and Rips the Advertising Industry
Hilarious [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHWX4pG0FNY]
Eric Miller on Wendell Berry’s Fiction
Check out the recent edition of The Cresset for Eric Miller‘s essay, “Technology and Human Renewal in Wendell Berry’s Port William.” Miller focuses predominantly on Berry’s 1967 novel A Place on Earth to illustrate how “the technical advances of the...
Jackson Lears: “The Buying and Selling of Christmas”
The New Republic is running an older, but still relevant, essay on the history of Christmas by cultural critic and historian Jackson Lears. It is definitely worth a read. Here is a taste: Which did not necessarily mean that they […]
Historians React to Last Night’s Presidential Debate
AHA Today has gathered some voices from the historical community to reflect on last night’s Obama-Romney debate. A taste:“Both candidates should feel ashamed. If they ever read the Lincoln-Douglas debates they’ll be mortified at the contrast. On the other hand, […]
Christopher Lasch on Presidential Debates
Over at Front Porch Republic, Mark Mitchell calls our attention to some thoughts on presidential elections from the late historian and cultural critic Christopher Lasch. A taste from Lasch’s The Revolt of the Elites (1996): By current standards, Lincoln and...
Eric Miller’s New Collection of Essays: “Glimpses of Another Land”
If you are not a fan of Eric Miller‘s work, you should be. Cascade Books has recently published a collection of his essays: Glimpses of Another Land: Political Hope, Spiritual Longing. These essays original appeared in places like Books and Culture,...