Over at The New York Times, Ruth Graham has a fascinating piece on Sister Theresa Aletheia Noble of the Daughters of St. Paul convent in Boston. Here is a taste: These days, Sister Aletheia has no shortage of skulls. People […]
death
Tim Keller reflects on his battle with pancreatic cancer
How does a Christian face death? Timothy Keller, the founding pastor of Redeemer Church in New York City, has been counseling others about death his entire life. As he battles pancreatic cancer he must now start to take some of […]
Editor of *First Things* Magazine: “There are many things more precious than life”
An editor of a magazine or journal sets it ideological course. R.R. Reno, a conservative Catholic, is the editor of First Things. Since it was founded by Richard John Neuhaus in 1990, First Things has been a beacon of the pro-life movement. So […]
The Author’s Corner with Shannon Bontrager
Shannon Bontrager is Associate Professor of History at Georgia Highlands College. This interview is based on his new book, Death at the Edges of Empire: Fallen Soldiers, Cultural Memory, and the Making of an American Nation, 1863-1921 (University of Nebraska […]
The Author’s Corner with Erik Seeman
Erik Seeman is Professor of History and History Department Chair at the University at Buffalo. This interview is based on his new book, Speaking with the Dead in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019). JF: What led you to write Speaking with […]
The Author’s Corner with Brian Dirck
Brian Dirck is a Professor of History at Anderson University. This interview is based on his new book, The Black Heavens: Abraham Lincoln and Death (Southern Illinois University Press, 2019). JF: What led you to write The Black Heavens: Abraham Lincoln and […]
“As the boomers have aged, denial of death…has moved to the center of American culture”
Check out Yale historian Gabriel Winant‘s review of Barbara Ehrenreich‘s new book: Natural Causes: An Epidemic of Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Our Illusion of Self Control. Here is a taste: Ehrenreich contemplates with some satisfaction not just the approach […]
Grieving as a Historian
Stepháne Gerson, a historian of France at New York University, lost his eight-year old son on rafting trip on the Utah and Colorado border in 2006. His Chronicle of Higher Education essay, “History in the Face of Catastrophe,” describes how history served […]
Our Mortuary Conventions
Jill Lepore writes about them in the October issue of The New York. As the subtitle of her piece notes, “Our mortuary conventions reveal a lot about our relation to the past.” Here is a taste: There are only so many […]
The Culture of Life
It is time to bring Pope Francis’s visit to bear on what happened in Oregon on Thursday. No one seems to be making the obvious connection between the Pope’s message to America last week and the problem of gun violence […]
The Author’s Corner with Terri Snyder
Terri Snyder is Professor of American Studies at California State University, Fullerton. This interview is based on her latest book The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America (University of Chicago Press, 2015). JF: What led you to write […]
Obituary of the Day
I don’t know if this is real or not, but it is certainly funny. From the Delaware Cape Gazette Here are some highlights: Walter George Bruhl Jr. of Newark and Dewey Beach is a dead person; he is no more; […]
Wilfred McClay on Medicine, Limits, and Death
You should be reading the stuff that Wilfred McClay writes. He is one of the best cultural critics writing today. If your new to McClay, start with his Merle Curti Award-winning book The Masterless: Self and Society in Modern America. […]
The Attempt to Bring George Washington Back to Life
Here is a post for all of the Messiah College students headed to Mount Vernon on Saturday as part of the History Club field trip. Over at the Mount Vernon website, Mary Thompson has a very interesting piece on Dr. […]
Remembering the Dead on Independence Day
Richard Kauffman, the book review editor at The Christian Century, feels “out of step with the rest of American culture” on the Fourth of July. I will let him explain: The fourth of July joins Memorial Day and Veterans day […]
Love and Death on the Wrecking Ball Tour
Joan Walsh offers us a view from the “pit” on Springsteen’s recent stop in San Jose. Her piece in Salon is a thoughtful reflection on the role that death has played in this Springsteen tour–from Clarence and Danny to Springsteen’s […]
Raising the Civil War Death Toll
How many people died during the Civil War? For over a century the standard death count stood at 618,222. But David J. Hacker, a historian at SUNY-Binghamton, begs to differ. In an article recently published in Civil War History, Hacker […]
Death Elegies from Gettysburg
Daniel Rolph is the author of “HSP’s Hidden Histories,” a blog sponsored by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. In a recent post, Rolph quotes from the death elegies written by some of those who lost family members from […]
Praying at Ground Zero
I don’t know about you, but I have 9-11 commemoration fatigue. There is a part of me that is glad that the ceremonies are over–at least for the moment. Yet, glutton for punishment that I am, I continue to read […]
Teaching War
Dwight Simon teaches history to middle-schoolers at Epiphany School in Boston. In this very thoughtful essay at The Smart Set, he reflects on “the seductive stories of mankind’s battles.” …as a teacher of history, as a teacher of wars, imagine […]