Archive

I am presently rereading E. B. White’s novel Charlotte’s Web with my youngest child, who is eight. She is much enjoying this classic tale about the pig Wilbur and...

I am in a 1982 Volvo, headed north on I-5 toward Oceanside, at a pace I could easily beat on a bicycle. A universe of cars spreads to the north...

In a healthy academic culture, the ethics of debate and argument include a commitment to civility and a courteous, professional demeanor. The ad hominem attack is seen as illicit,...

A good friend recently told me he was happy the holiday season was over. “Too much pressure,” he said. “To get the right gift, to have everything go just...

For most Americans in 2021, Thanksgiving means a day off from work, perhaps also an occasion to gather with family to eat more than one should. Its history and...

In the wake of the Derek Chauvin verdict, Bucknell University, the liberal arts school where I work, lost no time in issuing a statement. We were told that America...

In the 1970s, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson playfully warned mothers about the downsides of the cowboy business: “Mammas don’t let your babies grow up to be cowboys /...

Imagine that you recently discovered a book titled How Cancer Works, written by a respected professor from a prominent university. He promises to explain the disease and tell you...

A year ago in April, a student group at the university where I teach invited Amy Wax, a law professor at the University of Pennsylvania, to speak on the...

In 2002, in these pages, Peter Berger, the late American socio­logist, offered a succinct summary of the health and status of sociology. In Invitation to ­Sociology (1963), he had...