Edward T. Oakes

Speaking of Beauty by Denis Donoghue Yale University Press. 209 pp. $24.95 Several days after the massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, the New York Times commissioned an essay for its op-ed page from a native of Littleton. He described how his hometown had changed from a quiet . . . . Continue Reading »

Eccentric Culture: A Theory of Western Civilization by Rémi Brague Translated by Samuel Lester St. Augustine’s. 205 pp. $28. In the opening months of World War II, Winston Churchill delegated, among others, the future Tory Prime Minister Harold Macmillan to try to cajole the United States . . . . Continue Reading »

In Scenes of Clerical Life the novelist George Eliot managed to capture in one sentence the true import of the religious controversies that were tearing apart the Church of England in the nineteenth century. Speaking of the disruption caused by the arrival of a young Anglican curate with . . . . Continue Reading »

Martha C. Nussbaum is a universalist feminist, which makes her something of an anomaly in the academy today. As she has pointed out in several recent books, such as Sex and Social Justice (1999) and Women and Human Development: A Capabilities Approach (2000), feminism, while completely taken for . . . . Continue Reading »

The German word for “courage,” Mut , is verbal cousin to the English word “mood.” But unlike English, German can play variations on that root by attaching prefixes to specify the mood. For example, Anmut means “charm” and Hochmut “arrogance.” That esoteric . . . . Continue Reading »

Enlightenment“bashing, it would seem, is “in.” If anything could unite the discordant voices inside the cacophony of postmodern “discourse,” it must surely be the almost unanimously acknowledged thesis that the Enlightenment project has exhausted itself. What earlier . . . . Continue Reading »

Reviewed by Edward T. Oakes By an odd coincidence (or is it really coincidence?), the two most influential theologians of the twentieth century, Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar, both lived and worked in Basel. In fact, they weren’t just neighbors, but friends. Occasionally, after a day . . . . Continue Reading »

How Milton Works By Stanley Fish Harvard University Press. 616 pp. $35. Stanley Fish zooms across the firmament of American higher education like Flash Gordon’s rocketship. Currently the Academic Dean at the University of Illinois in Chicago (where he cops an annual salary approaching a . . . . Continue Reading »

When Karl Barth was at the height of his fame and productivity in the years between 1930 and 1960 and making neo“orthodoxy the dominant force in Protestant thought, another trend in theology was competing for the attention of the public. Sometimes known as the history“of“salvation . . . . Continue Reading »

The Forbidden Image: An Intellectual History of Iconoclasm By Alain Besançon Translated by Jean Marie Todd University of Chicago Press. 408 pp. $40 One of the oddest features of contemporary English”indeed of modern languages across the board”is the habit speakers so often indulge . . . . Continue Reading »