Ian Marcus Corbin

The Meaning of Disgust by Colin McGinn Oxford, 264 pages, $35 The eminent philosopher Colin McGinn has written twenty-five or so sharp, illuminating pages on the topic of disgust. Unfortunately, he has scattered those twenty-five pages among two hundred other pages of bizarre, tossed-off piffle, . . . . Continue Reading »

I crawled into bed last night just before 12, shaken and very quiet. I had just returned from seeing Lars von Trier’s new film Melancholia . Many readers of First Things likely took David Bentley Hart’s advice to eschew Atlas Shrugged in favor of Terrence Malick’s masterpiece, . . . . Continue Reading »

“I am an anarchist – don’t know what I want, but I know how to get it.” So brayed Johnny Rotten, singer of the seminal punk band the SexPistols. Dear Mr. Rotten, punk may be dead, but have we got a new movement for you! It’s called Occupy Wall Street, and its members have . . . . Continue Reading »

This will not be the first time that First Thoughts readers have heard from me on the virtues of Mr. Lionel Trilling , but readers interested in learning more about one of America’s greatest critics and intellectuals can check out my piece in today’s Wall Street Journal . . . . . Continue Reading »

Lucian Freud set himself apart. For several decades, until his death this past July, the English painter stuck stubbornly to his program of stark, severe portraiture, ignoring the many trend-waves that washed over the art world in that time. While so many of his fellow artists were dashing between . . . . Continue Reading »

The New Republic has a piece up today that, gulp, commends the higher-education reform agenda of one Mr. Rick Perry of Texas. Perry is, the writer avers, a visionary. The TNR commenters are, predictably, apoplectic. Their rage seems a bit hard to justify from where I’m sitting, but I’ll . . . . Continue Reading »

The folks over at Commonweal are up to something. In case you don’t make it to that corner of the web very often, let me commend to your attention Verdicts , Commonweal ’s new blog covering books and culture. So far, since its launch in July, Verdicts has featured fine short pieces on . . . . Continue Reading »

Primary season is fully upon us, and now the Fourth of July is here. Seasoned political observers know what to expect from the candidates—a dozen or so very ambitious people, flag-pinned and furrow-browed, speaking earnestly about their love for America. Patriotic sentiment is a sine qua non . . . . Continue Reading »

I have just finished reading Lionel Trilling’s 1940  Partisan Review essay “Elements That Are Wanted.” More than sixty years after its publication, it remains a galvanizing read, though perhaps now in a different way. For a thorough account of the piece, and its important . . . . Continue Reading »

As usual, the nineteenth century saw this coming. Tocqueville and Nietzsche, among many others, long ago predicted that an advanced democratic culture would entail a flattening of the spiritual landscape, discouraging the development of truly outstanding individuals who are willing and able to . . . . Continue Reading »