Matthew J. Franck

“Established in 1972, the Jefferson Lecture is the highest honor the federal government bestows for distinguished intellectual and public achievement in the humanities.” So says the website of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Since few of us are such renaissance persons as to be acquainted with the work of all the Jefferson Lecturers as they make their annual appearances in Washington, the lecture itself is potentially a valuable introduction for those making their first acquaintance… . Continue Reading »

Over at Public Discourse (published by the Witherspoon Institute, where I work), you can already see tomorrow morning’s article, the first of a three-part series by Greg Forster, titled ” Evangelicals and Politics: The Hundred Years’ War .”  I think it’s very . . . . Continue Reading »

The South Bend Tribune reports that 131 faculty of the University of Notre Dame have signed a letter calling on Fr. John Jenkins, the president of the university, to “issue a statement” that will “definitively distance Notre Dame” from remarks made in a homily by Bishop . . . . Continue Reading »

My morning reading has settled into some habitual grooves, and for a reliably thoughtful one or two articles a day, I go to FT’s ” On the Square ,” to Public Discourse , and to The Catholic Thing , where one of the regulars is Brad Miner.  Today Mr. Miner (we’ve . . . . Continue Reading »

This may fall into the category of blogging-when-provoked (always risky), or it may come down to a matter of de gustibus non est disputandum .  But the wild overhyping on the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather wouldn’t provoke me if . . . . Continue Reading »

Sorry if that sounds like the beginning of a shaggy dog story.  In the study of political communication, one of the most fruitful concepts employed by scholars in the last two decades has been “framing theory,” which concerns the way in which a story, a person, a decision, an . . . . Continue Reading »

The Witherspoon Institute’s Simon Center on Religion and the Constitution, which I direct, is offering two seminars this summer for early-career faculty, and for graduate and law students. Church and State: Religion in the Young American Republic This seminar, held on the campus of the . . . . Continue Reading »

I have a number of friends who are huge admirers of the farmer-poet-essayist Wendell Berry.  Now comes word via the Chronicle of Higher Education that the National Endowment for the Humanities has invited Berry to give this year’s Jefferson Lecture , on April 23 in Washington.  . . . . Continue Reading »

Even such liberal stalwarts as E.J. Dionne and Michael Sean Winters can be heard to complain about the Obama administration’s HHS mandate that all employers—including all religious institutions but the most narrowly defined ones—include fully paid coverage for contraceptives . . . . Continue Reading »

I wrote about this last week , and only scratched the surface.  It’s this bad .  Why any parents of intelligent young people would desire a Vanderbilt education for them, while this nonsense goes on, is beyond me. . . . . Continue Reading »