Richard T. Whittington

The decay of American institutions and the crisis of civil society make our moment an opportune one for Arendt scholarship. Continue Reading »

Mary McCarthy's caustic wit and command of language elevated her nonfiction to the first rank.   Continue Reading »

In the landscape of prestige television, Twin Peaks: The Return detonates a bomb, ending with confused identities, a tortured scream, and terrible silence.  Continue Reading »

In South and West, her newly published notes from 1970, Didion checks into a series of motels on her trek across the Gulf South, a region sunk in history.  Continue Reading »

More than seven decades have passed since philosophy held court on the world-historic stage, in the cafes and jazz halls of wartime Paris. For those who lament the decline of the “public intellectual,” this period richly serves the needs of nostalgia, conjuring chic melancholy, debates conducted in a tobacco haze, and the evergreen romance of La Résistance. Continue Reading »

Search Party has received praise for its performances and cutting wit. But the series succeeds because it goes beyond generational caricature and hipster-bashing and lays bare an aching human need for narrative and connection Continue Reading »

Don DeLillo's novels suggest that the fundamental yearning that underlies all action, the creation and the destruction of civilizations, is the yearning to escape personal mortality. But the feats of modern science have tempted some to believe that science can defy human mortality altogether. Continue Reading »

“I believe they make a conscious choice to erase God's thumbprint from their souls.” Continue Reading »