Mark Bauerlein is Senior Editor at First Things and Professor of English at Emory University, where he has taught since earning his PhD in English at UCLA in 1989. For two years (2003-05) he served as Director of the Office of Research and Analysis at the National Endowment for the Arts. His books include Literary Criticism: An Autopsy (1997), The Pragmatic Mind: Explorations in the Psychology of Belief (1997), and The Dumbest Generation: How the Digital Age Stupefies Young Americans and Jeopardizes Our Future (2008). His essays have appeared in PMLA, Partisan Review, Wilson Quarterly, Commentary, and New Criterion, and his commentaries and reviews in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Boston Globe, Weekly Standard, The Guardian, Chronicle of Higher Education, and other national periodicals.
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Mark Bauerlein
The New Republic posted a little forum yesterday under the title “Do Humans Still Need to Study the Humanities?” The editors asked four former presidents of major institutions to answer the question. All of them state their commitment to humanities instruction and their regret that the fields have become marginal in recent years. Continue Reading »
Two weeks ago First Things hosted a lively conversation between Randy Boyagoda and Sam Tanenhaus over the new biography, Richard John Neuhaus: A Life in the Public Square.C-SPAN was there to film the discussion, and it will be broadcast this weekend as part of the Book Notes program. Times . . . . Continue Reading »
Wyoming Catholic College has decided to opt out of Title IV—specifically, federal student aid and loan programs. (See the press release here).President Kevin Roberts’ video explanation is a simple and eloquent expression of the bind religious colleges face in today’s regulatory climate. . . . . Continue Reading »
Josephine Baker and the Rainbow Tribe? by matthew pratt guterl ?harvard, 288 pages, $28.95 It is easy to see why Josephine Baker beckons to the postmodern mind. The famous entertainer of the Jazz Age seems tailor-made for theorists of racial and sexual identity. She was a known historical . . . . Continue Reading »
In the debate over the plusses and minuses of social media, it is common to hear a point that changes the terms completely. I’ve witnessed it in forums dozens of times: “We have to remember that these are just tools. It all depends on how you use them.” Continue Reading »
One of the memorable media events of the 2000s took place when Jon Stewart appeared as a guest on Crossfire in October 2004 and scolded Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson for staging mock debates and phony polarities: “It’s hurting America,” he moaned, as the hosts fumbled for a response. Continue Reading »
Last December, on Christmas Day, the Wall Street Journal printed a commentary by Eric Metaxas entitled “Science Increasingly Makes the Case for God”. It detailed a startling recent history. Continue Reading »
President Obama’s words at the National Prayer Breakfast have become yet another controversy in the long list of his remarks that have provoked attacks and defenses. The first thing to notice before his provocative “high horse” warning is the characterization of the killings . . . . Continue Reading »
A First Things podcast featuring two signers of the Marriage Statement.
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Gwynne’s Grammar: The Ultimate Introduction to Grammar and the Writing of Good English? by n. m. gwynne ?knopf, 288 pages, $19.95 One of the first axioms of the field of linguistics is that the rules of usage in any language at any time are wholly conventional. Proper grammar and style have no . . . . Continue Reading »
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