Peter J. Leithart

Cristaudo’s book is not only the best available introduction to Rosenstock-Huessy (and perhaps Rosenzweig), it is full of Cristaudo’s own insightful analyses of philosophical and cultural phenomena. This, for instance: “When the spirits of modernity were in their preliminary . . . . Continue Reading »

In his excellent Religion, Redemption and Revolution: The New Speech Thinking Revolution of Franz Rozenzweig and Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy , Wayne Cristaudo explains the difference between Platonic dialogue and the dialogic thinking of Rosenzweig and Rosenstock-Huessy. Socrates dialogs, but he . . . . Continue Reading »

For all of Badiou’s aspirations to novelty, he falls into some very old early modern canards in his discussion of Saint Paul: The Foundation of Universalism . How, he asks, “does genuine saintliness . . . bear the ordeal of a History that is at once fleeting and monumental, one in which . . . . Continue Reading »

The title of Kevin Hector’s Theology Without Metaphysics: God, Language and the Spirit of Recognition might mislead, and Hector is careful to explain what he does not mean by metaphysics: “The term is sometimes used to designate any set of claims about that which transcends nature, or any set . . . . Continue Reading »

Anthony Ossa-Richardson’s richly detailed The Devil’s Tabernacle: The Pagan Oracles in Early Modern Thought is mainly about the role that ancient oracles played in modern thought, but he begins with a fascinating overview of the place of oracles in the classical world and the Christian . . . . Continue Reading »

The Supreme Court has two culture-war cases on its menu this term. At the NYRB , David Cole sums up several of them. Greece v. Galloway addresses the question of “whether government-sponsored religious speech violates the Establishment Clause.” Cole elaborates: “That test, which . . . . Continue Reading »

Willa Cather once insisted that “a story is made out of an emotion or an excitement, and is not made out of the legs and arms and faces of one’s friends or acquaintances.” The New Republic reviewer of The Selected Letters of Willa Cather quotes this axiom, but later in the piece . . . . Continue Reading »

No poem is as note-laden as Dante’s Comedy. The glosses are absolutely necessary, but as the TLS reviewer of Clive James’s recent The Divine Comedy observes, they can get in the way: “The trouble is that the supplementary material can be as off-putting as it is notionally helpful. . . . . Continue Reading »

Malise Ruthven reviews Akbar Ahmed’s The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam at the NYRB . One of the key themes of the book is that the US has mistaken the identity of its opponents by treating them as ideologues rather than as . . . . Continue Reading »

Michael Dougherty writes to point out that many of reform movements, both Protestant and Catholic were “tragic” in the sense I use the term - that is, they were efforts to recover a pure past and to save the church from later accretions. Protestantism was born of such . . . . Continue Reading »