Sinéad O’Connor, the troubled Irish singer-songwriter, died in July at age fifty-six. No cause of death has been announced, but it is fair to note that at times she both predicted and welcomed her own demise. Her son Shane committed suicide in 2022. Not long after, she vowed, “I’ve decided . . . . Continue Reading »
Eugene Vodolazkin's latest book is a chronicle of a fictional island, written by many hands. It’s a perfect Bakhtinian set-up, a Dostoevskyan dialogic novel where diverse viewpoints are given equal time.
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Even the “mundane” happenings of a single day exceed our grasp, let alone the span of a lifetime. Continue Reading »
At the end of the day, politics, even the “correct” politics, will not suffice to inoculate children against the seductions of modern culture. Continue Reading »
I teach in the most crime-ridden neighborhood in my city. I am not the best teacher in the building—they won’t make any Hollywood movies about me—but I am a good one. One administrator described my classes as a Jekyll-and-Hyde affair. There may be utter chaos elsewhere, but when my . . . . Continue Reading »
There’s a curious little church in the Syrian city of Derik. The Church of Our Lady (kanisat al-adhra in Arabic) is modern, built in 1958 atop the remains of a much older, undated church. The original church was long buried when a local parishioner, so the story goes, dreamt one night in 1940 . . . . Continue Reading »
On days when the world to me is desolation; when I cannot sit in my seat, or do any productive labor; when I have a terrible desire to be free, and my responsibilities seem not worth the effort, I console myself by walking in Central Park. As I enter by the Lagoon at 59th Street and Fifth Avenue and . . . . Continue Reading »
In his 2005 Christmas address to the Roman Curia, the recently elected Pope Benedict XVI said that one main task of the Second Vatican Council had been to clarify the relation between Church and state. The pope stated that in the twentieth century, “Catholic statesmen demonstrated that a modern . . . . Continue Reading »
To the general public, Francis Fukuyama’s name is synonymous with the “end of history” thesis, which contends that since the end of the Cold War and the fall of communism, liberal democracy is the only ideology that has a universal appeal. His detractors often accuse him of triumphalism, but . . . . Continue Reading »
The job of a translator is both difficult and one of great responsibility. An author can be utterly misrepresented in a language that is not his own: David Magarshack, for example, who translated Chekhov’s plays, argued that the entire Western approach to Chekhov was grossly mistaken and based . . . . Continue Reading »
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