The Poet and the Mob
by Dan HitchensMurray’s poems pack an impossible amount of meaning into short lines. Continue Reading »
From Work to Text and Back
by Mark BauerleinAround 1980, those of us coming up in literary studies learned that we could no longer refer to a work of art. The term had become obsolete. If you uttered it even in passing, you appeared behind the times, not up-to-date. You had to use another word: text. Roland Barthes announced . . . . Continue Reading »
Defining the Thing
by Dan HitchensIf we can’t find a word to describe our situation, we have scarcely begun to understand it. Continue Reading »
Two Resisters of Nazism
by Dan HitchensThe unfinished memoirs of Dietrich von Hildebrand and Sebastian Haffner should be a warning to us not to make any thoughtless Nazi comparisons. Continue Reading »
Dem Bones
by Paul V. MankowskiOssa Latinitatis Sola ad Mentem Reginaldi Rationemque: The Mere Bones of Latin According to the Thought & System of Reginaldby reginaldus thomas foster and daniel patricius mccarthycatholic university of america, 831 pages, $39.95 A recent online video shows a math teacher expounding the . . . . Continue Reading »
Thus Saith the Lord
by Nathaniel PetersOne Sunday in high school, we went to the Anglo-Catholic parish where my headmaster served as an assistant priest. Catechized by evangelical Episcopalians and Presbyterians, I believed that the Bible was divinely inspired by God. But I had never seen it treated as such in a physical or ritual way. . . . . Continue Reading »
The Lost Adolescence of “Like”
by Mark BauerleinThe sooner parents and teachers coach their charges out of the “like” disease, the more their charges will grow and prosper. Continue Reading »
First Words
by Stephen M. BarrWhy Only Us: Language and Evolutionby robert c. berwick and noam chomskymit press, 224 pages, $22.95Perhaps the most sensitive point of contact between religion and science is the issue of human distinctiveness. Christian teaching affirms that there is an “ontological discontinuity” between . . . . Continue Reading »
Kingdom of Language
by Peter J. LeithartDespite its title, Tom Wolfe’s The Kingdom of Speech isn’t mainly about language. It’s about evolution, feckless intellectuals, and leftist politics. Continue Reading »
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