Literature

Testing the Spirits of Jon Fosse’s A Shining

Like the denizens of the Divine Comedy, Jon Fosse’s characters are for the most part fixed in continuations of their erstwhile, earthly habits. Continue Reading »

5 Dec 2023

The Haunting of Russell Kirk

by Matthew Schmitz

Russell Kirk was haunted by the past. Ghosts prowled his house, peering through windows, moving furniture, startling guests. Far from resenting these presences, Kirk welcomed them. For he regarded society as “a spiritual union of the dead, the living, and those yet unborn.” He propounded this . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Dec 2023

A Tragic Bent

by Glenn C. Arbery

Katy Carl's stories, imbued with Catholicism, lodge in the mind uncomfortably and call for another reading. Continue Reading »

28 Nov 2023

How to Kill a Literary Genre

by Jaspreet Singh Boparai

God willing, Jordan Castro will help kill off autofiction as a literary form. Continue Reading »

27 Nov 2023

David Mason’s Endless Pilgrimage

by Michael Yost

Gregory Dowling provides a helpful travel guide for readers embarking on their own pilgrimage through Mason’s life and thought. Continue Reading »

20 Nov 2023

A Day in the Life of a Columnist

by John Wilson

Writing a column is a strange, many-sided enterprise and a privilege. Continue Reading »

17 Nov 2023

Notes on Sontag and Steiner

by Mark Bauerlein

Robert Boyers joins the podcast to discuss his new book Maestros & Monsters: Days & Nights with Susan Sontag & George Steiner. Continue Reading »

16 Nov 2023

Being Cultured

by Rowan Williams

In 1909 the academic economist and former Marxist Sergei Bulgakov, a priest’s son who had recently and very publicly returned to Christian faith, published a long essay on the crisis of Russian culture and the mentality of the Russian intelligentsia. It is important to recognize that this . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Nov 2023

Letters

by Various

It was good to see Mark Movsesian (“Defining Religion in the Court,” June/July 2023) tackle the issue of judicial religious exemptions for the increasing numbers of religious Nones among us. But I don’t think his guideline for distinguishing “religious” claims from other, conscientious . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Oct 2023

An Offer We Must Refuse

by Michael W. McConnell

In his masterwork, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche’s mythic hero carries a message—“God is dead!”—throughout the earth, in a parody of the Gospels, calling it his “gift” to mankind. The book begins with an encounter between Zarathustra and a holy man who lives . . . . Continue Reading »