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
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 »
Last month, American Atheists sent a letter of complaint to the chancellor at Troy demanding an apology. Continue Reading »
Two weeks ago, I reported on a poll by Scholastic demonstrating the importance of parents reading aloud to their children well past the age that children can read on their own. There is another aspect to the poll worth mentioning, and it’s backed up by what adolescents say about reading. Continue Reading »
Two days ago, the annual West Coast March for Life took place in downtown San Francisco, with more than 30,000 people waving “I AM the PRO-LIFE GENERATION” signs as they filed into Civic Center Plaza. A local news story covered the event, which was peaceful and solemn, in part because “the Walk for Life organizers publicized a code of conduct for participants, advising them to never speak to, look at, stare at, threaten or get close to protesters.” Continue Reading »
Right now, a three-day conference is under way at Trinity Church in New York City. It’s the 44th National Theological Conference, hosted by the Trinity Institute. This year’s version is entitled “Creating Common Good,” and the theme is inequality. Continue Reading »
In remarks delivered at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila last week, the Pope received a question about information technology in young people’s lives. Continue Reading »
Everybody knows how important it is to read to toddlers. Apart from the emotional element, reading out loud every day during the pre-K years sends a child to kindergarten with a significantly larger vocabulary than a child without that experience possesses. And what happens in kindergarten and after is that the gap grows (because of what is called the “Matthew Effect”). Continue Reading »
A conference at University of Southern California next month looks to be an important event for Catholic novelists, poets, critics, and editors, one that may give us a sharp assessment of Catholic literary expression at the present time.
Continue Reading »
We have a strange transformation taking place on campus today. Back in the ‘60s, at Berkeley and elsewhere, students formed Free Speech Movements and struck down one propriety and norm after another. Continue Reading »
I disallow laptops in my classroom. No screens, only books, paper, and pencil. The obvious reason is the distraction factor. Stand in the back of a classroom of fifty-plus students, survey the dozens of screens propped open, and count how many show social media, pictures, text messages . . . Continue Reading »
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