The Inner Ring of the Academy

by Augustus Howard

The goal of today’s academy is an authoritarian state of intellectual conformity in which the conquerors alone rule. Continue Reading »

20 May 2021

First Things is a Beacon

by Mark Bauerlein

We sit halfway between academia and the public square, trying to merge the best of both. With your help, we can continue.  Continue Reading »

22 Dec 2020

Politics and the Sacred

by R. R. Reno

Bret Stephens recently championed the “classically liberal concept of a neutral public square.” In this issue, Matthew Schmitz examines similar assertions by George Will. These accounts characterize any substantive basis for civic life as “illiberal,” even “theocratic.” They entail a . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Aug 2019

An Acceptable Prejudice

by Elizabeth C. Corey

Contemporary universities are doing their best to eradicate prejudice and bias. Yet one remaining prejudice—against white men—is not only tolerated but encouraged. While we are told that diversity of skin color and gender is an unmitigated good, people in faculty meetings and job . . . . Continue Reading »

1 Jun 2019

Love in the Academic Ruins

by Dwight A. Lindley III

 If a work of literary art tells a unique and critical truth, then it is good—worth giving oneself to—and its beauty has not misled us.  Continue Reading »

24 May 2019

Camille Paglia, Contra Mundum

by Mark Bauerlein

The Claremont Review of Books has granted First Things readers free access to Mark Bauerlein's latest essay. Continue Reading »

6 Mar 2019

The Virgin Whore and the Humorless Don

by John William Sullivan

Emma Maggie Solberg's The Virgin Whore spends far too much time taking bad jokes and strained wordplay too seriously, and too little time taking basic theology seriously enough. Continue Reading »

20 Dec 2018

Wendell Berry Goes to School

by John Murdock

If Baker and Bilbro succeed, students and professors will emerge believing that the goal is not to obtain a “good job” far away but to become a rooted, whole person. Continue Reading »

17 Sep 2018

Medieval Studies and White Supremacy

by Mark Bauerlein

Identity politics seems to be having difficulties in Medieval Studies, perhaps due to the nature of the field.  Continue Reading »

13 Aug 2018

Evaluating the World’s Religions

by Francesca Aran Murphy

Islam, Hinduism, Confucianism, and Buddhism deserve to be studied, not as geographic entities, but as products of religious insight. Continue Reading »

5 Oct 2017