In this 500th anniversary year of the Reformation, there are countless angles from which to think about that event and its continuing significance. By no means the least important is the fact that Luther’s Reformation in particular was in many respects a university-based movement. And still in our . . . . Continue Reading »
I recently attended an academic conference at the University of Notre Dame called “Intersectional Inquiries and Collaborative Action: Gender and Race.” It felt like a return to my undergraduate years in the early 1990s. I saw women with shaved heads wearing ethnic print scarves, Birkenstocks, . . . . Continue Reading »
The great poet of the Caribbean, Derek Walcott, passed away at home on his native island of St. Lucia on March 17. It is hard to summarize his achievement. He wrote more than twenty books of poetry, most notably Omeros (1990), which transplants the Trojan War to the Caribbean fishing world . . . . Continue Reading »
Academic dogma casts religiously inspired critique as narrow and bigoted, but my experience has been the opposite. Continue Reading »
Academic freedom is the freedom to pursue truth in good faith, unimpeded by fear of dismissal by those who wield power. Now it is under threat.
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It wasn’t a perfect evening for a demonstration. The night was cold and damp. On the rain-slick concrete stairs of Harvard’s University Hall, thirty-five undergraduates crowded together, hoping for news coverage and bantering nervously. After weeks of planning, finally the day had come, and we . . . . Continue Reading »
♦ An exchange of emails by Clintonistas, available courtesy of WikiLeaks, has provoked a great deal of commentary. The chain starts with a message from John Halpin, a fellow at the Center for American Progress. He’s writing to John Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign, and Jennifer . . . . Continue Reading »
An intellectual doesn’t have to play that particular game. He can think and write about art or anthropology; contemplate Euclid or Euthyphro; or even argue for what he takes to be the truth of politics, rather than seek out political victory. Continue Reading »
The First Things Podcast, Episode 9. Anti-feminist icons remembered (the late Phyllis Schlafly) and welcomed (special guest Midge Decter). PC campus culture debated.
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I thought it would be little more than a pleasure read, a short break before I got into the serious stuff, but soon I found that my expectations, and my reading habits, were being re-written. Continue Reading »
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