Roger Scruton’s written a book on beauty, in case you hadn’t heard. Here’s a nice little review, which frames the beauty question evocatively enough in terms of beauty’s relation, or antagonism, to kitsch. And so I ask: if beauty is the promise of happiness, is the problem . . . . Continue Reading »
Marc C. Taylor, chairman of the religion department at Columbia, wants to “end the university as we know it.” But he wants to do it wrong: “The division-of-labor model of separate departments is obsolete and must be replaced with a curriculum structured like a web or complex . . . . Continue Reading »
There is a compelling start of a conversation, I see, between Daniel Larison and Noah Millman . Noah began in reaction to Andrew Bacevich’s latest introduction to a book . Bacevich, of course, takes the anti-imperial position of William Appleman Williams to be a clarion wake-up call for any . . . . Continue Reading »
In the Emmy-winning 1997 version of Rebecca , there’s a scene in which the new, young Mrs. de Winter is harassed by one of the film’s less savory characters for claiming to enjoy being alone at the vast Manderlay estate while her husband is away on business. From our present-day . . . . Continue Reading »
Most excellently, “Spengler” — a.k.a. David Goldman — is blogging. Even more excellently, he’s blogging on a subject near to the heart, or at least the eye, of any reader of Rieff: the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. Of the Christian Robert Spaemann, . . . . Continue Reading »
The way you hold your head, cursin’ God with every move Ooh, I can’t stand it, I can’t stand it What are you tryin’ to prove Bob Dylan, Dead Man, Dead Man , 1981. Over at Front Porch Republic , Augustinian scholar James Matthew Wilson provides an important exegesis on . . . . Continue Reading »
It was my wife – really – who wanted to have a look at the Miss U.S.A. pageant on television last Sunday night. I obliged her just in time for us to catch the last round, in which five finalists (each more gorgeous than the last – in my wife’s, Julie’s view, that is — . . . . Continue Reading »
Over at No Left Turns, our own Peter Lawler briefly discusses R. L. Bruckberger’s Images of America , which was originally published (the English edition) in 1958 and has been re-released with a wonderful introduction by Dan Mahoney. It was something of a sensation when it first hit the . . . . Continue Reading »
John Schwenkler wades into deep waters: Can it be true that the very same movement that gives us the classicism of the New Criterion and George Will’s case against blue jeans is unable to recognize that our meals might also be part of what constitutes our lives as noble or, as the case may be, . . . . Continue Reading »
An admittedly weird vision struck me yesterday. But it’s lingered through to this morning, so consider : The US recession has opened up the biggest gap between male and female unemployment rates since records began in 1948, as men bear the brunt of the economy’s contraction. [ . . . ] . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
