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Melancholic Verses

Twenty years ­after publishing his first ­novel—years he spent establishing himself, in incisive, often fearsome essays and reviews and nonfiction books, as a leading literary–cultural critic—Pankaj Mishra had a Damascene moment of sorts. He describes it in a recent essay for . . . . Continue Reading »

The New Medievalism

Not very long ago, an eminent British editor tweeted an article from his own publication showing (he said) that “in the Middle Ages, some 100,000 women over Europe were burned, hanged, drowned, or put to death in other ingenious ways on suspicion of being witches.” “Three centuries of . . . . Continue Reading »

Made by God

What is a human person? The question runs through all of recorded history, a puzzle for philosophers and poets, a challenge that each society has answered in its own distinctive way. Are we spirits or animals or somehow both? Are we mortal or immortal? Are we free, rational, choosing beings, . . . . Continue Reading »

A “Somewhere” Composer

It’s about a quarter to ten at night on August 17, 2019, and I’m standing outside the Usher Hall in Edinburgh, smiling. It’s one of those Edinburgh Festival nights when the streets are still crowded but there’s already a foretaste of autumn in the air, a warning chill in the sea breezes that . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

The Spiritual Canticle of San Juan de la Cruz—Saint John of the Cross—is treasure drawn from the darkness of a Toledo cell. Its popularity, from the sixteenth century to the present, testifies to the enduring appeal of its graceful, erotic mysticism. In a new translation of . . . . Continue Reading »

The Spice Road of Today

 Rachel Fulton Brown, professor of history at the University of Chicago and author of the blog Fencing Bear at Prayer, joins the podcast to discuss the importance of studying the medieval era and its relevance to issues within modernity.  Continue Reading »

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