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Briefly Noted

There was a time when the Church shaped Western high art, particularly art music, as distinct from folk or pop music. That era has been over for centuries, yet the impetus for composers to engage with spirituality has endured. There has been no shortage of scholars in recent decades endeavoring to . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

There’s a poem by John Donne that makes a presence of an absence; his absent love becomes as real to the speaker and more fully his than if she were present. This could illustrate what Katherine Rundell wants us to see in the work of John Donne, seventeenth-century metaphysical poet and preacher, . . . . Continue Reading »

Milton’s Apple and Ours

Why did Eve bite the apple? Milton puts this question at the center of Paradise Lost, the greatest long poem in English. Why did Eve listen to Satan, pluck the apple from the tree, and take a bite? This temptation bears on us now. Satan always hides in plain sight. So it’s no surprise . . . . Continue Reading »

Letters

For a magazine devoted to religion and public life, the piece by R. R. Reno entitled “Engines of Destruction” was rather strange (January 2024). Religious analysis was almost completely absent: Except for an attack on the positioning of Christian leaders and Pope Francis, it was . . . . Continue Reading »

Briefly Noted

Initially developed at the University of Toronto between the 1930s and 1970s, media ecology is a meta-disciplinary perspective that understands media as environments that shape human consciousness. Despite this expansive approach to media, media ecology has generally shied away from exploring that . . . . Continue Reading »

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