Russell Kirk was haunted by the past. Ghosts prowled his house, peering through windows, moving furniture, startling guests. Far from resenting these presences, Kirk welcomed them. For he regarded society as “a spiritual union of the dead, the living, and those yet unborn.” He propounded this . . . . Continue Reading »
Katy Carl's stories, imbued with Catholicism, lodge in the mind uncomfortably and call for another reading. Continue Reading »
God willing, Jordan Castro will help kill off autofiction as a literary form. Continue Reading »
Gregory Dowling provides a helpful travel guide for readers embarking on their own pilgrimage through Mason’s life and thought. Continue Reading »
Writing a column is a strange, many-sided enterprise and a privilege. Continue Reading »
Robert Boyers joins the podcast to discuss his new book Maestros & Monsters: Days & Nights with Susan Sontag & George Steiner. Continue Reading »
In 1909 the academic economist and former Marxist Sergei Bulgakov, a priest’s son who had recently and very publicly returned to Christian faith, published a long essay on the crisis of Russian culture and the mentality of the Russian intelligentsia. It is important to recognize that this . . . . Continue Reading »
It was good to see Mark Movsesian (“Defining Religion in the Court,” June/July 2023) tackle the issue of judicial religious exemptions for the increasing numbers of religious Nones among us. But I don’t think his guideline for distinguishing “religious” claims from other, conscientious . . . . Continue Reading »
In his masterwork, Thus Spake Zarathustra, Friedrich Nietzsche’s mythic hero carries a message—“God is dead!”—throughout the earth, in a parody of the Gospels, calling it his “gift” to mankind. The book begins with an encounter between Zarathustra and a holy man who lives . . . . Continue Reading »
When Cormac McCarthy died in June at age eighty-nine, the news touched off grief and adulation such as contemporary literary authors rarely inspire. Musicians, scientists, conservatives, Catholics, all have claimed him. One man circulated and posted the notes he’d taken after a series of phone . . . . Continue Reading »
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