Blog
On the Road Again
Jill and I are looking forward to some overdue travel, starting with the Nowhere Else Festival this Labor Day weekend. Thanks to Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine—the husband-and-wife indie-folk duo on whose farm the festival blossoms—the music,...
My Renewed Website
In unveiling my updated website, I can’t help but notice what’s concealed in attempting to reveal. My new headshots, taken last fall by the amazing Michael Wilson (click his name on my links page to see his website), show me cleanshaven with a full head of dark hair....
Against (bad) theory
I don't like literary theorists that take their thoughts more seriously than the integrity of the work under examination. Making a text dance to whatever tune you impose belongs among the Forbidden Curses. I remember some time ago telling Robert Coles I was...
Place, people, and property
History is a messy business, an exercise in imposing order on contradictory information, a series of provisional efforts to select signal from noise, and is best understood, as Steven Shapin wrote about the sciences, "as if it was produced by people with bodies;...
A Poem by Scott Cairns
A poem for the Feast of the Transfiguration As We See “The transfiguration of our Lord, that is the radiancein which he was bathed at the pinnacle of Mount Tabordid not manifest a change in him, but a changein those who saw him.”-Isaac the Least Suppose the Holy One...
Where your treasure is…
It’s been more than fifty years since der Kniefall von Warschau, Willy Brandt’s spontaneous embodiment of German remorse and responsibility for the annihilation of Poland’s Jews. When asked after the event why he knelt, he said, "Unter der Last der jüngsten Geschichte...
Science, Poetry, and the Imagination Online
Join me Wednesdays in March for the Inaugural L'Engle Seminars featuring poets, scientists, and mathematicians from both sides of the Atlantic. Details and registration here.
How not to talk about what happened
Much has already been written or said about yesterday’s violent assault on the US Capitol building. Some have noted the date, January 6, celebrated by Catholics, Orthodox, and several Protestant traditions as the Feast of the Epiphany. The word, “epiphany,” comes from...
For the Time Being
Christmas comes to an end. Tomorrow is Epiphany. Those who still have a tree up can’t but notice the dry needles. The shopping malls and radio stations for whom Christmas is all consumption and sentiment packed up the glitter and kitsch days ago, where they’ll gather...
Living Toward Yes
There is all this untouched beautyThe light the dark both running through meIs there still redemption for anyone? -Karin Bergquist In an earlier post in this series, I hinted at two versions of freedom. Standard contemporary understandings of freedom center on the...
