Iran’s Strategic Illusion Collapses
Decades of ideological rule have left Iran weaker and unstable. The Islamic regime of Iran did not emerge as a conventional state. It was built on…
Between the “Rage of Party”: Sir Walter Scott’s Prudential Answer to Ethnic Politics
Interest in heredity, kinship, and ethnic nationalism has made a resurgence in the last few years in public discourse. While many find themselves between the widening political…
Marked by Love and Life
What does it mean to practice philosophy and from where does the motivation come? And what does this mean specifically for women in a male-dominated profession? Abigail…
How to Change Your Mind
How To Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan gives a history of psychedelics in the twentieth century. It covers the synthesis of LSD and utopian fantasies of…
Nikos Kazantzakis: Lawyer, Author, Intellectual Terrorist
When I was an undergraduate student at Villanova, I stumbled upon the foreign literature section of the library. Naturally, some sections were larger than others, but the…
Iran After the War
The war has come. The war will eventually end. But what kind of place will Iran be after the war ends is the question with which we…
Marcus Aurelius the Artist
Today, Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations is undisputedly the number one best seller among classic works of philosophy. Numerous editions of Meditations, from deluxe editions with sprayed edges to…
Dostoevsky’s “Demons” as a Prophecy of Ideological Possession
Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Demons, also translated as The Devils or The Possessed, remains one of the most penetrating examinations of revolutionary fervor, moral decay, and ideological possession in…
A Brief Candle: Macbeth as an Antichrist Figure
Even now there are many antichrists. ~ 1 John 2:18 The final battle in William Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Macbeth witnesses an exchange, before swords strike,…
Poetry that Breaks the Chains of Time and Place
In popular media, a great deal of ink has been spilled over the loss of religious practice amongst people in the Western world. What has been neglected…
“Expelled My Soul to the Cliff”: How One Ukrainian Book Could Help Us Understand Contemporary America – or Maybe Something More?
The arts can sometimes can get ahead of scientific prediction thanks to its intuitionally fixed insights into reality. This kind of “prediction” rarely prevents us from making…
Beaver Pond
Gently we walk the path by beaver pond, amid bracken and brush, we are whirred by Egyptian-like plagues of blue-eyed, winged invertebrates. Not enough to break branch…
The Myth of America in Vineland: Will Thomas Pynchon’s Political Pluralism Prevail?
On September 26, 2025, director Paul Thomas Anderson released his latest film, One Battle After Another. After the official premiere in Los Angeles three weeks prior, Anderson…