How to Cure Your Boredom
Acedia and its Discontents: Metaphysical Boredom in an Empire of Desire. R. J. Snell. Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2015. Acedia and its Discontents is wonderful book to…
Putin’s Russia: Power and Postmodernity
Red Notice: A True Story of High Finance, Murder, and One Man's Fight for Justice. Bill Browder. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015. Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns…
A Possible Paradigm for the Humanities in the University Today
In my essay, "The Place of the Humanities in the University Today," I reviewed some of the major critiques of the humanities and its subsequent failed strategies…
The Place of the Humanities in the University Today
The decline of the humanities in American higher education – literature, history, philosophy, classical studies, linguistics, and foreign languages – is most recently evident in the drop…
Marriage and the Marketplace in Jane Austen’s Emma and Mansfield Park
This chapter explores the adverse effects that the marketplace mentality has on social relationships in Jane Austen’s Emma and Mansfield Park.[1] With the ideology of the marketplace…
Eric Voegelin’s Contribution to American Political Science
At first glance, Eric Voegelin’s contribution to the discipline of Political Science appears negligible when compared to other European émigré scholars of the same period, such as…
Camus’ Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism
Christian Metaphysics and Neoplatonism. Albert Camus with Ron Srigley, trans and introduction, and Rémi Brague, epilogue. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine Press, 2015. Christian Metaphysics and…
The American Transhumanist and the Postmodern Conservative
Allergic to Crazy: Quick Thoughts on Politics, Education, and Culture, Rightly Understood. Peter Augustine Lawler. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine’s Press, 2014. Peter Lawler’s Allergic to…
Plato’s Pupil: James M. Rhodes (February 24, 1940-January 23, 2015)
When I received an email from Maria McMahon about her father’s death, I was both shocked and sadden by the news, as I had no indication that…
Russian Political Symbols, Culture, and Civil Society
The promise of order and justice after the collapse of the Soviet Union has not been fulfilled in Putin’s Russia, with no political symbol emerging for her…
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn as Writer, Philosopher, and Political Thinker
The Other Solzhenitsyn. Daniel J. Mahoney. South Bend, IN: St. Augustine's Press, 2014. Daniel J. Mahoney’s The Other Solzhenitsyn is a much needed reappraisal of the…
The Paradoxes of Participatory Reality
Although neither Eric Voegelin nor Jacques Derrida had ever written about each other's works, both thinkers were engaged in the same project of creating and sustaining an…
Music as Metaphor
Understanding Music, Philosophy and Interpretation. Roger Scruton. New York: Continuum Press, 2009. Scruton’s Understanding Music is a collection of previously published essays, with the first part…
The Spiritual in Poetry and Art
A More Beautiful Question: The Spiritual in Poetry and Art. Glenn Hughes. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2011. Concerned with how art, and especially poetry,…
Approaches to Voegelinian Literary Analysis
Voegelinian Readings of Modern Literature. Charles R. Embry, ed. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press, 2011. The work of Eric Voegelin encompasses not only the disciplines…