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December 2012

December 10, 2012

Gutting literature from the curriculum

Educational reform efforts in the public schools are generally well-intentioned, but once they are taken...

November 2012

November 28, 2012

Communist official wins Nobel Prize for Literature

Two years ago, Chinese author Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Prize for Literature, but he...

November 23, 2012

CS Lewis to be added to Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey

Yesterday was the anniversary of the death of C. S. Lewis. Next year on the...

November 20, 2012

Kurt Vonnegut on writing and living

Kurt Vonnegut, author of Slaughterhouse-Five among many others, seems like a much better author when...

November 16, 2012

Here is the Hobbit soundtrack

The soundtrack for the upcoming Hobbit movie has been posted online, for free. Listen to...

November 02, 2012

Good quotations

George Will is among the most learned of today's pundits, and he has the habit...

October 2012

October 29, 2012

The death of a true intellectual

Jacques Barzun died at age 104. A scholar of breath-taking range, Barzun, a French immigrant,...

October 26, 2012

Christopher Hitchens on "Wolf Hall" & the Reformation

Thanks to Aaron Lewis, who saw my praise for Hilary Mantel's Booker-Prize-winning novels about Thomas...

October 25, 2012

Great quotes of St. Francis that he didn't say

Luther is not the only one that gets credited for quotable lines that he didn't...

October 19, 2012

Tolkien's new book on King Arthur

J. R. R. Tolkien has a new book coming out next year, a 200-page narrative...

October 18, 2012

Machiavellian reformer

British author Hilary Mantel won the Booker Prize for her novel Bring Up the Bodies. ...

October 12, 2012

The "Jesus' wife" fragment is from the internet?

One of my favorite courses in grad school was "Bibliography and Methods," in which we...

October 05, 2012

Politics as Dante's Inferno

Literature professor that I am, I appreciate this application of the unutterably great Dante to...

October 05, 2012

Connected TV dramas as the new novel

Since the time of the ancient Greeks, a dramatic production seldom lasts much more than...

October 03, 2012

Staying home vs. coming home

Rod Dreher is reading The Odyssey with his son. He is finding that it ties...

October 01, 2012

Nothing left but sex and ennui

Great quotation and embedded quotations from novelist Andrew Klavan, as part of his review of...

September 2012

September 06, 2012

Hobbit update

Titles and release dates have been released for the upcoming movie trilogy based on J....

August 2012

August 09, 2012

The Hobbit as another trilogy?

The Hobbit movie will be released on December 14. That is to say, the first...

August 03, 2012

William Tell and Chick-fil-A

An overwhelming number of chicken sandwiches were served on Wednesday as vast numbers of Americans...

July 2012

July 31, 2012

The St. Ambrose Hymn Writing Contest

Who says conservative Lutherans don't like contemporary Christian music in church? We do. It's just...

July 31, 2012

A summer reading project

About one of my students: Evan Johnson boarded the Washington, D.C. metro train at 5:15...

July 05, 2012

Andy Griffith, Moravian

Andy Griffith died at age 86. It turns out, he was Moravian, a church with...

July 05, 2012

An explication of “The Star Spangled Banner”

David P. Goldman offers a close reading of our national anthem, which is not just...

June 2012

June 18, 2012

A key named “Promise”

Matthew Block, editor of the Canadian Lutheran, makes good use of classic literature to demonstrate...

June 07, 2012

And now Ray Bradbury

Another great artist has died, Ray Bradbury. His genre was science fiction, and though his...

May 2012

May 23, 2012

Auden on modern liturgies

A letter from the late poet W. H. Auden to his pastor, on the occasion...

May 22, 2012

That form overwhelms content

I have spared you my American Idol reflections up to this point, that show being...

May 14, 2012

Vampires vs. the Blood of Christ

James R. Rogers, a Texas A&M professor and board member of the LCSM Texas District,...

May 11, 2012

Aristotle and me on “The Avengers”

We saw The Avengers, the movie that's setting box office records. We went whole hog,...

April 2012

April 30, 2012

The defining element in Christian art

Let me propose this thesis, drawing on the recent post about what Bruce Springsteen said...