Arts & Culture

Assigned to read Thomas Hardy 8217 s The Return of the Native in high school I was fascinated by its evocation of our pagan agricultural past Reading Jude the Obscure recently however I suffered all the way through Hardy 8217 s determined destruction of hope in the life of his stonemason hero

Stephen Prothero a historian of American religion and the author of a much acclaimed earlier volume American Jesus takes his cue for his title from E D Hirsch rsquo s 1987 volume Cultural Literacy What Every American Needs to Know Prothero addresses a huge paradox America is very religious b

As the poet Joan Murray points out in her introduction to this stellar collection the glitteringly self-deprecating Pushcart Prize has been bringing extraordinary literary talents to a broad readership for 30 years This volume is the third in a series of prize-winning Best of the Best volumes from

In 2002 Pete Hamill scored a bestseller with his novel Forever which told the story of an Irish immigrant granted the gift of eternal lifeso long as he never leaves the island of Manhattan Meanwhile next year Brad Pitt will star in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button based on an F Scott Fitzg

Are the culture wars of the last two decades a bogus conflict Do the debates about abortion gender sexuality and aesthetics amount to a series of shadowboxing matches Intellectuals appear increasingly divided For some they 8217 re a genuine combat for others they 8217 re something for the

Where is the solution manual Nearly a quarter-century ago when I first taught Business and Public Issues in a large state university an undergraduate accounting student came to see me The class had just discussed a case that described a difficult ethical dilemma Not surprisingly there was no e

Last fall hearing Bob Dylan 8217 s 1975 song Shelter From the Storm on the radio several times brought to mind a student from around that time who had written an outstanding paper with that title using the words of Dylan 8217 s song to shape an interpretation of Gnosticism So I searched for th

This book is the companion to the Discovery Channel rsquo s program ldquo The Lost Tomb of Jesus rdquo A well-written interesting often titillating account of the 1980 discovery of inscribed ossuaries from a tomb in Talpiot a suburb south of Jerusalem it reveals the names of various first-cen

For years I have stared at the five published volumes over 2 100 pages of Thomas Merton rsquo s letters arranged neatly on a shelf in my Merton collection and wondered if I would ever have time to work through them Occasionally I opened a volume to check a reference but the massive collection of

Christian tradition has not been kind to the Jewish claim to the land of Israel For many of the fathers of the church the fact that Rome had invaded that land and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem A D 70 seemed to be an objective marker of divine disfavor Already in the fourth century John Chr