Books

Patrick Allitt is professor of U S history at Emory University He has been teaching undergraduates for more than 20 years and holds an endowed chair designated for ldquo Teaching Excellence rdquo When you read his newest book you will understand why As the book rsquo s subtitle indicates the r

Roger Haight past president of the Catholic Theological Society of America is one of the most prolific and methodologically astute practitioners of theology today The present volume the first of two devoted to the project of ldquo historical ecclesiology rdquo builds upon the approach to theo

One of the few fortunate byproducts of these wrenching years of crisis in the Catholic Church is the emergence of voices that might not otherwise have been raised and the attention paid to earlier prophets whose words might have gone overlooked The writings of the Rev Donald Cozzens could fit into

Postmodern poetry these days as practiced by some leaders of poetic taste shows little interest in communication It juxtaposes unconnected bits that surprise us by their odd change of direction Stuart Dybek rsquo s slim volume comes as welcome relief His poems actually compute Dybek a professo

Authors love to write their memoirs of the 1950 rsquo s when they came of age and were apt to have a copy of The Catcher in the Rye in their jacket pocket I started out in this way myself as an English major at Columbia College The atmosphere in the English department in Hamilton Hall reflected t

In the sort of paradox typical of the Christian story as the number of Jesuits in the United States declines it appears that more and more lay women and men find themselves deeply attracted to and committed to the Ignatian spiritual tradition mdash to such an extent that many like Ronald Modras

When Columbia Records celebrated Bob Dylan rsquo s 30th anniversary in the music business in 1992 they feted him with a star-studded concert at Madison Square Garden During the long evening of music legendary artists paid homage to rock rsquo s poet laureate by performing incredible songs from th

There is something of an unwritten rule among many writers that unless you rsquo re a celebrity or have done something truly extraordinary you shouldn rsquo t come out with a memoir until you hit at least retirement age if not beyond That rationale counts even more if you rsquo re a journalist It

I met James Torrens S J for the first and only time sometime in the mid-1990 rsquo s in August at the Bread Loaf Writers Conference in Vermont He was an editor then at America living in mid-town Manhattan in the years before I myself became the poetry editor there and I was eager to meet hi

What would Jesus do This simple formula has found its way onto wristbands and T-shirts as WWJD It is promoted as the Christian rsquo s sure guide to the right moral choice But this is not the question Harvard theologian Harvey Cox uses to catch the moral significance of Jesus In fact he has rea