I'm finishing grading today, so naturally, I'm on this blog!  Avoidance is the key to productivity: one cannot outwit the superego, but one can occasionally head-fake it.

Russia’s memory of The...

I've been meaning to post this here for a bit, but I do have a piece out in The Hedgehog Review on Augustine, and especially the Augustine of the City of God, as a modern thinker.  It's pretty...

December 16!  Battle of the Bulge began 77 years ago today.  A gruesome, bloody mess.  Among other events.  That one sticks with my mind, as events of WWII occupied the mental space of my parents in a...

So David Chalmers, who’s always struck me as more clever than thoughtful, is about to come out with a new book arguing for the advantages of virtual reality.  There’s an interview with him that gets...

Sorry to have gone missing here.  I am getting distracted by other kinds of writing...one of which I'll post here tomorrow.  But for now, just a few links!

Interesting stuff from Pankaj Mishra her...

Hello.  A slow week?  Of sorts.  A lot got done, just not much output.  Is that so wrong?

I am re-reading Hannah Arendt’s essay on Bertolt Brecht in Men in Dark Times, and it seems especially...

Sorry I've been silent here!  I was at a conference in Texas this past weekend (what is it with me and Texas? I don't know, but I do love some of the people there).  Heading into a quiet time with...

Just a few.

I had missed this when it came out, but new technologies are letting us identify some of the carbonized papyri in the “Villa of the Papyri” at Herculaneum.  This is effectively a rich man...

Just a few.

A viable account of two plausible hypotheses regarding the polling errors in the 2020 poll.  The degree to which Republican support of institutions has dropped in the last 40 years is...

Just some links, as ever.  Things are busy these days!

Good review of McGurl’s new book:

“While McGurl’s perspective is presumptively anti-capitalist, he asks us to stand in awe—as if before a...