Back in July, noted English literature professor Karen Swallow Prior responded to a Politico article examining V.P. nominee JD Vance’s naming of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The […]
Politics
Salt without Saltiness: The Death of Hospitality in The Bear
What if a profession or institution devoted to looking after others stops caring and stops nurturing? “We cook to nurture people.” Years before the events […]
Poor Things and the Pursuit of Pleasure
Perpetual Questing The core of our identity is defined by what we love, and the purpose of our lives is the pursuit of this love.1 […]
Fallout and the Metamodern Search for Story
Lucy MacLean wants to believe in a few things: right and wrong, human dignity, and the Golden Rule, for example. What she doesn’t want is […]
Let’s Talk About Abbott and Costello Movies (and a Communion of Grief)
I watched Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein the night I learned my daughter died. All through that evening I had keened to the point of […]
Eric: Bringing Light to the Darkness and Facing Our Monsters
Eric is a time capsule of just about every newsworthy topic of the mid-1980s. And the show’s setting in New York, specifically in 1985, is […]