Category: Article

It’s been said that reading a translation is like kissing your wife through a handkerchief. What comes between changes the experience; something is lost. Today, as technology increasingly “mediates” our experiences, we are losing something too—perhaps our humanity. This is the argument of Dr. Christine Rosen, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in her book The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World.  Experiences are direct contacts between our human nature—our bodies, minds, emotions, and perceptions—and reality. Technology (and our desire for ease, comfort, and safety)…

I think I was in my early thirties when I first heard a scientific observation that has since passed into common knowledge, namely, that our brains aren’t fully developed until age 25. While I don’t remember exactly when I first heard this factoid, I am confident that it was after my twenty-fifth birthday. In other words, I don’t think there has ever been a day on which my immaturity could be explained by the neuroscientists’ assertion that my brain was still a work in progress. And yet my brain was…

Every Thursday morning, the teachers of the Valley gather for a weekly meeting that is low in procedural fluff and high in substance – that is to say, rather than talking about nothing to accomplish nothing, we may read an essay or short story (Edward Abbey’s polemic from Desert Solitaire, Fr. James Schall on grades, Josef Pieper’s Leisure: The Basis of Culture, to name a few) or chew on some poetry alongside bagels and coffee. One such morning last school year, we read and discussed Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “My Lost…

The work of Eamon Duffy, which follows his interest in English Catholicism, speaks to the cry: “Lord I do believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:23-4).

When a technology is first introduced and improved rapidly in its early iterations, the trajectory of improvement is drawn up to infinity. But evaluating the tendencies and tradeoffs can help us to see new technologies more clearly.

Some books teach; some books entertain. The best books do both. That is why I enjoy Jane Austen. Each time I read her novels, I am inspired. Beneath her polished prose and sharp wit was an intelligent mind that perceived how easily we deceive ourselves. While she is known best for her female heroines, the men in her novels can serve as models for what a good man does and does not do. In this essay, I’ll concentrate on her novels from The Heights reading list (Pride and Prejudice, Emma,…

Having arguments is better than not having them. The acronym SPEQRS can help history students unpack arguments straight from the primary sources.

“I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers,” said Anne of Green Gables. “It would be terrible if we just skipped from September to November, wouldn’t it?” Yes, it would. Nothing against September or November (or any other month), but think of all we would miss if we didn’t have October.  Toward the end of September (this year on September 22) is the Autumnal Equinox. The earth tilts so that, in the northern hemisphere, sunlight recedes and night slowly appropriates our day. Because a month measures…

How do you prepare to read (and teach) such an imposing and brilliant work of literature as John Milton’s Paradise Lost? The epic poem in blank verse landed like a conquering army on the plains of English letters, sprung from the windy peaks of Mount Parnassus, where the muses of poetry dwell beyond the heights of ordinary mortals. One doesn’t pick up Paradise Lost for a beach read or something to distract you on a lazy Sunday afternoon. That would be like listening to Wagner’s The Ring of the Nibelung…

Recollection, I have learned more than once, is the key to avoiding burnout: giving ourselves time to pray, think, and be, quieting the voice telling us constantly to be doing. I’d like to suggest that one means of recollection is a deeper understanding of words.  Take, for example, my favorite humble household words: lord and lady. Humble, you say? Yes, the word has far humbler origins than we realize. Though it might now conjure images of stone castles or stately manors, Lord comes from the Anglo-Saxon (Old English) word hlaf…