Last week’s Christ the Center podcast (a show I almost always enjoy but always find something to get angry about) featured an extended interview with Michael Haykin, who has apparently…

On the Road slid into the American canon like a little boy under a garage door, running on pure energy and speed and getting there without anyone really thinking about…

This week’s music: The Wallflowers’ “6th Avenue Heartache,” from Bringing Down the Horse (1996). General Introduction – Stamps, pogs, and other collections – What’s on the blog this week? –…

I’ve been accused of being “anti-science” on the podcast, a charge against which I’ve done my best to defend myself. My suspicion, as I say in that second post, is…

This week’s music: “Her Right Hand Rules the World,” by They Sang As They Slew, from Get Well (Northern Records, 2004). Great band, great record, great Tolkien reference. General Introduction…

I’m not a great patriot, a fact you may have picked up on from the “God and Country” episode of the podcast. I’m certainly not anti-American, and I’m not particularly…

Crévecoeur and the Two Faces of America The back of the Penguin edition of J. Hector St. John de Crévecoeur’s Letters from an American Farmer says “History” on it, and…

For anyone who’s interested, I have an article (“William Faulkner’s Failed Augustine”) in the current issue of The Explicator (January-March 2010). Here’s the webpage. But if you want to read…

General Introduction – An apology for Nathan Gilmour’s absence – A plug for our website – A eulogy for J.D. Salinger What Is Comedy? – Comedy in a cosmic sense…

If you keep up with the book blogosphere at all, you’ve no doubt already stumbled across this piece from the Chronicle of Higher Education, a brutal takedown of Ralph Waldo…

As the podcast’s lone Americanist, I suppose it falls to me to say something about J.D. Salinger, who died today at 91. Salinger is best known, of course, for The…