We wish that we could pass this play over, and say nothing about it. All that we can say must fall far short of the subject; or even of what we ourselves conceive of it.” So William Hazlitt, in ...

This piece will appear in the November 2026 issue of First Things. How would you write a public letter that you know will become front-page news? Would you write it yourself, or would you have a team ...

In a life of reading, there are special times of wonder and delight. Books come into your hands that address your central concerns and discuss matters you’ve long pondered. But they do so in fresh and ...

Pundits tell us that we are moving beyond the culture wars. Left and right are merging in their common judgment that liberalism has reached a dead end. Something new is emerging. Maybe. My sense is ...

During the fall semester of 2013, I began to teach a new course here at Yale: The Catholic Intellectual Tradition. Even though the course had no track record (and therefore no student evaluations), ...

St. Paul’s Cathedral has come up with a novel way to fill the pews: It is becoming a concert venue. Under a newly inked agreement, London nightclub Fabric will be the “exclusive partner for ...

The mother of a fallen Ukrainian soldier cries into the crucified Christ depicted on her son’s burial shroud. It echoes the icons here at St. Mikhail Church, a short walk from central Kyiv. As the ...

Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore a pectoral cross (though both understood the dramatic possibilities of a cape). She sang “Jolene.” He ...

Paul Finebaum is known as “the mouth of the South,” but he does a lot of listening. This is the secret to his success as the host of a call-in show focused on college football in the Southeastern ...

Many years ago, I wrote a piece for this magazine called “Grim Tales.” At the time, I was a young mother rediscovering the world of children’s literature, deciding what to read to my daughter and what ...

The latest installment in Marvel’s interminable superhero saga is not only one of the highest-grossing films of all time—it is the fastest film ever, entertainment media reported breathlessly, to ...

In the latest installment of the ongoing interview series with contributing editor Mark Bauerlein, Theodore Dalrymple joins in to discuss his recent book, Agatha Christie and the Metaphysics of Murder ...