Caliphate Redefined: The Mystical Turn in Ottoman Political Thought by Hüseyin Yilmaz. Princeton University Press, 2018. Hardcover, 384 pages, $40. Reviewed by Fitzroy Morrissey In his very useful pocket-guide The Caliphate: A Pelican Introduction (2016), the...
The Midwestern Moment: The Forgotten World of Early Twentieth Century Midwestern Regionalism, 1880–1940 Edited by Jon K. Lauck. Hastings College Press, 2017. Hardcover, 306 pages, $40. Reviewed by Nicole M. King “The Corn Belt,” “America’s Breadbasket,” “The...
Shadow of the Colossus Directed by Fumito Ueda. Sony Computer Entertainment, 2005, 2011, 2018. Nintendo PlayStation, $20. By Ben Conroy Can videogames be art? This question plunges one immediately into the pitched battle about the definition of art. Perhaps some...
The Rise of the Research University: A Sourcebook edited by Louis Menand, Paul Reitter, and Chad Wellmon. University of Chicago Press, 2017. Paperback, 406 pages, $32.50. Reviewed by Pavlos Papadopoulos Historians of higher education are members of a small subfield of...
From the Cast-Iron Shore: In Lifelong Pursuit of Liberal Learning by Francis Oakley. University of Notre Dame Press, 2018. Paperback, 526 pages, $35. Reviewed by Weronika Janczuk The story narrated in any given memoir is dependent on the life of the one who narrates....
Steadfast in Faith: Catholicism and the Challenges of Secularism by David G. Bonagura, Jr. Cluny Media, 2019. Paperback, 308 pages, $19.95. Reviewed by Casey Chalk “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” This question, asked by Jesus and recorded in...
K-punk: The Collected and Unpublished Writings of Mark Fisher Repeater, 2018. Paperback, 500 pages, $30. Reviewed by Ben Sixsmith In 2013, the British cultural and political theorist Mark Fisher wrote an article called “Exiting the Vampire Castle” in which he took...
Counting Backwards: A Doctor’s Notes on Anesthesia by Henry Jay Przybylo, MD. W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2017. Hardcover, 256 pages, $26. Reviewed by Jacob A. Bruggeman On occasion, one can come upon good books by coincidence. An offhand recommendation from a...
Pedro Blas González Improvisation as Metaphor Musicians often talk about there being no wrong notes, only notes that they do not intend to play. This is particularly true in jazz. At least in jazz, this serves as the impetus to structure improvisation. If we pay...
The Life of Saul Bellow: Love and Strife, 1965–2005 By Zachary Leader Alfred A. Knopf, 2018. Hardcover, 784 pages, $40. Reviewed by Carl Rollyson I was hard on the first volume, The Life of Saul Bellow: To Fame and Fortune, 1915–1964, in the June 2015 issue of The New...
Catholic or Nothing
Adam Schwartz on "Converts: From Oscar Wilde to Muriel Spark, Why So Many Became Catholic in the 20th Century" by Melanie McDonagh. @yalepress
