
Tag: Culture critique
Prince Caspian: Forward to the Past (or, Learning How to Enjoy a Sequel)
May 23rd, 2015
I have never met any dedicated reader of the Chronicles of Narnia who told me that Prince Caspian was her favorite volume. I think I know the reasons why this might be so, and in due course, I will eventually get around to addressing this question. But let’s start here: sequels get no respect! That […]
Why Isn't There a "Jewish Narnia"? — On the Nature of Fantasy & S/F
March 29th, 2010
Here is the provocative title of a stimulating essay by Dr. Michael Weingrad: “Why There is no Jewish Narnia.”
Professor Weingrad, whose article appears in the Spring, 2010 issue of the Jewish Review, directs the Jewish Studies program at Portland State University. (His book, American Hebrew Literature: Writing Jewish National Identity in the United States, will be published this fall by Syracuse University Press.)
A Christmas Gift Guide for Those Who Love Jack
December 14th, 2008
U2, Bono, C. S. Lewis — October 2-4, 2009
November 11th, 2008
Coming May 13-15, 2009, Durham, NC will be the grand venue for a terrific academic conference sponsored by North Carolina Central University, focused on the music, work and influence of U2: U2: The Hype and the Feedback. (You may have noticed the info box on the right menu that has been posted since October.) Registration […]
Resurrecting Old Myths
July 7th, 2008
In light of the “new” controversy over the “recent” discovery of references to the resurrection in Dead Sea Scroll materials, keep in mind: In the New Testament, the thing really happens. The Dying God really appears—as a historical Person, living in a definite place and time. . . . The old myth of the Dying […]
Belief & Unbelief: A Reappraisal
July 3rd, 2008
Ten Maxims for Reflection and DebateDr. Bruce L. Edwards SKEPTICISM is always easier than belief, for skepticism commits one to nothing in particular, and removes accountability. The believer by contrast must live up to her principles and face the possibility of being wrong or hypocritical. And doleful public scrutiny. All the skeptic has to do […]
C. S. Lewis’s Great Experiment
February 24th, 2008
A book few readers of C. S. Lewis will ever voluntarily pick up has the unwieldy, even forbidding title, An Experiment in Criticism. The title conceals more than it reveals. An experiment in what? And criticism of whom? The title doesn’t tell. It’s the classic book that you need to know what it’s about before […]
Finding Neverland
December 19th, 2007
“When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty, I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.” – […]
Take that, Pullman, er, Hollywood!
December 4th, 2007
If you don’t happen to read Gregg Easterbrook’s Tuesday Morning Quarterback column for espn.com, you may not have seen his scathing commentary on the movie derived from Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass: . . . Recent anti-religion best-sellers by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens read like Middle Ages papal bulls, pronouncing a new […]
ELSEWHERE: God’s Insidious, Unscrupulous, Relentless Cultural Warfare
October 13th, 2007
I am daily trying to be, to read, to think, more globally-minded—and that is not just in the “flat-world” sense of Thomas Friedman. Over the last ten years, in addition to reading and rereading C. S. Lewis, I have been immersed in the work of writers like Lamin Sanneh (Yale Divinity prof and West African […]
