“Girardian revelation is a necessary addition to the genealogies of the modern, not in any sense of religion making a comeback to contest the secular, but in a sense internal to the secular itself. ”

Anthony Bartlett on René Girard

“Girard’s generative anthropology rises from a discovery of foundational violence, and constantly illustrates a desperate contemporary need to somehow free ourselves from this violence.”

Anthony Bartlett on René Girard

Each month we keep track of the different paths modern life is taking and how writers are keeping up. Here are some routes we recently found on our modern life.

“We must recognize that the post-Cartesian reductive-materialist frameworks will never be sufficient to support a robust and expansive human flourishing.”
M. G. Scott on re-accessing metastructure

“The truly strange thing about quantum mechanics is not the content of the theory: it’s the way that quantum mechanics threatens to upend our fundamental relationship to reality itself.”

M. G. Scott on quantum mechanics and truth.

“The opposite of the self-defining subject of the postmodern era is one whose existence is conditioned entirely by realities outside the self. ”

M. G. Scott on the existential comforts of Greek tragedy.

Elie pushes us to reconsider and expand our idea of what counts as religious and/or sacred art, but we should be careful not to collapse the transcendent sphere into the natural world.

Aaron James Weisel reviews Paul Elie’s latest book.

Each month we keep track of the different paths modern life is taking and how writers are keeping up. Here are some routes we recently found on our modern life.

Does the agonistic ritual of the potlatch—identified as “primitive” by some—only belong to the past or does it appear in the so-called modern world?

Carl Friesenhahn looks at three ways of answering this question.

Here in the middle of these muted colors and fantastical plot is an observation straight out of Hannah Arendt.

Elizabeth Stice on philosophy in Wes Anderson

Genealogies of Modernity remembers Alasdair MacIntyre

Each month we keep track of the different paths modern life is taking and how writers are keeping up. Here are some routes we recently found on our modern life.

Reddy’s journey through the afterlife implicitly takes on a deeper question: what makes our modern life—and, by extension, our modern afterlife—different from Dante’s?

What can psychology tell us about human flourishing?

Brent Robbins on the Beatitudes as an answer to the problem of evil

Is the work of the composer and musician a distinctively human act?

A discussion with Maestro Manfred Honeck

Flaubert’s classic speaks not only to the social conditions of 19th century France, but also to the consumerist and media-stimulated dissatisfaction we face in the 21st century.

Elizabeth Stice on Flaubert’s enduring warnings

Evidently, the language which would be assumed under the Eighth Amendment originates from the intent of delegates to secure proper respect for the unalienable rights of all people.

Jackson Jannell on liberty and death

Each month we keep track of the different paths modern life is taking and how writers are keeping up. Here are some routes we found in March 2025 on our modern life.

Newman’s model of liberal arts study provides an ideal roadmap for how to create a program that would encourage focused, meaningful interdisciplinary learning.

Gina Elia on the application of Newman’s ideals

To showcase the ongoing relevance of a liberal arts education to students, programs should emphasize the roles of generalists, as opposed to specialists, in a society’s infrastructure.

Gina Elia on the ongoing urgency of John Henry Newman