The Genealogies of Modernity Journal
René Girard, Modernity, Apocalypse, Part I
“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
Worldpicture, Part III: The Cartesian Roots of Quantum Theory and Postmodernism
“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
Worldpicture, Part II: The New Quantum Ontology
“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.
Is There a Modern Potlatch?
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.
The Gospel according to Convenience
Williams’ work is not just a historical treatise but a call to deep introspection about what it means to live out one’s faith amidst the pressures of any culture that has a different telos than one’s religion.
LuElla D'Amico reviews Nadya Williams’ latest work
Two New Studies of Owen Barfield
Mateusz Stróżyński on Owen Barfield, whose philosophy and poetry are “indispensable… for those who want to go beyond the present spiritual and cultural crisis.”
On Dentistry: a Mouthful of Memento Mori
Every spoken word was a pilgrim, in some sense, passing through the valley of the shadow of death.
Lauren Spohn ponders death from the dentist’s chair
Three Critiques of Secularism
Is it possible to critique secularism in a thoroughly secular age?
Ali Harfouch on alienation and the sublime
Arnold Lunn and the Religiosity of “Modern” Mountain Athletes
Lunn’s story illustrates the reality that one need not choose between being a “modern” and “classical” mountain enthusiast or between being an inventor or follower of tradition.
Margaret Sutton on the “something else“ we find in the mountains
Where Do Bioethics Begin?
Do bioethicists actually change minds?
An interview with Michael Deem
Americans, Our Guns, and Catholic Social Teaching
Guns, in these contexts divorced from a practical function, have come to bear a symbolic meaning.
Catherine Yanko responds to the Genealogies of Modernity podcast
White Evangelicalism, Gun Control, and Fall Narratives
The emphasis in Western Christianity has been placed upon individual fallenness and the need for a personal conversion, in contrast to the deeply collectivist culture in which Jesus originally spoke.
Jonathan Lyonhart responds to the Genealogies of Modernity podcast
What is Genealogy? A Philosopher’s Response
Kierkegaard is the thinker that overcomes the systemic optimism of Hegel with meaning and morality actualized by personal commitment to truth, goodness, and beauty.
Chris L. Firestone responds to the Genealogies of Modernity podcast
Trinitarian Genealogies: Father, Son, and the Spirit of Modernity
If the logos of self-giving love shapes all reality, the critical or creative struggle cannot possibly keep the central or even the last word.
Eduard Fiedler responds to the Genealogies of Modernity podcast
Genealogy, Modernity, and Christianity Talk
Viewed in this way, surely one of the paradigmatic examples of “modernity talk” is the distinction between BC and AD—particularly if we pair it with the notion of a New Testament and an Old Testament.
Thomas A. Lewis responds to the Genealogies of Modernity podcast
Are Mountains Arbitrary?
Is there anything inherent in mountains that make our relationship to them genuine markers of change in human history?
Jake Grefenstette responds to the Genealogies of Modernity podcast
Petrarch, Nina Williams, and Mountain Modernity
Petrarch is not modern but classical, for he sees himself as being in continuity with a tradition, as gleaning in the fields after the reapers of the past.
Michael Krom responds to the Genealogies of Modernity podcast
Ekstasis and the Chicken Truck
Knowing a thing truly cannot exhaust the truth of the thing itself, its mystery, the meaning of its being, which consists of and can only be responded to with love.
John-Paul Heil responds to the Genealogies of Modernity podcast
MacIntyre and Barfield on Remedies to the Catastrophe
Barfield’s diagnosis of a deeper alienation from language induces a correspondingly more dramatic remedy.
Jeffrey Hipolito puts two great theorists of human history into conversation