Yale offers a series of ongoing fireside chats, where students and recent graduates can hear other graduates' advice about their given field. I joined in recently for a panel that wasn't focused on any particular career path, but rather on how to approach careers during the coronavirus pandemic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1V-Wr3RRk6o Obviously, I have no special expertise… Read More
All the Screen’s a Stage
When the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA had to close its playhouse due to the pandemic, I audited their online classes as a reporter for The American Interest. During a discussion of alliteration, one smaller girl, attending the class with her big sister, stumbles on Bottom’s tongue-twister of a line, “I trust to take of truest… Read More
Discernment in Plague-Times
I wrote at First Things on Kristen Lavransdatter as a primer for living a life of Christian service and witness in a pandemic. It was intended, among other things, as a rejoinder to the idea that sheltering in place was cowardice. Someday when our children ask us “What did you do during the coronavirus pandemic?,” it won’t… Read More
Children Are a Rebuke to Our Schedules
After our baby, Beatrice, was born, I wrote a piece for the Institute for Family Studies on children as natural born interruptors, including of some of our culture's mistaken expectations about time. We can deceive ourselves (at least for a little while) about our limits and our control—by staying up too late to finish something… Read More
Books I Plan to Read in 2020
Technically, I did pretty well on my 2019 reading list, finishing nine of the eleven books on my list. It's just that it sounds a lot better if you didn't see the grocery bag of books I schlepped over Christmas break when I finished three of the books on my list during the Octave. Beyond… Read More
Debating Illiberalism in DC
As one of my last trips before hitting the don't-travel-while-pregnant cutoff, I went to Washington D.C. As part of the Georgetown Initiative on Catholic Thought and Social Life, I was part of a panel with Ross Douthat, Matthew Sitman, and Austen Ivereigh. We were asked to tackle "Nationalism, Post-liberalism, and Pope Francis." It got a… Read More
The Fourth Turning and America’s Demons
Will Arbery's play Heroes of the Fourth Turning was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Drama (and oddly reminiscent of late nights with my college friends—though the protagonists hang out in a backyard, not on a roof). I reviewed it for The American Interest. The praise for the show has frequently taken Teresa’s world-historical perspective—the show is remarkable because these… Read More
Your Roots Shall Make Ye Free
I reviewed Michael Brennan Dougherty's epistolary memoir, My Father Left Me Ireland, for The American Interest. Dougherty's rage is directed at the eunuchizing modern mindset that sees us as most free when we can be stripped of all the ties we have to others. A father can leave his children, provided the financial pain is assuaged by child support or governmental… Read More
Fear and the Benedict Option
Any sort of retreat will also attract people who are tempted to hate the part of the world they are withdrawing from. Any group gathering in a BenOp spirit should expect to attract people at varying levels of weariness, anger, fear, and despair. Even a legitimate righteous anger can curdle into contempt or despair. To… Read More
Hope of Heaven in Hadestown
I reviewed Hadestown, the 2019 Best Musical, for The American Interest. Hermes, the messenger-god who serves as narrator, warns us that “When the gods are having a fight, everybody else better hold on tight.” The world that Orpheus and Eurydice inhabit is wounded and weakened by the faltering love between Hades and Persephone. (This production does not… Read More