Steveawiggins

LATEST ARTICLES ( 4142 )

• Sky Blue

  

  How do you capture a true and abiding fascination in words? That’s a thought that comes to me once in a while when I think about the sky. It’s so hard to define... Read more

  Posted on 29 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Serpent Number One

  

  I haven’t read The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry. Yet. My reading list is frighteningly enormous and constantly growing. I just can’t seem to get on top of it. Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Fishers of Cars

  

  The car was drunkenly weaving across lanes in substantial traffic along Interstate 80. Erratic driving that, although not breathalyzer confirmed, suggested... Read more

  Posted on 27 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Media May I?

  

  “Television today plays too great a part in our national life for us to allow it to fall into misuse by unprincipled hucksters. Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Wonders and Signs

  

  Raised by a woman who would be perhaps classified as a “single mother” these days—she was technically married except for a very brief time just before my... Read more

  Posted on 25 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Science of the Immaterial

  

  One of the truly frustrating things for the honestly curious is a lack of good resources. Specifically here I’m talking about ghosts. More generally, about the... Read more

  Posted on 24 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• No Explanation

  

  How do you explain that? Everything, I mean. The need to understand “life, the universe, and everything” is as old as our species, and perhaps even older than... Read more

  Posted on 23 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Scaping By

  

  Failure is a part of life. We don’t like stories about failure, however, unless the protagonist goes out with a memorable bang. So it is that when we fail we... Read more

  Posted on 22 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Gilded Age

  

  What relevance could the Gilgamesh Epic possible hold for contemporary people? Well, one of my colleagues has said that every book is now about Trump. While I... Read more

  Posted on 21 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Ammonia Avenue

  

  It’s 7:00 p.m. I’m still sitting on a bus, in unmoving traffic a mere three miles from home. I stepped out of my front door over 13 hours ago and I have only... Read more

  Posted on 20 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Making Prophets

  

  I first read 1984 around its eponymous date. The context is informative. I was a student at Grove City College, a conservative, Reagan-esque school of strong... Read more

  Posted on 19 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• A Kind of Contact

  

  I find myself in Ithaca, New York. Places have a resonance with people, and this is one of those places I feel like I belong. The feeling may not be mutual,... Read more

  Posted on 18 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Remember Ronnie?

  

  Listening to Comrade Trump, I wonder what it is the GOP really wants. My doublethink may be fuddled a bit, but I’m old enough to remember a guy called Ronald... Read more

  Posted on 17 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Viewing Religion

  

  Scholars employed by the academy sometimes fall under its privileged bubble. In that rarified space, the classics, the Bible, and even serious contemporary... Read more

  Posted on 16 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Overdone

  

  One of the things you see quite a lot of as an editor is “the next big thing.” Authors with an ego that awes me ensure me that this book will be the sea change... Read more

  Posted on 15 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Living Challenged

  

  One of the surest signs of hope for the world is that academics are beginning to notice monsters. A trickle began some time ago and it’s probably best to call i... Read more

  Posted on 14 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Birds

  

  While waiting for the bus, now that it’s light out that early, I like watching the birds. They have complex interactions and so many different styles of... Read more

  Posted on 13 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• O Absalom

  

  It feels like confession every time I go to get my hair cut. I sit in the chair and a girl younger than my daughter looks perplexed when I explain it’s been a... Read more

  Posted on 12 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• Flat Devils

  

  Fiction is a framework to approach reality. People are drawn to stories because they help us to make sense of a bewildering world which wasn’t, in reality,... Read more

  Posted on 11 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY

• The Nature of Evidence

  

  Home alone on a Friday night, I turned to Werner Herzog’s Nosferatu. Not a typical horror film, this art house production is an updating and remaking of F. W. Read more

  Posted on 10 June 2017 POLITICS, RELIGION, SOCIETY