In this edition of the Reading Wheel Review, CRCD Executive Director Dr. Jordan Ballor interviews Dr. Kirstin Birkhaug. Dr. Birkhaug serves as a research fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy and an assistant professor of political science at Hope College. Her conversation with Dr. Ballor centers around
Do words make anything happen? This sort of question—frequently posed of poetry, and posited more widely in disciplines within the arts and letters—can, for the purposes of this essay, be boiled down to: what in the world does literary creativity do? Yes, poetry may stir the heart and engage the
I have the privilege of teaching political theory to undergraduate students. The thinkers that pose the greatest challenge to these young people tend to be not the ancient Greeks, nor the likes of Machiavelli or Hobbes, but the American Founders. This is not to say that my students find the
MAECENAS, you, beneath the myrtle shade,Read o’er what poets sung, and shepherds play’d.What felt those poets but you feel the same?Does not your soul possess the sacred flame?Their noble strains your equal genius sharesIn softer language, and diviner airs. While Homer paints, lo! circumfus’d in air,Celestial Gods in mortal forms
