If our own experience is typical, the sudden waking up of the outdoor world is scattering your thoughts, making you think of elsewhere and elsewhen. Snapping in and out of campus’s collective flashback to Commencement season, you stop in your tracks between classroom buildings and run a glance across the scrubby grass and still-grey trees; your thoughts flick to the past, to the future, back … Continue reading Letter from the Editors, March 2016

by Stacey Egger It was Christmas break, and I was out in the wide world—specifically, driving down a Saint Louis street with a close friend. I asked if she wanted to stop by a certain store on the way home. “Oh, shoot,” she replied, “I don’t have my earbuds. I can’t listen to the music they play in there.” The compulsion to drown out the … Continue reading Taste & Community: Part One of Two

by Timothy Troutner       We’ve all seen them – the freshmen matching wits over “predestination vs. free will” or “Catholicism vs. Protestantism,” testing their newfound powers across Saga tables or late into the night in the student union. Like sparring adolescent mountain goats, their youthful energy and inexperience predominate. In these poorly delineated arenas, many a straw man is born into the world, … Continue reading Dialogue and Difference: Ecumenical Encounters at Hillsdale

by Mark Naida I “The man gazed at the television. He finished his drink and started another.” – Raymond Carver, “Why Don’t You Dance?”           In Dearborn, Michigan, there is a theme park for historians. Or more properly, a park full of old things – things to stare at, trinkets to buy, and elderly docents all too willing to dispense stories from their vaults … Continue reading Tangibility and the New Place of the Artist

by Birch Smith The history of the West for the last two hundred or so years is intricately tied up with the history of capitalism, and is thus in important ways a history of sharp disagreements. As far back as the Industrial Revolution, voices have been raised in criticism of some aspect or other of the capitalistic system. These criticisms, however, have almost universally tended … Continue reading Capitalism & Community: We Need Both

by Devin Creed 안녕하세요! This standard Korean greeting (pronounced “annyeonghaseyo”) literally translates as “I hope you are well/peaceful.” Though unassuming, this simple word reveals much about Korean society. “세”is an honorific marker which is used to show respect to the person being addressed. “요”is the polite ending for verbs. Whenever Koreans encounter an elder or a stranger, the honorific polite form of the greeting is … Continue reading Korea: Life as the Other