Comment Magazine

“This would be the final victory of darkness: not the ruined home but the ruined capacity to see catastrophe. So long as we still flinch, the night has not won. But whether we shall flinch tomorrow, no one knows.”

Anastasia Korbet from wartime Ukraine.

The Room Without a Wall Anastasia Korbet writes from wartime Ukraine on memory, attention, and whether hope can endure the darkness without looking away.

C.S. Lewis had “a kind of bachelor incomprehension or even distaste for the lives of young women,” says Francis Spufford.

Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb on Spufford's Nonesuch and the girl Narnia left behind.

The Trouble with Susan Susan Pevensie was left out of Narnia’s happy ending. Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb considers Francis Spufford’s Nonesuch—and the possibility of second chances.

“The war did not bring a new reality into it; it merely laid bare the old one that had been hiding behind the surface.”

Anastasia Korbet writes from wartime Ukraine on memory, attention, and whether hope can endure the darkness without looking away.

The Room Without a Wall Anastasia Korbet writes from wartime Ukraine on memory, attention, and whether hope can endure the darkness without looking away.

Arriving Home A new book by Ian Marcus Corbin diagnoses our loneliness and calls us back to belonging and community.

“As wayfarers in the wilderness, we become keepers of the trail tasked with tending to other wayfarers, especially to those on the trail who are in need.”

Terence Sweeney on belonging and the modern world, in a review of Ian Marcus Corbin’s To Arrive Where We Started.

Arriving Home A new book by Ian Marcus Corbin diagnoses our loneliness and calls us back to belonging and community.

What do Christian nationalists actually want? On a new episode of Zealots at the Gate, Matthew Kaemingk and Shadi Hamid wanted to hear the case made directly, so they invited William Wolfe, a self-described Christian nationalist, to discuss what makes a nation and who belongs.

Available now on YouTube or wherever you stream podcasts.

What Do Christian Nationalists Actually Want? On Zealots at the Gate, Matthew Kaemingk and Shadi Hamid talk with William Wolfe, a self-described Christian nationalist, on what makes a nation—and who belongs.

“Finding ourselves alone, we give ourselves a sense of belonging by owning things, but in so doing we put up more barriers and find ourselves even more alone.”

Arriving Home A new book by Ian Marcus Corbin diagnoses our loneliness and calls us back to belonging and community.

“Is there a way to pursue our academic vocations that feels less like a frenetic standstill and more like care for the fragile complexities of our living-and-dying institutions?”

When a University Dies A look at the mortality of institutions of higher education.

“The mistaken if implicit premise beneath the work of bridging has always been the conflation of partisan polarization with the culture war.”

John Wood Jr. reflects on Comment’s Understory festival and why our divides run deeper than party.

Love, Tradition and the Omni-American Dream Reflections on The Understory Festival and the Movement to Bridge the Divide

“Lacking communities of participation, we direct our innate longing for them into owning things in such a way that we lose connection instead of gaining it. Rather than belonging to communities, we belong to possessions.”

Terence Sweeney reviews Ian Marcus Corbin’s To Arrive Where We Started.

Arriving Home A new book by Ian Marcus Corbin diagnoses our loneliness and calls us back to belonging and community.