Remembering Ronald Numbers (1942-2023), Historian of Science
The late historian Ronald Numbers was a great exemple of intellectual seriousness and deep compassion. We can all learn from him.
The Passion of George Orwell
Orwell's 1984 is an inversion and reply to CS Lewis's That Hideous Strength. But in changing Lewis's ending, he offered no hope for Winston Smith.
Has Science Fiction Ever Been Modern?
How modern is sci-fi, anway? Its Golden Age featured narratives of ascent and decline, the binary of Foundation or A Canticle for Leibowitz. But modernity is more complicated than either progress or regress.
The Fifth Head of Cerberus: Notes on a Neglected Masterpiece
Gene Wolfe's brilliant novel asks courageous questions about progress, space colonization, and humanity.
The Book of the New Sun Is the Dark Souls of Books
Gene Wolfe and Dark Souls are both difficult and engrossing. In demanding rereading and replaying, they resist the passivity of consumer culture.
ChatGPT and the University's Existential Crisis
To grapple with ChatGPT in the classroom is also to grapple with the purpose of education: what are its means and what are its ends?
To Serve Man: The Relationship of Humanity to Technology
An explanation for this site. We can neither embrace technology uncritically, nor renounce it totally.
