I once told a friend that I didn’t like the newest record from her favorite musician because he had opted to sing more about politics than love. I can’t remember my exact words, but it was something to the effect of it being very hard to write a good love (or loss) song, requiring more … More Albums A to Z: I Feel Alright
July 16-17, 1942 – Over 13,000 Jews are arrested in Paris, including four thousand children More than half were crammed into a Paris velodrome known as the “Vel d’Hiv.” There were no bathrooms; the only food came from too-rare visits by Red Cross and Quaker relief workers; and the only water came from a single … More This Day in History: The Rafle du Vel d’Hiv
Here • The first in a series of brief reflections inspired by Lauren Winner’s Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis focused on her skill as a writer (skill not often found among those of us trained to write academic history). • Why it’s so hard to do institutional histories when you’re part of the institution … More That Was The Week That Was
We’ll get to a pretty loathsome chapter in French history in about forty-eight hours, but today, in honor of France’s national holiday, here’s a repeat of my 2011 post declaring “La Marseillaise” the best national anthem. At long last (okay, six days) we come to the end of our series counting down the best national … More Happy Bastille Day!
Let’s see… More than halfway through my summer vacation and so far I’ve only completed one of the books on my summer reading list. And that the shortest one. But if that’s all the progress I made, it’s okay, since the one book I crossed off the list was Lauren Winner’s Still: Notes on a … More Reflections on Lauren Winner’s Still: Writing
Earlier today I continued my series revisiting parts of my CD collection I haven’t listened to in a while by blogging about a terrific 1988 album by the Minneapolis alternative rock band Soul Asylum. Throughout the whole series, not once had it occurred to me that — were this a different time — no professor … More Evangelicals and Popular Music: Philip Jenkins on The Byrds
If you ask a couple of my friends, they’ll snicker that I’m clueless about Eighties pop culture. And it’s true, to a point: I haven’t watched most of the John Hughes oeuvre, and while I have probably two dozen albums in my CD collection that were released during the decade, only two were hugely popular … More Albums A to Z: Hang Time
At the end of June, Jared Burkholder had an interesting post over at The Hermeneutic Circle, in which he reflected on the challenge of doing institutional histories. Specifically, the challenge of editing a new history of Grace College and Seminary with fellow Grace history professor Mark Norris. Especially as they reached the chapter dealing with … More Between Commemoration and Criticism: The Challenge of Institutional History
This morning I spent some time booking London hotel rooms for next January, when I’ll take a group of Bethel students to Europe for a three-week course on the history of World War I. Having that kind of planning in mind, I was glad for the recent reminder, from literary scholar Ilan Stevens and editor … More Reclaiming Travel
It’s not quite MacArthur hitting the beach at Leyte, or M.J. winning three post-baseball NBA Finals, but after a 37-week hiatus, behold the triumphant return of “This Week in History”! July 9, 1850 – Millard Fillmore succeeds Zachary Taylor as U.S. president This after the former war hero died of acute gastroenteritis, likely caused by … More This Week in History
The Pietist Schoolman 