Are memorials actual reflections of the past? What do we do with static memorials when interpretations of the past change? Read more
Are memorials actual reflections of the past? What do we do with static memorials when interpretations of the past change? Read more
I am pleased to welcome Dr. Aaron Johnson to the Anxious Bench today! Dr. Johnson is Professor of Classics and Humanities at Lee University (Cleveland, TN), specializing in Greek literature of the later Roman Empire, particularly in the areas of ethnic and religious identities and of Hellenism. He has held fellowships at Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies (Harvard University), the Society of Fellows at the University of Chicago and the University of Tuebingen. His publications include a book entitled... Read more
It’s the 20th of January and there is a lot going on today in Washington, DC. No doubt readers of The Anxious Bench are already receiving notifications about Trump’s inaugural executive actions, like instituting a federal two-gender policy and ending birth right citizenship. As with his first-term efforts to overturn Roe, these new policy-level initiatives will do something to address evangelicals’ anxiety about the place of the American family (and conservative gender politics) in public life and policy. We can... Read more
As I sit down in the local library to write this post, I can see the ocean extending beyond the tree tops and red tiled roofs of the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Following the curve of the coast, I can see beach towns, most notably a collection of tall white buildings that must be Santa Monica, where I lived when I moved to SoCal in 2004. But then the buildings stop. Sweeping my eyes to the left there is an eerie... Read more
I offer a column on themes of deception, false identity, and the utter unreliability of all forms of external authority, including (apparently) the divine. I have been working on a truly odd text called the Gospel of Barnabas, which purports to be a secret gospel revealed to the early Christian figure of that name. The more I get into it, the more intriguing ideas and insights I find. Growing directly from that, I will explore one truly weird story from... Read more
“Nature is beautiful because it comes to my eyes before death.” Kawabata Yasunari Recently David Vernon, who has a new book on Japanese writer Yukio Mishima coming out soon, posted a comment on X (formerly known as Twitter) that I couldn’t agree with more: “Whatever we lose in translation, we lose far more by not reading at all.” It reminded me of an earlier article I wrote about my own literary journey years ago reading Latin American literature, and another... Read more
David Blight, the eminent Civil War historian, begins every class he teaches in the same way: by quoting from Herodotus’s histories. “This is the display of the inquiry of Herodotus of Halicarnassus, so that things done by man not be forgotten in time, and that great and marvelous deeds, some displayed by the Hellenes, some by the barbarians, not lose their glory, including among others what was the cause of their waging war on each other… I am bound to... Read more
I hope I might be forgiven for using this post to make known two publications (one out already and another forthcoming) that I think (hope!) will be of interest to Anxious Bench readers. The first is an essay, “Armenia Sighs,” based on a trip I made in March to the country of Armenia, which remains locked in conflict with its neighbor, Azerbaijan, due to the latter’s invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani province predominantly peopled with Armenians—that is until recently. Here... Read more
When I first was asked to be the editor of the Anxious Bench, I was astonished. I had been following this site since its beginning and well before I knew I’d become a historian. I had long depended upon the Bench to be a source for thoughtful and smart engagement with current issues in society, from a historical perspective. My decision to step away from this role is quite simple. I have a pressing deadline to meet with a writing... Read more
After the recent horrors in New Orleans, we have heard a huge amount about lone wolf terrorism and self-radicalization, with many debates about when and whether a seemingly isolated act of extreme violence can properly be categorized as terrorism. I have been publishing and teaching on lone wolf terror at least as long as any other expert in the field – thirty years or so – and I have things to say on the topic that are still not widely... Read more
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