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Author Archives: awtraughber
Free Dave Eggers!
Heroes of the Frontier, the newest novel by Dave Eggers, drops next Tuesday at a bookstore near you. Eggers has been putting out some interesting, timely stuff over the last few years (from Hurricane Katrina to technology to contemporary disillusionment), … Continue reading
A Kind of Comfortably Numb
Tomorrowland was one of the more maligned and ignored “blockbusters” from the summer of 2015, which is ironic when considering the movie’s attempt at being a “canary in the coal mine concerning contemporary society. The idea behind telling stories about … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Movies, Teaching, The Long Story
Tagged The Fractured Republic, Tomorrowland
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The Ethic of the Age
It’s been interesting for me to bear witness to even the small changes in thinking that have happened with high school students over the last thirteen years. Every spring, I get to spend a quarter with seniors talking about issues … Continue reading
The Beginning from the End
From Bonhoeffer’s introduction to Creation and Fall/Temptation, his study of the early chapters of the book of Genesis: The Church of Christ bears witness to the end of all things. It lives from the end, it thinks from the end, … Continue reading
Transformation Documentation
In many ways, Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic is a documentation of the broad changes in American culture over the last century. He does that on a large scale (and in large chunks) with his “ages” of conformity, frenzy, and … Continue reading
Deep Enough to Dream
The summer is almost over for me. I don’t make it through a summer without thinking about the music of 1997: the self-titled studio release from Caedmon’s Call, the greatest hits album of Steven Curtis Chapman (which included “Not Home … Continue reading
Our Sclerotic Systems
Even though Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic is all about understanding modern-day America, it can also easily read as a parable for other institutions and organizations. Everything is connected, of course. So Levin’s description of our national systems and programs … Continue reading
Renorming (and who benefits)
I believe it was marketing guru Seth Godin who introduced me to the idea that history may not repeat, but it definitely rhymes. That’s the sense you get when reading Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic. Sometimes patterns and trends really … Continue reading
Pokemon Go as Reality Filter?
(Pokémon Go/Gustave Caillebotte, “Le Pont de l’Europe,” 1876 from CityLab.com) Nicholas Carr (writer of The Shallows and The Glass Cage) recently posted his own “take” on the Pokemon Go/augmented reality discussion, mostly from the vantage point of art and Instagram. … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Internet, Teaching
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You Are Here (When Is That?)
The first half of Yuval Levin’s The Fractured Republic is an attempt to explain the contemporary American landscape by revisiting the major trends of the twentieth century. It’s a tall order that, from my perspective, he handles well and without … Continue reading
Space Enough, and Time 