An improbable tale of youth, age, and cultural change in the Catskills, with apologies to Washington Irving.
Arts
How to resolve America’s monument wars? The experiences of Macedonia and Russia suggest some unlikely lessons.
Tragedies give pleasure because they make room for art. Published in "Missing Character," Vol. 26, No. 1.
What Pleasants found in the Afro-American idiom was a body of music intended to comfort the afflicted. Published in "Theological Variations," Vol. 25, No. 2.
The saving grace of Jewish-American comedy. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
The future of A.I. in Hollywood -- and beyond. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
Spielberg's West Side Story is a masterpiece based on a masterpiece. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
Why the TV adaptation of My Brilliant Friend is better than the book. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
The Cold War novelist on the big and small screen. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
Lincoln and Django Unchained represent what passes for artistic sensibility in today's Hollywood. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
Avatar is the latest example of where art, politics, and theology meet. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
War and torture get the Hollywood treatment. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
Martin Scorsese's The Departed is a blurry copy of the Hong Kong original. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
The merciless comic keeps hitting below the Borscht Belt. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
An inside look at Dan Brown's new novel. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
The Queen and Marie Antoinette ask whether the modern world can understand monarchy anymore. Part of the Shadow Play article series.
Cantor attempts to link four TV programs to the themes of globalization and the end of the nation state. A review of Gilligan Unbound: Pop Culture in the Age of Globalization (2001).
Review of The Cold War and the United States Information Agency, by Nicholas J. Cull