Carl Schmitt, 1888–1985
3,994 words
Like many of his books, Carl Schmitt’s The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy (1923) is a slender volume packed with explosive ideas.[1] The title of the English translation is somewhat misleading. The German title, Die geistesgeschichtliche Lage des heutigen Parlamentarismus, is more literally rendered The Intellectual-Historical Position of Contemporary Parliamentarism. But the word “crisis” is still appropriate, because parliamentary democracy in Weimar Germany really was in crisis. Read more …
American Gods & Their Shadows
Winslow Homer, The Woodcutter, 1891.
6,121 words
I read Neil Gaiman’s American Gods sometime in college. I found it more Flannery O’Connor than Marvel Studios, but it’s hardly surprising that the latter interpretation seems to have driven the new television series’ production team (but I haven’t watched). Read more …