The American Scholar

Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous speech, The American Scholar is the quarterly magazine of public affairs, literature, science, history, and culture published by the Phi Beta Kappa Society since 1932.

Unresolved

The American Scholar

LETTERS

Vanishing Graves

WORKS IN PROGRESS

POETRY EXCERPT

Fatal Courage • How Emerson helped me see, as if for the first time

White, Whiteness, Whitewash • THE MASKS WE WEAR IN AMERICA

God, Can You Hear Me? • MANY YOUNG EVANGELICALS ARE BEGINNING TO QUESTION THE PACKAGED TRUTHS OFFERED IN MEGACHURCHES

Information Insecurity • BECAUSE A EUROPEAN COURT DOESN’T TRUST U.S. PROTECTIONS ON PERSONAL DATA, TRANSATLANTIC COMMERCE AND NATIONAL SECURITY ARE AT RISK

On School Street

School Street

Notre-Dame

Venice

Our Revels Now Are Ended • WHAT THE PANDEMIC PORTENDS FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS IN AMERICA

An Atheist’s Lament • IS ANYONE—EVEN A LIFELONG NONBELIEVER—EVER TRULY DONE WITH RELIGION?

The Afterlife of a Suicide • AND THE ROYAL SENDOFF FOR A QUEENMOTHER OF THE ASHANTI

January

Long-Distance Punishment • Could a landmark work of conceptual art be an emblem for the Covid era?

Swinging Into the Future • Kansas City of the 1930s witnessed a style of American music inspired by the wonders of the industrial age

Native Wisdom • A celebration of the rich spiritual imagination of tribal peoples

Redefining Women’s Work • The relief of suffering was one means to a great end

Earning Our Daily Bread • Did early humans really have it easier than we do?

Power to the People • Looking back on a decade of revolutionary change

Market Morality • The divine underpinnings of Western prosperity

Satirist to the Galaxy • The war behind a writer’s words

Thought Experiment • Exploring the evolutionary origins of our brains

Commonplace Book

AMERICAN PLACES