memory
A refugee’s fragmented memory
Viet Thanh Nguyen’s fractured and stirring memoir is haunted by war—and religion.
A refugee’s lonely heart
Beth Nguyen’s second memoir is a deep dive into the void of a mother’s absence and the silence surrounding it.
Rachel Gross wants to blur the distinction between Jewish culture and Jewish religion
Being Jewish goes beyond the synagogue.
Flannery O’Connor’s challenge to the Lost Cause myths of the Confederacy
A little-known O’Connor story explores the human cost of self-deception.
Letting Augustine be Augustine
How to capture the urgency of Confessions? New translations by Sarah Ruden and Peter Constantine offer very different approaches.
Lynched but not forgotten
The National Memorial for Peace and Justice represents a watershed moment in the idea and practice of what a public memorial can be.
Remembering the things that give life
In occupied Paris, Yo-Yo Ma's father memorized Bach violin sonatas by day so he could play them during the blackout each night.
Sydney Lea's poetry of memory
After many years looking at life in all its idiosyncrasies, Lea offers his 12th collection. It's intimate and authentic.
The vocation of being a stranger
As a mother and a woman of color, I read Camille Dungy's book as a personal roadmap.
Robots of the West
Westworld’s claim is that memory leads to consciousness, which leads to violence.
Sister Everard's silence
We thought her only stern and rigorous and dry—until one afternoon in October.
Unremembered
In the midst of a procession of well-known stories is an image marking what's been forgotten. That's most of history, isn't it?
Teaching love
Honestly facing the conflict of self with self—and choosing words that reveal its particular manifestations in one life—is hard, hard work.
Witnesses in the cloud
Critics view genealogy as a kind of ersatz historiography, an individualistic reconstruction of the past. But there is more to family tree building.
Writing the Christian life: The essence of spiritual memoir
A memoir becomes explicitly Christian when it derives its literary power from the power of the gospel. It doesn't preach, it shows.
Feelings and faith
As I watched Inside Out, I found myself thinking about Augustine's assertion that we are what we love and what we hate.
Never forget, never tell: An Armenian Americans dilemma of memory
My first trip to Turkey, the place where so many Armenian Christians were killed, found me in a land both strange to me and known in my bones.
The memory of God
We can't remember Jesus the way we can remember, say, Bonhoeffer or the lavishly photographed St. Thérèse of Lisieux.