Authors /
Carol Zaleski
Carol Zaleski is professor of world religions at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts.
What book would you describe as beautiful?
10 writers respond.
October 9, 2018
The key of David and other Advent images
Each December we pray for the key of David to come. What does it lock and unlock?
December 13, 2017
What I found when I packed up my office
Some things are worth keeping precisely because they will soon turn to dust.
October 17, 2017
Blaise Pascal, blessed doubter
Pascal knew both the inconstancy of the human heart and the promise that we were made for glory.
August 17, 2017
Glorious things of thee are tweeted
I’ve never read Augustine’s City of God cover to cover. So I joined a Twitter experiment to help me get through it.
April 28, 2017
A toast to Ramanuja
Martin Luther isn’t the only theologian for whom we celebrate a major anniversary this year.
March 8, 2017
The Buddha and the Pantocrator
Buddhist statues and Orthodox icons aren't always symmetrical. Neither are we.
January 12, 2017
I and thou and ze?
Self-realization is possible only in relation to a reality beyond the self.
November 17, 2016
Mother Teresa at the spa
What's the difference between indulgence and respite? I'd like to ask St. Teresa.
September 12, 2016
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Prophets of imagined futures
Since Charles William Eliot's future is our past, it's easy for us to see where his prophecy missed the mark. But could we do better?
July 28, 2016
Love in the time of evil
It's 2016 and the problem of evil is still unsolved. It's found a megaphone in Stephen Fry, who offers more rhetorical power than originality.
May 27, 2016
A likely story
Each year I ask my students to devise arguments for God. They respond less like well diggers than like beachcombers, gathering bits of evidence.
April 6, 2016
Doctor Johnson’s failures
Every New Year's, every Easter, every anniversary of his wife's death, Samuel Johnson took stock and prayed for the grace to try again.
February 11, 2016
Captured on canvas
In Fra Carnevale’s Annunciation, Mary’s face signals she is pondering the angel’s message in full consciousness of the joys and terrors it will bring.
December 16, 2015
The face of Everyhuman
As a child, I liked to survey strangers about what it means to be human. Brandon Stanton has created a fully realized version of what I was doing.
October 23, 2015