Authors /
Philip Christman
Philip Christman teaches English at the University of Michigan.
Marilynne Robinson’s new Gilead novel makes Jack Boughton make sense
Everything in Jack is a marvel.
October 7, 2020
Kristin Kobes Du Mez’s history of the manly godly man
How American evangelicalism baptized male aggression
August 4, 2020
The deep roots of America’s enchantment with capitalism
Eugene McCarraher explains how money became our object of worship.
November 22, 2019
Doing theology with the assumption that queer people belong
Linn Marie Tonstad summarizes a far more interesting conversation about sex and gender than the one I grew up with.
September 6, 2019
Fiction that makes prisons visible
How three novelists depict the reality of incarceration
April 2, 2019
Dazzling essays from flyover country
There are two conditions Meghan O'Gieblyn can't escape: Christianity and Midwesternness.
February 20, 2019
When illness undoes us
Deanna Thompson's book about cancer takes us where we don't want to go but must.
December 11, 2018
A deep history of women’s cultural criticism
Michelle Dean's book isn't exactly a group biography. But it is a highly entertaining feast of quotes, anecdotes, and analysis.
July 2, 2018
Kamila Shamsie’s novel is filled with perfect coincidences
Of all the coffee joints frequented by all the British citizens-of-Pakistani-descent in all of Amherst, Massachusetts, she walks into his?
November 10, 2017
The rise and fall of Emmanuel Carrère’s faith
The Kingdom is a mess, but it refuses to be wholly dismissed.
October 18, 2017
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Where are the dead?
Leonard DeLorenzo helps us envision where our loved ones have gone and how we relate to them.
August 10, 2017


A novel for frightening times
Han Kang’s main theme is the dignity and the cowardice that atrocity brings forth from people—often the same person.
April 5, 2017

The startling triumph of The Underground Railroad
Colson Whitehead has created a world as compelling—and as intolerable—as our own.
September 26, 2016
Quick takes
Gosford Park: One could easily mistake director Robert Altman for a misanthrope; his dark humor (famously displayed in M*A*S*H* and The Player) borders on meanness, while...
February 12, 2002