Joyce Salisbury, “The Beast Within: Animals in the Middle Ages”
People in the Middle Ages did not, so far as we know, love their animals. As Joyce points out, they used them, ate them, and even had sex with them. But they do not seem to have loved them, any of them. They did, or at least some of them, think about animals rather deeply. They wanted to know what animals were, really. They knew animals were God’s creatures. But there were nettlesome questions, like whether animals had souls. [...] Thinkers of the Middle Ages had some interesting things to say about all these questions, many of which still have resonance today. Read Joyce’s fine book and learn all about it.
(review, feed)
Big IdeasChris Hedges on Death of the Liberal Class
Journalist and author Chris Hedges delivers a lecture based on his book Death of the Liberal Class. Hedges argues that there are five pillars of the liberal establishment - the press, liberal religious institutions, labor unions, universities and the Democratic Party - but that these institutions have failed the constituents they purport to represent.
(review, feed)
More Chris Hedges:
On Open Source,
On Media Matters.
Forgotten Classics
Genesis, chapters 10-12
In which there is babbling and traveling.
(review, feed)
