Two New Articles: Toy Story and T. S. Eliot

I’m happy to announce that I have two new articles out this summer:

The first is my first-ever academic article, titled “Relocating the Great Good Place, from Dante to James to Eliot’s Cocktail Party.” Published by The T. S. Eliot Studies Annual, it argues that Eliot’s play The Cocktail Party isn’t just a reimagining of Dante’s Divine Comedy; it is also in dialogue with the Henry James short story, “The Great Good Place”—which is itself a reimagining of Dante’s Comedy. This article began a few years ago as a seminar paper in Dr. Sebastian Langdell’s class on Dante and Dante reception at Baylor University. I’m grateful to Dr. Langdell for giving me the opportunity to first explore this topic, to Dr. Julia Daniel for introducing me to Eliot’s play while I was her research assistant, and to Timothy Lawrence and Justice Flint for their feedback and encouragement while I was putting together and revising what has been one of my most complicated writing projects so far. For those who can access the article through academic libraries, I will provide the Project MUSE link here.

The second is a review of Pixar’s Toy Story 5, my first original article for FilmFisher in over five years. This is a follow-up to the two-part “A Toy’s Telos” essay that I wrote for FilmFisher seven years ago (click here for Chapter 1; click here for Chapter 2). I am grateful to FilmFisher’s new editor Timothy House for giving me the opportunity to keep writing on this subject, and again to Timothy Lawrence for helping me flesh out my thoughts on this latest sequel. (Since Toy Story 5 is about technology, writing the article also gave me the opportunity to reflect further on Andy Crouch’s idea of “truly advanced technology.”) The review can be found here.   

Reintroducing FilmFisher

I am pleased to announce that the Christian classical film-review website FilmFisher was relaunched recently, now on Substack. Please consider subscribing!

Thanks to then-editor Timothy Lawrence, I wrote a number of reviews and articles for the site from 2018 to 2021, and a few of those pieces have been migrated over to the new site:

• An Ode to Po: Celebrating Goodness in the Kung Fu Panda Trilogy

• Avengers: Endgame

• Wonder Woman and the Bronze Serpent

Introducing Rearview Mirror

I just launched a Substack called Rearview Mirror, which I will be using to post a monthly recap of everything I published online the previous month (articles, Notebook posts, Jedi Archives posts, Letterboxd reviews, etc.). The debut post can be viewed here. For a streamlined way to keep up with all my work across the web, or to show your support, please subscribe to Rearview Mirror.

New Article: 32 Books for 32 Years

When I published the article “31 Albums for 31 Years” in August, I wrote that “Here’s hoping there will be a ‘31 Books for 31 Years’ article soon, and not a ‘32 Books for 32 Years’ article later!’” Oh well.

New Article: 31 Albums for 31 Years

I finally published this article today. It was supposed to be “30 Albums for 30 Years,” but better one year late than never! Here’s hoping the follow-up doesn’t become “32 Books for 32 Years.”

The Jedi Archives: The First Eight Posts

I’m having a lot of fun contributing to Tim Lawrence’s Jedi Archives project. Here are links to my first eight posts:

Pieces of Junk: Escapes from desert planets in the first film of each trilogy.

So Uncivilized!: Escapes from desert planets in the third film of each trilogy.

Dangerous Idealists: Similarities and differences between Obi-Wan, Mace Windu, and Count Dooku.

Doing Her Duty: Parallels between Episodes II and VIII.

Bombs Away!: The significance of the Resistance bombers in Episode VIII.

Jabba the Hutt: An Oligarchic Soul: Jabba the Hutt matches Plato’s profile of the oligarch.

The Empire Strikes Back Against a New Hope: Episodes IV and V form a chiasm.

The Force Awakens from the Revenge of the Sith: Episodes III and VII also form a chiasm.

Introducing The Jedi Archives

For the past several years my friend Timothy Lawrence and I—but especially Tim—have been on a “damn fool idealistic crusade” to change the conversation about Star Wars, emphasizing its consistency and continuity across the decades and its moral-philosophical dimensions. The latest result of that endeavor is Tim's The Jedi Archives, launched on Substack today. Each post will be a short, thought-provoking blurb on some element in the films or shows. (For example, the debut post is on the significance of the monsters encountered in the third film of each Skywalker Saga trilogy.)  Most of the posts will be Tim's, but I will also be contributing with some frequency. If you like Star Wars at all—or wonder what’s the big deal and would like to see it from a new angle—I highly recommend checking it out and subscribing. 

If you are new to Tim’s work on Star Wars, a great place to start is to read the short appendices on “Star Wars Ring Theory” (an idea first popularized by Mike Klimo) and “Tripartite Soul Theory.” If you have an hour or so, another great entry-point is Tim’s talk on Star Wars for Emmaus Classical Academy.

Reading Klimo’s essay and then the explication essays that came out of Tim’s undergraduate thesis changed the way I view Star Wars. In particular, Tim’s focus on the morally-formative intentions of Lucas’s saga rekindled my childhood love for the franchise while also maturing it. My hope is that this blog will do the same for many more once-or-future fans—not just so that more people can appreciate more of Star Wars, but so that Star Wars helps them seek the good life of a balanced soul.

New Article: 30 Films for 30 Years

I just posted an article on my 30 favorite films. I posted a similar list of 25 films 5 years ago, and had meant to follow that up with lists of 25 albums and 25 books. Maybe this time around I’ll see the project through.

P.S.: I highly recommend this short article by Tim Lawrence. This is what inspired me to start calling my favorite films “Film Friends.”

New Article: Reading with the Jedi

I have a new article, titled “The Dead Speak!: Reading with the Jedi,” that was published today over at the Mere Orthodoxy blog. It combines several of my favorite things: Star Wars, reading and reading ethics, and quoting from C. S. Lewis and Alan Jacobs. I am grateful to Tim Lawrence for his feedback on the early drafts, and to Jake Meador for publishing the article.