Author Archives: Boz

Bible Belt Billboards

I am very much aware of the Great Commission. I memorized it in Sunday school when I was about eight years old, at a time when the King James version was still in vogue and children still memorized Bible verses: … Continue reading

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Bearing Witness: Reading and Telling the Great War

Midway through the World War I centenary, I decided that I would use that largely unacknowledged anniversary as the theme for my freshman composition class on writing across the curriculum. The students write a literature review about shell shock for … Continue reading

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Dear Jay and Gina: An Open Letter

The five “increasingly savage paragraphs” of this obituary were published in the Redwood Falls [MN] Gazette on June 4. That same day, Stu @RandBallsStu posted them on Twitter. By the time I heard about this savagery three days later on All Things Considered, … Continue reading

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Ennui; or, The Cat Who Read Mallarmé

La chair est triste, hélas! et j’ai lu tous les livres. [The flesh is sad, alas! and I have read all the books.]

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Graduation on My Mind

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Yellow Fleas

The end of Reconstruction in 1877 gave birth to the Solid South. In both Presidential and state politics, the South retained its essentially single-party identity until the passage of the Civil Right Act in 1964. During that time, Southerners would … Continue reading

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Reconsidering the American Consensus–and Rehabilitating the 1950s

The Mering thesis and the roots of consensus history At the University of Arizona in the mid-1970s, John V. Mering inculcated his disciples with a devotion to the consensus historiography whose bedrock was The American Political Tradition: And the Men Who Made It … Continue reading

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The Mother of Beauty: War in Words and Music

For the past two years, I have immersed myself in a personal and professional commemoration of the centenary of World War I. For a freshman composition class I designed in writing across the curriculum, I have read extensively in the … Continue reading

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My Journey to Easter

Last year on Palm Sunday, the rector of our large, young, and vibrant Episcopal parish, St. Michael’s in Raleigh, announced–only half in jest–that we might want to consider attending the Easter Vigil on Saturday night rather than trying to find … Continue reading

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Good Friday: Meditation without Words

Chapel of the Holy Cross, Sedona, Arizona

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