Forgotten lessons from Christopher Lasch

Related reading and listening

• Only a dying civilization neglects its dead — Historian Dermot Quinn discusses the work of fellow historian Christopher Dawson (1889–1970). (15 minutes)
• Christopher Dawson: Chronicler of Christendom’s Rise and Fall — Dermot Quinn discusses historian Christopher Dawson’s meta-historical perspective and his wisdom about what makes cultures healthy or unhealthy. (54 minutes)
• Life without limits? — Robert Westbook on Christopher Lasch’s critique of the modern rejection of limits
• Infrastructures of addiction — Christopher Lasch on the subversive effects of the expectation of novelty
• The past as presence, not souvenir — Historian Christopher Lasch on the importance of recognizing our dependence on the past
• A prophetic pilgrim — Historian Eric Miller charts Christopher Lasch’s intellectual journey in search of a vision that could direct Americans toward the higher hopes and nobler purposes that might lead to a flourishing common life. (57 minutes)
• “How deep the problems go” — FROM VOL. 103Eric Miller discusses the late historian and social critic Christopher Lasch’s intense commitment to understand the logic of American cultural confusion. (20 minutes)
• Peters, Jason — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Jason Peters teaches English at Hillsdale College. A founding member of Front Porch Republic, he is the editor of both Local Culture: A Journal of the Front Porch Republic and Front Porch Republic Books.
• Miller, Eric — FROM THE GUEST PAGE: Eric Miller is Professor of History and the Humanities at Geneva College, in Beaver Falls, PA, where he directs the college’s honors program.
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 147 — FEATURED GUESTS: R. Jared Staudt, Jason Peters, D. C. Schindler, Craig Gay, Mary Hirschfeld, and Patrick Samway
• Remembering Christopher Lasch — Dominic Aquila, Eric Miller, and Jeremy Beer describe the unique intellectual and moral contributions of Christopher Lasch. (26 minutes)
• Christopher Lasch: “Conservatism against Itself” — In this early article from First Things, historian Christopher Lasch poses the question of whether cultural conservatism is compatible with capitalism. (42 minutes)
• Jeremy Beer: “On Christopher Lasch” — Jeremy Beer describes the intellectual trajectory of cultural historian Christopher Lasch, who critiqued the modern “anxiously narcissistic” self and the culture that produced it. (55 minutes)
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 103 — FEATURED GUESTS: Steven D. Smith, David Thomson, Adam McHugh, Glenn C. Arbery, Eric Miller, and Eric Metaxas
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 100 — FEATURED GUESTS: Jennifer Burns, Christian Smith, Dallas Willard, Peter Kreeft, P. D. James, James Davison Hunter, Paul McHugh, Ted Prescott, Ed Knippers, Martha Bayles, Dominic Aquila, Gilbert Meilaender, Neil Postman, and Alan Jacobs
• Digital equality and the untuning of the world — Lee Siegel analyzes how web-based pursuits of unique identity is so unbounded that personal definition becomes impossible.
• Mars Hill Audio Journal, Volume 77 — FEATURED GUESTS: Eric Miller, Lisa de Boer, Peter J. Schakel, and Alan Jacobs
• Place, Community, and Memory — Several essayists and a novelist explore the important ways in which we (and the communities we inhabit) are shaped and sustained by the particular places in which we live. (100 minutes)