Joel Cohen’s new film version of Macbeth struck me as an art piece about the play Macbeth more than a performance of the play. When the tragedy part gets lost in the shuffle, all you have left are lights and shadows.
Debra RienstraJanuary 22, 2022
Mark Wallace, Swarthmore professor of religion and environmental studies, takes this scriptural moment as much more than an exercise in symbology. Instead, in his 2019 book, When God Was a Bird, Wallace argues that the baptism narratives are quintessential manifestations of a second incarnation. Just…
Debra RienstraDecember 11, 2021
Director David Lowery, who also produced and wrote the film, has stripped out almost all of the subtle satirical commentary on Christian piety and chivalric pride. Instead, he’s focused on the problem of romance narrative itself—at least this is how I’m seeing the film. What…
Debra RienstraAugust 28, 2021
Macfarlane’s journeys, remarkable as much for the philosophical and emotional strain as for the physical rigors they demanded, uncover what underlands mean to us: in these hidden worlds, we shelter what we treasure, dispose of what we fear, and coax the earth to yield what…
Debra RienstraJanuary 11, 2020
In This World of Wonders: Memoir of a Life in LearningNicholas WolterstorffEerdmans, 2019318 pages When vistas open up in life, extraordinary people awaken to them. Widening vistas and intellectual awakenings characterize philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff’s new memoir, in which he recounts a long and extraordinary life…
Debra RienstraMay 25, 2019
Shakespeare is right to show us that there is no guarantee of reward for choosing integrity and mercy. Over against the example of his sources, Shakespeare eschewed a reparative ending. In Shakespeare’s final scenes, the noble among the younger generation pay a heavy price for…
Debra RienstraSeptember 29, 2018
The red planet and seed pods: an odd juxtaposition. But as I padded quietly through the gallery, it seemed to me that what the two exhibits have in common is the way they, like those two scripture passages, invite us into altered perspective.
Debra RienstraSeptember 15, 2018
As you spend a few last hours this summer in your Adirondack chair under a shady canopy of leaves—with that feeling of autumn’s imminence causing you to contemplate decline, aging, and the end of civilization—you might consider distracting yourself with some “climate fiction.” Sometimes short-handed…
Debra RienstraAugust 4, 2018
But neither Toller’s problems nor religious despair in general are particularly Calvinist, nor do I think that’s what Schrader means to suggest. Schrader has long thought about what it means to capture the holy in art, and a portrait of despair is one stunningly effective…
Debra RienstraJune 9, 2018
I’ve always understood that my education, beginning with my mother’s early tutelage, was a privilege. This week my gratitude—and perspective—deepened significantly as I read, along with a class of college senior English majors, Michelle Kuo’s wise and generous memoir, Reading with Patrick.
Debra RienstraApril 28, 2018
