Review Essays

An Alternative to Realism Scientific realism is the view that the aim of science is to produce literally true theories about the world. Although realism is probably the commonest philosophy among scientists, and perhaps even dominates among philosophers of science, alternative views abound, even after a century of serious inquiry about realism in science. I…

Wayne Booth was a critic, theorist, and funny-wonderful dreamer. One night during World War II, while serving in Europe as what he called a “clerk-rifleman,” he had a dream that raised him far above the conflict with the Nazis. His autobiography relates it this way: The night heavens are alight, with three huge overlapping circles,…

The Prestige, a 2006 film about competition and revenge between two antagonistic Victorian era magicians, takes its title from the last of the three acts that characterize all successful illusions. Every magic trick begins with Act 1, “The Pledge,” when the magician presents to the audience some rather ordinary and unsurprising object or situation; for…

In September of 1930, the German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer arrived in New York for his first visit to America. As a teaching fellow at Union Theological Seminary, the young Bonhoeffer spent the next year meeting colleagues like Jean Laserre, a French pacifist, and Frank Fisher, a black seminarian who introduced Bonhoeffer to Abyssinian…

Introduction In a recent article in SEEN, the journal of Christians in the Visual Arts (CIVA), Beverly Roberts Gaventa poses the question, why bother with Mary? With this simple question, Gaventa identifies the attitude harbored by many Protestant Christians today. For some, however, this casual disregard moves to the level of uneasy suspicion and apprehension…