Me @lithub.com.web.brid.gy on contemporary Russian literature lithub.com/writing-in-e...

Would love suggestions for Writer's Residencies in Mexico, preferably Mexico City of Oaxaca, early next year.

The Anglo-American “first-past-the-post” system is basically a gift to authoritarians. Neither MAGA nor Reform have a chance without it.

One of the gifts of the weird converts to Orthodoxy over the past decade is that it has caused me to think much more seriously about, and lean more deeply into, my own (post-)Ottoman identity. This is complicated, but the short version is: I want to learn Turkish. So I’m looking for the following:

I have a new book coming out this November with @bloomsburypublishing on how and why issues of gender and sexuality became central—not just in Catholicism, but across nearly every religious tradition worldwide Pre-Order in the thread below. tinyurl.com/yp9pwram

And this is the way forward: strengthening our defense alliances with the broader EU family, not a defensive alignment with Israel. www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/gr...

There is occasionally good news: zeteo.com/p/breaking-k...

[email protected] kindly asked me to talk about Trump and the Pope. Here is what I had to say: open.spotify.com/episode/1U16...

It might simply be that Americans, as a group, hate the arts. They refuse to fund them publicly and then complain when tickets are expensive.

Me @salon.com on Bad Bunny, language, and what's really wrong with America www.salon.com/2026/02/12/b...

Working on a new piece about dissident Russian-language writers living outside Russia and looking to discover new voices. Who are the contemporary authors in exile or diaspora that you’re reading right now? Recommendations very welcome.

Not to toot my own horn, but I called this out months ago (among other things wrong with this whole mess) @vox.com : www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...

Me @vox.com on the Rise of a Religious Left: www.vox.com/the-highligh...

If you’re interested in the lecture I gave on C.P. Cavafy last night at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago here it is. The first speaker is a brilliant specialist on Hellenistic Egypt. #literature #Cavafy youtu.be/tAjNJQwujUg?...

My first piece for Lithub! And it's not bad if I do say so myself.

The extent to which progressive Americans reach reflexively for Nazi Germany as the historical analogue for the present moment reveals just how pervasive American exceptionalism is. 1/2

I hope Europe will act quickly to make a friend and partner of a free Iran. There can be no room for the US, China, or Russia to move in and seek to undo the sacrifice that is being made on streets of Iran right now.

A huge part of why this “Invade Greenland” talk has gone as far as it has is that American masculinity is deeply constructed around the idea that American men are somehow tougher than European men. 1/3

knews.kathimerini.com.cy/en/news/cypr... My comments below in Greek and English.

Me at @hyperallergic.com on Nativity scenes hyperallergic.com/how-a-nativi...

The US would be a significantly better country if no one was allowed to graduate from an American high school if unable to demonstrate B1+ Spanish.

And millions will die if PEPFAR ends. This US administration’s stance on HIV/AIDS is the most destructive, practically and morally, since the Reagan era. The fact that more people aren’t screaming about this from the rooftops is criminal. www.cnn.com/2025/12/01/h...

Me on the Patriarch and the Pope and the future of Christianity, I suppose: www.feinschwarz.net/treffen-in-n...

I’m not gonna link to it, but that New York Times article is classic New York Times and basically everything that peeves me about the conversation around Orthodox Christianity in the West:

Me on @salon.com on why taxing the churches would be a bad idea. www.salon.com/2025/11/16/t...

Ποιον θεωρείτε τον πιο ενδιαφέροντα εν ζωή μεταφραστή ρωσικής λογοτεχνίας στα ελληνικά; Ψάχνω έμπνευση και πιθανούς συνεργάτες για ένα νέο πρότζεκτ.

A little under a year ago, this piece was the cover story for History Today. It was the first thing I wrote after losing my mama and I almost back out of writing it. 1/2 tinyurl.com/3uy2kt3r

The Pope and King Charles praying together as the Anglicans split and American Catholics panic over kindness to immigrants. Welcome to The Fourth Reformation. More about that at @bloomsburyacad.bsky.social hopefully soon-ish (as these things go!)

My talk on Anglican-Orthodox Ecumenical dialogue in the context of culture wars last week at IOCS, The Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies - Cambridge--with the added bonus the Zoom only recorded the PowerPoint so you don't have to look at me! www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QIc...

A book review par moi @publicseminar.bsky.social of an important novel by Sergey Khazov-Cassia, now available in English: publicseminar.org/2025/10/the-...

Tomorrow I’ll be talking about Anglican and Orthodox relations and how the culture wars are reshaping ecumenical dialogue. It’s a wild and revealing moment for both the Orthodox Church and the Anglican Communion. Come join the conversation. It's online. Join us! tinyurl.com/yc7td93w

Me @newrepublic.com on Pope Leo, Liberation Theology, and the future of American Catholicism: newrepublic.com/article/2016...

Watch Erik Bruhn here. Something we don’t talk about nearly enough is how ballet, then in the midst of a profound creative renaissance in the mid-20th century, was utterly devastated by HIV/AIDS. www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kRq...

Τον αγαπώ. Και ό,τι λάθος κι αν έχει κάνει, ελπίζω να γίνει Πρωθυπουργός μια μέρα. Τώρα κοροϊδέψτε με όσο θέλετε. www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYb0... #ΕλληνικήΠολιτική

This news via @religionnews.com.web.brid.gy is very troubling to me. A thread: religionnews.com/2025/09/25/n...

At @theunpopulist.net, @jonrauch.bsky.social's superb review of Bill Galston's new "masterpiece" insists that the fault, Dear Brutus, is not in liberalism if the American experiment is in trouble, it's in us that we are such underlings. You'll want to read it. www.theunpopulist.net/p/why-is-the...

Me @vox.com on why the making of matrys matters: www.vox.com/politics/462... #CharlieKirk

When the history books are written, Trump’s disgraceful speech at the UN General Assembly today will stand as a turning point in the fall of the American empire. It should be a warning to Americans across the political spectrum: the age of U.S. dominance is over and very possibly U.S. democracy.

Poland, Estonia, Moldova (not a NATO member, but a "partner for peace"): Make no mistake, Russia is testing the tolerance and resolve of NATO and of Europe. And as a rule, you do not give authoritarians an inch. Not one.

Me @foreignpolicy.com foreignpolicy.com/2025/09/19/r.... #Russia

Not really an overstatement to say that the test of a free society is whether or not comedians can make fun of the country's leader on TV without repurcussions.

Me @salon.com on the Debate Me Bros and public discourse. #Debate www.salon.com/2025/09/17/h...

Trey Reed did not bruise his own body and break his own legs. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Web0...

Everything else aside, Farage is just statistically wrong here. Gay male couples have the lowest divorce rates. Those are just the facts. www.cbs.nl/en-gb/news/2...

Young men are being radicalized, and the whole "Debate Me Bro" culture is a major gateway to that. Much worse, the grown ups are confusing these "debates" with civil discourse. And that's a problem. Debate Me Bro culture is to civil discourse what porn is to sex.

I think one of the ways the 20th century broke our brains is by making us think that everyone is in possession of a coherent ideology and that ideology governs and explains their private and public behavior perfectly. That’s just not true.

It's ONLINE so everyone can come here me talk about the history of Anglican-Orthodox relations and how we can save one of Christianity's oldest ecumenical relationships from the grim of the Culture Wars! You know you want to! Here's the Zoom link: us02web.zoom.us/j/84484872981 #EcumenicalDialogue

Apropos of nothing: Mormon history is American history. You can't understand America if you don't understand Mormonism.

Insomnia thoughts: Isn’t it strange and telling of how race shapes our thinking that Willa Cather is hailed for writing “America’s greatest Catholic novels” even though she wasn’t Catholic, while we rarely talk about Toni Morrison’s novels as Catholic even though she was? #Books

Charlie Kirk’s oldest child just turned 3. I don’t want to live in the world he envisions, but I also don’t want to live in a world where people gloat over a father of two toddlers being in mortal peril.