Alexander Stern

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Gift Ecology

1 month ago | commonwealmagazine.org | Richard Schiffman |Alexander Stern |Thomas Banchoff |Naomi Fisher

In order to understand the debt that we owe to the natural world, Robin Wall Kimmerer recommends berry picking, one of humanity’s older and most quietly enlightening occupations. To harvest these wild fruits is to receive a gift. We didn’t plant the berry bush. We are not responsible for the rain, the sunshine, or the finely balanced soil which allows it to grow. Still, it offers up its sweet fruit without any expectation of return.
The Flash

1 month ago | commonwealmagazine.org | Christopher Ruddy |Alexander Stern |Thomas Banchoff |Naomi Fisher

His door was always open. Lawrence (known universally as “Larry”) Cunningham, Notre Dame theologian and longtime Commonweal contributor, died on February 20 at the age of eighty-nine. There were few scholars who were either more productive (author or editor of twenty-five books and of hundreds of articles) or more available, but certainly no one was both more productive and more available than he was. Larry always seemed delighted to see you and to have all the time in the world for you.
Press On

1 month ago | commonwealmagazine.org | Dominic Preziosi |Alexander Stern |Thomas Banchoff |Naomi Fisher

A few years after buying The Washington Post, Jeff Bezos said that “certain institutions have a very important role in making sure that there is light,” an idea that inspired the paper’s instantly famous slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” Officially introduced in 2017, the slogan had been decided on before Donald Trump took office—serendipitously, given what soon unfolded. But Bezos has since had a change of heart.
March 2025

2 months ago | commonwealmagazine.org | Alexander Stern |Miles Doyle |Paul Moses |Robert Rubsam

Article A Barbaric Proposal Trump’s call for the ethnic cleaning of Gaza begins a new phase of suffering for Palestinians—and at the worst possible time. Article Turning Our Backs PEPFAR has long been a successful program for treating and preventing HIV. We must not let partisan politics kill it. Article Unchecked and Unbalanced It has taken Donald Trump and Elon Musk less than a month to lead the country into chaos and crisis.
The Forgotten Epidemic

Dec 26, 2024 | commonwealmagazine.org | Alexander Stern |Santiago Ramos |Vanessa R. Corcoran |Jonathan Malesic

In a memo for Ronald Reagan composed ahead of a May 1982 meeting with Pope John Paul II, Secretary of State Alexander Haig advised the president to emphasize his commitment to eradicating nuclear weapons, “the last great epidemic of our civilization.”The last great epidemic? It’s hard to read Haig’s words today without a twinge of disbelief, if not jealousy. We’re now living through what might be termed an age of epidemics, both literal and otherwise.
The Bible and Marian Art

Dec 3, 2024 | commonwealmagazine.org | Paul Lauritzen |Alexander Stern |Céire Kealty |Michael Peppard

“All generations shall call me blessed,” she correctly predicted in her famous song of prayer, the Magnificat (Luke 1:48). From late antiquity to the present, images of Mary during her miraculous pregnancy, cradling the infant Jesus, suffering at his death, praying at his Ascension, and being crowned heavenly queen have populated Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Whether wandering the countryside of Poland or Costa Rica, you will find her there.
Will 2016 Never End?

Nov 8, 2024 | commonwealmagazine.org | Alexander Stern |Charles McNamara |Stephen Pope |Regina Munch

I watched the 2016 election coverage at a dive bar in downtown South Bend, Indiana. As the returns in Wisconsin and Michigan came in, it became apparent that a buffoonish, racist creation of tabloids, TV, and Twitter was about to become president. The bar, Frank’s Place, sits on the edge of the city’s blighted downtown and its regulars are working- and lower-middle-class people, Black and white.
The Medium Is the Message

Oct 23, 2024 | commonwealmagazine.org | Anton Barba-Kay |Dominic Preziosi |Alexander Stern

It is regrettable, though perhaps not entirely surprising, that the Black artist Elizabeth Catlett is not better known: unsurprising because Catlett came of age in a time when women of color were marginalized as a matter of course, regrettable because of the power of her work, in which theme and medium are so closely aligned as to suggest destiny.
Commonweal Centennial

Oct 18, 2024 | commonwealmagazine.org | Phil Klay |Peter Quinn |Alexander Stern |George Scialabba

Two excellent new books defend the liberal project with wisdom and clarity. So why do they yield such little hope?
The Next Prairie Populist?

Oct 15, 2024 | commonwealmagazine.org | Justin Vassallo |Peter Quinn |Alexander Stern |George Scialabba

After a presidential election cycle once again defined by trench warfare in a few swing states, an unlikely insurgent in deep-red Nebraska could have a major impact on national politics come January. Dan Osborn, an independent candidate and union leader who led a strike at Kellogg’s Omaha plant in 2021, has gained momentum in his bid to unseat two-term Republican senator Deb Fischer.