Jamie James

Jan 21, 2025 | laphamsquarterly.org | George Steiner |Howard Singerman |Andrew Delbanco |Jamie James

In the West, the notion of “literacy” is inseparable from the growth of monasticism and church schools after the decay of the Roman Empire. To be “literate” signified the ability to read Scripture, to form letters on the page. This capacity, often rudimentary, defined the cleric and the clerk, these two designations being closely related.

Jun 6, 2024 | laphamsquarterly.org | Michael Dirda |Jamie James |Daniel Mason

Back in the 1960s and early 1970s, sociology and the other sciences humaines emerged for a brief, shining moment as the hot majors for college undergraduates. After all, to change society, you first needed to understand it. As a result, activists and intellectuals of every stripe were soon eagerly reading the works of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Herbert Marcuse, R.D. Laing, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault—and Erving Goffman.

Apr 19, 2024 | laphamsquarterly.org | Colin Dickey |Andrew McConnell Stott |Jamie James |Andrew Blum

In September 1863, a local paper in Somerset, England, ran an article about a man and a woman from Taunton whose child had been stricken with scarlet fever. Depressingly common, a child suffering from the illness itself was not noteworthy—what made the news were the remedies proposed. Distraught, the parents had turned to a group of women for advice, and this “jury of matrons,” in the paper’s words, all agreed that there was no hope of survival.