Jeffrey Bilbro is an Associate Professor of English at Grove City College. He grew up in the mountainous state of Washington and earned his B.A. in Writing and Literature from George Fox University in Oregon and his Ph.D. in English from Baylor University. His books include Words for Conviviality: Media Technologies and Practices of Hope, Reading the Times: A Literary and Theological Inquiry into the News, Loving God’s Wildness: The Christian Roots of Ecological Ethics in American Literature, Wendell Berry and Higher Education: Cultivating Virtues of Place (written with Jack Baker), and Virtues of Renewal: Wendell Berry’s Sustainable Forms.
Jeffrey Bilbro
Articles by Jeffrey Bilbro
Integration, the Reality of Limits, and Lost Opportunities
“On Integration.” Jesse McCarthy and Jon Baskin critique the kind of anti-racism made popular by Robin DiAngelo’s White Fragility. Instead, they follow Harold Cruse in advocating for actions that would strengthen…
Jack Reading Group
Gracy Olmstead is organizing a reading group for people who want to read and discuss Marilynne Robinson’s new novel Jack. Tiffany Kriner, who wrote a review of the novel for…
Big Tech, History’s Arc, and Secession
“The Irony of the Google Antitrust Suit.” Franklin Foer writes that the government’s suit against Google is long overdue and marks the end of Big Tech’s unchallenged accumulation of power.…
Meritocracy, the Wingfeather Saga, and Civility
“What if Local and Diverse Is Better Than Networked and Global?” Damien Cave profiles Helena Norberg-Hodge and her work with Local Futures for the New York Times. “Our Fractured Communities: Piecing…
Humanity, Fraternity, and a Wisdom that is Woe
“Our Humanity Depends on the Things We Don’t Sell.” In a profound essay, Mary Harrington links such apparently disparate topics as strip-mining, prostitution, and enclosure to defend the ordinary work…
Liberal Arts, Institutions, and Truth
“The Forgotten Front Porch Is Making a Comeback.” Spike Carlsen notes a promising development: “Thanks to the pandemic, the front porch is enjoying a new golden age. Like their near…
Fly-Fishing, Patient Ambition, and Healing the Wounds
“The Market Made Me Do It: The Scandal of the Evangelical College.” Eric Miller draws on the example of the institution I’ve taught at—Spring Arbor University—to highlight the failure of…
From the Village Square to the Global Village—and Back?
At their best, local papers “help provide a common reality and touchstone, a sense of community and of place.”
Book Exhibit, Bison, and Homeschooling
“Notre Dame Press Virtual Book Exhibit.” Steve Wrinn and the University of Notre Dame Press are regulars at FPR conferences. Since we had to cancel this year’s main conference, the…
Affability, Simone Weil, and Cassiodorus
“Jason Peters Writes to Entertain his Friends and Exasperate his Enemies.” Bill Kauffman is the perfect reviewer for Jason’s new book. Read the review, then read the book: “Peters, the…
Infected Brand Ambassadors, Corporate Clergy, and Anarchy
“How to Save British Farming (and the Countryside).” This summer I read James Rebanks’s new book English Pastoral. My short take is that it’s excellent. My long take on Rebanks’s three…
Melville, G.D.P. Fetish, and Sheep Shearing
“The Things I Tell Myself When I’m Writing About Nature.” In this “not-too-serious and also quite serious list that is entirely non-prescriptive, and is absolutely not a set of instructions,”…
Salmon, American Chicken, and Scrutopia
“‘The Fish Rots from the Head’: How a Salmon Crisis Stoked Russian Protests.” Anton Troianovski traces the complex politics in an eastern Russian region where precipitous declines in salmon runs…
Serious Fun, Supernatural Justice, and a Wise Bald Eagle
“Reconsidering the Statesmanship of Abraham Lincoln.” Allen Guelzo reviews—and highly commends—Jon Schaff’s Abraham Lincoln’s Statesmanship: “The reader will come to the book’s end wishing that such a statesman as Schaff describes…
Hidden Wound, Living Bridges, and Local Food Processors
“What is Happening at Spring Arbor University?” I was informed this past week that this year will be my last at Spring Arbor University. I don’t have much to say…
Tech Monopolies, Church Forests, and Publish and Perish
“Closing Time: We’re All Counting Bodies.” Clare Coffey reviews two recent books that diagnose American rot: “Who is in any serious doubt that the American health-care system is cobbled together…
Cooperatives, Lasch’s Prescience, and Political Wisdom
I enjoyed some time off email and social media this past month, but I'm ready to resume these Water Dipper posts. I also want to take this opportunity to say…
Left Conservatism, Public Lands, and Flannery O’Connor
As I try to do each year, I’ll be taking a break from the internet for a couple of weeks. FPR will continue publishing under the able guidance of Matt…
Free America, The Front Porch Republic, and America’s Decentralist Tradition
The contributors to Free America belonged to one another and to the vision of a humane society, one founded on distributed property. Just because this vision has been drowned out…
No 2020 Conference, but Maybe a Local Porch
This announcement is a disappointment, although not a surprise. FPR has a few suggestions to temper your grief: Barbecue and pull some pork, then slather on homemade Nashville BBQ sauce.Read…
Poetry, Localism, and Postliberal Epistemology
“Verse Lines When the Streets Are on Fire.” James Matthew Wilson offers a stirring defense of poetry in a season of chaos: “Disease, disorder, and riot are reminders to us…
Science, Police, and Pigs
“The Intellectual Vocation.” Josh Hochschild reviews three recent books—by Scott Newstok, Zena Hitz, and Alan Jacobs—on liberal education: All three books, by testifying to fruitful intellectual life, remind us we…
Bartering, Caregiving, and a Failed State
“The Great Stagnation—or Decline and Fall?” Patrick Deneen reviews Ross Douthat’s latest book with the help of Henry Adams and suggests our society is not merely decadent and stagnant—it is…
COVID-19 Literature, American Conservatism, and Algorithmic Stories
A good rule of thumb is that literature about current events is terrible. I have, however, come across two recent exceptions to this general rule. The first is James Matthew…