Current Issue
Meritocracy and its Discontents
Summer 2016 (18.2)
Increasingly, Americans have grown wary and distrustful of their leaders, whom they perceive as arrogant, selfish, and disconnected from the concerns of real people and the best interests of the nation. What does this loss of confidence in our elites have to do with the system that selects and shapes them? Why has meritocracy itself come to be seen as a big part of the problem? And what can be done to fix a broken system? This issue also includes a symposium with a never-before-published essay by Richard Rorty and responses from three distinguished philosophers: Susan Haack, Matthew B. Crawford, and Robert B. Pippin.
Work in the Precarious Economy
Spring 2016 (18.1)
According to scholarly estimates, one-fifth of today’s workforce belongs to the “precariat,” a growing and class-transcending assortment of part-time, short-term, contract workers, seasonal laborers, and other people who toil alone, take on gigs, or start businesses with little hope of longevity, steady incomes, or benefits. Examining the forces that gave rise to the precarious economy, we explore many of the cultural dimensions of the emerging workscape: How have people internalized their new “disruptable” condition? How has “precarity” affected the professions—and, more broadly, the very meaning of vocation? How is our understanding of work time and workplace changing?
Re-enchantment
Fall 2015 (17.3)
What Max Weber meant by “the elimination of magic” was never exactly clear. It has generally been taken to mean the displacement of the numinous by the powers of reason and science, the so-called “rationalization” of the world. But if the world truly became disenchanted—a subject of some debate—are we now witnessing a kind of re-enchantment?
From our Recent Issues
From Fall 2015 (17.3)
AA Envy
by Helen Andrews
Why this special treatment for twelve-step programs? Because all the other moral languages in which modern Americans are fluent, the languages that sound so inspiring and correct when they are talking about politics, turn useless in the face of addiction. | Read article >>>
From Fall 2015 (17.3)
We Have Never Been Disenchanted
by Eugene McCarraher
Simone Weil's gesture toward a "true knowledge of social mechanics" suggested a politics of the sacramental imagination. | Read article >>>
From Fall 2015 (17.3)
Sacred Reading: From Augustine to the Digital Humanists
by Chad Wellmon
Whereas for Augustine reading began with wonder, for digital humanists reading ends in wonder. | Read article >>>
Blogs
Recent Post
The Hedgehog’s Array: August 12, 2016
Noteworthy reads from the last week (or so). | Read post >>>
Recent Post
Apple’s Fight with the FBI: A Follow Up
The Apple-FBI dispute has been resolved, but in the worst possible way for Apple. | Read post >>>
Recent Post
Confronting Climate Change, Rethinking the City
Reimagining our cities provides us an important opportunity to reconsider the various structures of urban life. | Read post >>>
The Hedgehog Review wins award from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals for Best Public Intellectual Special Issue 2012. Read the award-winning issue: The Roots of the Arab Spring
About The Review
The Hedgehog Review publishes insightful essays and reviews by scholars and cultural critics focused on the most important questions of our day:
- What does it mean to be human?
- How do we live with our deepest differences?
- What is the good life? The good community? The good world?
