Peter P.M. Buttigieg

What Will Your Role Be?

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By some turn of organizational American English, the word “role” has become a euphemism for “job title.”

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Last year, I wrote that the American left is losing a struggle for language, as conservatives masterfully redefine the political

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Wilfred Owen and Donald Rumsfeld have next to nothing in common, but Owen’s most important poem and Rumsfeld’s most important

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One of the classic devices in situation comedy—and some tragedy—is for a character’s solution to a simple problem to prove

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Politics is always novelistic, but the last week’s worth of news had me flashing back to high school English class.

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In the middle of a book of short sayings and poems, the great Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) wrote, “Half

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I doubt the Bush campaign asked for permission from the family of the 9-11 victim whose flag-draped body appears in

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“The past is never dead,” Faulkner famously said. “It isn’t even past.” As if to prove him right, the press

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The American Right Wing is not comfortable with the female form. So we were reminded last week, when Federal Communications

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Americans need a narrative. Seeking patterns and repetition in history is rooted in the American tradition, ever since the Puritans