About Joseph Pearce

Joseph Pearce is Senior Contributor at The Imaginative Conservative. A native of England, Mr. Pearce is the St. John Henry Newman Visiting Chair of Catholic Studies at Thomas More College (Merrimack, NH), editor of the St. Austin Review, and series editor of the Ignatius Critical Editions. He is the author of numerous books, which include The Quest for ShakespeareTolkien: Man and Myth The Unmasking of Oscar WildeC. S. Lewis and The Catholic ChurchLiterary ConvertsWisdom and Innocence: A Life of G.K. ChestertonSolzhenitsyn: A Soul in ExileOld Thunder: A Life of Hilaire Belloc, and Further Up & Further In: Understanding Narnia. Visit his personal website at jpearce.co.

Music As If Beauty Mattered: Composer Michael Kurek in Conversation

By |2024-03-13T19:23:52-05:00March 13th, 2024|Categories: Beauty, Joseph Pearce, Music, Senior Contributors|

Fifty years ago, when E. F. Schumacher published his international bestseller, Small is Beautiful, he gave it the subtitle “economics as if people mattered”. In 2006, when I published my own book, Small is Still Beautiful, I gave it the subtitle “economics as if families mattered”. In 1977, when Christopher Derrick published his book, Escape [...]

If Music Be the Food of Love: A Conversation With Composer Michael Kurek

By |2024-03-13T18:31:40-05:00March 6th, 2024|Categories: Joseph Pearce, Music, Senior Contributors|

Apart from Arvo Pärt, the grand old man of contemporary classical music, whose work I have admired greatly ever since I first heard Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten many years ago, Michael Kurek is the living composer whose works I especially enjoy. An American residing in Nashville, Dr. Kurek has almost single-handedly flown the flag [...]

Surveying the Landscape of History

By |2024-02-29T05:38:53-06:00February 28th, 2024|Categories: Books, Catholicism, Christianity, History, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

Those who are blinded by materialism cannot see the landscape of history. They see systems instead of people, and empowerment instead of virtue. They can’t see the beautiful because they refuse to raise their eyes to heaven. The past is present whether we like it or not or know it or not. The past is [...]

Truth and Masks in Chesterton

By |2024-02-07T20:44:24-06:00February 7th, 2024|Categories: G.K. Chesterton, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Oscar Wilde, Senior Contributors|

"Orthodoxy" ends with Chesterton delving deep into the divine comedy at the heart of all things. If angels can fly because they take themselves lightly, does God take Himself lightly? In a recent essay, I wrote about truth and masks in the world and works of Oscar Wilde. As a follow-up, I’d like to focus [...]

Truth and Masks in the World of Wilde

By |2024-01-25T18:37:08-06:00January 25th, 2024|Categories: Joseph Pearce, Literature, Senior Contributors|

In 1885 Oscar Wilde wrote “The Truth of Masks,” in which he claimed that there was no such thing in art as a universal truth. Attitude, he wrote, was everything. The truth, or otherwise, of masks is crucial to any understanding of Wilde’s complex and conflicted character. His public persona, cultivated and constructed from his [...]

The Romantic Reaction

By |2024-01-19T18:09:42-06:00January 19th, 2024|Categories: Art, Joseph Pearce, Literature, Philosophy, Romanticism, Senior Contributors|

C.S. Lewis thought that "Romanticism" had acquired so many different meanings that, as a word, it had become meaningless "and should be banished from our vocabulary.” But is Lewis right? In the “Afterword” to the third edition of The Pilgrim’s Regress C.S. Lewis complained that “Romanticism” had acquired so many different meanings that, as a [...]

Realism in Modern Art

By |2024-01-07T19:26:28-06:00January 7th, 2024|Categories: Art, Beauty, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

One common criticism of realism is that it is merely mimicking what can now be done as well or better with a camera. This is simply not the case. With few exceptions, photographs only show the surface, not the personhood of the subject. "The Resurrection of Realism" by Igor Babailov During the time [...]

Fantasy & the Real World: Tolkien’s Philosophy of Myth

By |2024-01-02T19:46:13-06:00January 2nd, 2024|Categories: Imagination, J.R.R. Tolkien, Joseph Pearce, Myth, Senior Contributors, Timeless Essays|

Fantasy shows us ourselves in the light of the fullness of the natural and supernatural reality in which we find ourselves. Does so-called fantasy literature have any relevance to the so-called real world? Such a question is worth asking and indeed answering but can only be addressed if we have a clear understanding of what [...]

The Art of Darkness

By |2023-12-28T17:20:02-06:00December 28th, 2023|Categories: Evil, Film, Joseph Pearce, Senior Contributors|

There is a world of difference between the dark arts and the art of darkness. Truth be told, there is more than a world of difference; there is a hell of a difference and a hell of a distance. It is the difference and the distance between heaven and hell. The dark arts are evil [...]

Wishing You a Wiggly Christmas

By |2023-12-21T17:16:24-06:00December 21st, 2023|Categories: Christmas, Joseph Pearce, Music, Senior Contributors|

Why, one wonders, would readers of The Imaginative Conservative be interested in hearing of my enjoyment of music videos designed for very young children? The answer is that the Wiggles offer children (of all ages) entertainment that is both imaginative and conservative. I have a confession to make. For almost twenty years I’ve been a [...]

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