About Nayeli Riano

Nayeli L. Riano is a writer whose work reflects on literature, politics, history, art, and faith. She is a Ph.D. student in political theory at Georgetown University and holds degrees from the University of St. Andrews (M.Litt, Intellectual History) and the University of Pennsylvania (BA, English and French Studies). Follow her on twitter@NayeliLRiano.

A Foray Into Metaphysical Poetry With John Donne

By |2024-01-21T19:11:57-06:00January 21st, 2024|Categories: John Donne, Literature, Poetry, Timeless Essays|

Something about the way in which metaphysical poetry engages the mind is unique to this style of verse. A combination of relatable simplicity with conceptual eclecticism renders it into a form of expression that can be deeply and personally felt by the reader, but only once he works through the poet’s intricate analogies and “metaphysical” [...]

The Other Side of Bleakness: On Winter and the Nativity

By |2023-12-21T12:30:48-06:00December 20th, 2023|Categories: Advent, Christianity, Christmas, Imagination, Literature, Poetry, Timeless Essays|

Winter, for many of us, signals the end of the year. It is a time when we reflect on our labor, what we’ve achieved, what we haven’t achieved, what we will do better or make right. But how much of this reflection is focused on the joy and mystery of the Nativity? “Census at [...]

Blaise Pascal: The Mathematical and the Intuitive Mind

By |2023-06-18T15:49:51-05:00January 22nd, 2023|Categories: Blaise Pascal, Christianity, Great Books, Philosophy, Religion, Timeless Essays|

Blaise Pascal’s argument in favor of Christianity was simple: Faith is so perceptible, even so palpable, to the intuition that man needs only to be in the world to realize that there must be more. Christianity has a direct connection to the heart; as Pascal said, “the heart has its reasons, which reason does not [...]

Two Ends of Knowledge: “The Consolation of Philosophy”

By |2022-10-22T17:00:27-05:00October 22nd, 2022|Categories: Christianity, Philosophy, Timeless Essays|

In "The Consolation of Philosophy," Boethius is not writing to console us, but to console himself. Philosophy’s role in the work is more than thought: She represents a form of superior wisdom which is easy to forget in moments of strife. Still, for the literary man who has studied books most of his life, like [...]

A Travel Bag of Memories: “Solzhenitsyn and American Culture”

By |2021-11-17T16:05:32-06:00November 17th, 2021|Categories: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Books, David Deavel, Senior Contributors|

Such are the power and relevance of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's words, that we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we did not engage with his memories in an effort to connect them with our own, transforming them into something new. And, happily, this is what the authors of "Solzhenitsyn and American Culture" do. “Own only [...]

An Italian Fresco in the U.S. Capitol: Brumidi’s “The Apotheosis of Washington”

By |2023-08-16T18:17:16-05:00August 20th, 2021|Categories: Architecture, Art, Beauty, George Washington, History|

Constantino Brumidi’s fresco is less a deification of George Washington than it is a creative recording of his achievements and his legacy for our nation’s politicians. That the U.S. possesses its own rich history in art and boasts a series of internationally acclaimed painters is no surprise. Indeed, a walk through the Art Institute of [...]

Civilization & Silence: Reading W. B. Yeats’ “Long-Legged Fly”

By |2021-08-04T21:47:36-05:00August 4th, 2021|Categories: Literature, Poetry, W.B. Yeats|

Yeats reminds us that sustaining civilization entails remembering past actors and embodying the characteristics that we admire in them. When we set out to affirm and defend what we describe as “civilization” it may seem reasonable to take an active stance: It is important to actively preserve and promote that which we deem important in [...]

Two Ends of Knowledge: “The Cloud of Unknowing”

By |2022-10-07T12:07:34-05:00June 22nd, 2021|Categories: Books, Christianity|

The 14th-century work of Christian mysticism, "The Cloud of Unknowing," represents the first expression in English of that great mystic tradition of the Christian Neoplatonists that combined the spiritual wisdom of the ancient world with Christianity. The anonymous author, a cloistered monk, is not priggish, nor is it his goal to inculcate an excessively holy [...]

Hagia Sophia: Once a Church, Always a Church

By |2021-04-25T18:35:13-05:00December 27th, 2020|Categories: Architecture, Christianity, Culture, Religion, Secularism, Western Civilization|

Every awe-inspiring element of Hagia Sophia is a testament to our Christian faith that should make us feel proud of our cultural heritage, even in today’s society where our churches are defaced and adapted for secular use. The church is undeniably Christian in spirit and character, no matter how many times its use is altered. [...]

Poems and a Poor Old Lady in December

By |2023-12-13T15:46:27-06:00December 11th, 2020|Categories: Christmas, Poetry|

The experience of the Nativity that we celebrate every year naturally rouses feelings of joy and thanksgiving. The importance of the Advent season is that it tells us how to be receivers, and receiving is a humbling act that requires a recognition of some form of poverty within us. A most welcome December, and a [...]

Foucault & “Las Meninas”: On Postmodernism & Painting

By |2020-11-02T15:24:21-06:00November 6th, 2020|Categories: Art, Culture, Philosophy|

Diego Velázquez’s “Las Meninas” has taken its rightful place as one of the most fascinating artworks to analyze in the whole of Western painting. Scholars describe “Las Meninas” as an embodiment of art itself within a painting: It is the philosophy of art depicted on canvas. Not everyone might be familiar with the original Spanish [...]

Constancy and Coleridge

By |2020-10-07T14:38:10-05:00October 10th, 2020|Categories: Great Books, Literature, Poetry, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Shakespeare|

As Samuel Taylor Coleridge expresses in his poem “Constancy to an Ideal Object,” we might find in art the most constants, idealized in our creations, which piece together some meaning of truth amid a world of change where it might appear that nothing has meaning. Although this essay will be about Samuel Taylor Coleridge and [...]

Thomas Kuhn and the Persistence of Myth, Magic, and Genealogies

By |2020-09-22T11:03:31-05:00September 22nd, 2020|Categories: Faith, History, Myth, Science, Truth|

The relationship between science and the humanities is unavoidable simply because genealogies, in the end, are an extension of man’s thinking that combines reality with myth. Thomas Kuhn seemed to accept this fact, but today his colleagues’ aversion toward myth and magic has effected new iterations of magic that are devoid of meaning and spirituality. [...]

Michael Oakeshott on the Tensions Between Political Theory and Practice

By |2020-08-19T13:42:20-05:00August 19th, 2020|Categories: Civilization, History, Liberal Arts, Michael Oakeshott, Political Philosophy, Politics|

Political theory sets out to consider the kind of knowledge involved in political activity and the appropriate form of education that will continue to inculcate this knowledge and the value in sustaining such knowledge to society. Political theory may not be so theoretical, after all. Within political theory, there is a pressure to operate in [...]

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