A Genuinely Transgressive Act: Christ Chapel at Hillsdale College

Regular readers of this column know that we are often engaged in a species of cultural pathology. We regularly chronicle absurdities, malignancies, outrages, and insanities throughout the world of culture: in museums and the art world, theater and "performance art," the media, and above all in the world of academia. Every now and then, it is true, we have espied and celebrated a glimmer of hope, a sliver of good news from the ramparts of ridiculousness. Despite the occasional rosy bulletin, however, our Notes & Comments, especially when dilating on academia, have tended more towards the denunciatory and satirical than the celebratory. Think Cicero on Catiline or on Mark Antony, Jonathan Swift or Evelyn Waugh on anything that attracted their ire.