Ed Simon

Ed Simon is Public Humanities Special Faculty in the English Department at Carnegie Mellon University, the editor of the Pittsburgh Review of Books, staff writer at LitHub, and the author of several books, including Devil’s Contract: The History of the Faustian Bargain, named a “Best Book of 2024” by The New Yorker.

Articles

Religion Dispatches

Against American Exceptionalism? Pope Leo XIV v. US Christian Nationalism

During the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore, where bishops, archbishops, and abbots convened in 1884 to, among other issues, discuss the establishment of the Catholic University of America, the…

Ed Simon

May 15, 2025

Article

Religion Dispatches

The New Age Fantasy of a Celtic Church that Revered Nature and the Divine Feminine Never Existed — So What?

From Fifth Avenue to Dorchester Heights, this St. Patrick’s Day will feature the traditional uilleann pipers and Irish step dancers; in Chicago the river will be dyed green, and in Washington DC the…

Ed Simon

March 14, 2024

Article

Religion Dispatches

Pop-Culture Angels Are More Than Just Embarrassing Kitsch

Cloying sentimentality, saccharine pablum, ridiculous camp and embarrassing kitsch—in the contemporary moment the word “angel” hasn’t fared well among those who describe themselves as sophisticates or…

Ed Simon

January 4, 2024

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