thoughts in and out of season
Material presented as lecture but not put in print.
Here’s the text of a lecture I presented July 9, 2025, at the Roman Forum conference in Gardone, Italy:
James Kalb
To understand the world and ourselves we need to take God and nature seriously. But what do we do then? People complain that talking about God and nature tells … More ...
Here’s the text of my lecture at the 2024 Roman Forum conference at Lake Garda in Italy:
We have been discussing responses to the inhuman global order now under construction. I will discuss the outlook for that order, and so the environment we will be operating in. I will concentrate on … More ...
The following is a talk I gave July 10, 2023 at the Roman Forum conference in Gardone Riviera, Italy:
The Italian Catholic philosopher Augusto Del Noce (1910-1989) is not well-known in America, mostly because his writings only started to become available in English a few years ago. When they did become available they aroused a … More ...
Here’s my talk from the July 2022 Roman Forum Summer Symposium. The theme of the conference was the Great Reset, and my talk was on why it had to happen.
… More ...The “Great Reset” comes out of very long-term trends in thought
and social organization. On the intellectual side these trends are obvious at least since
Here’s another Roman Forum talk, this one from the 2019 Summer Symposium, held in Gardone, Italy, on July 8-19, 2019. It’s about the political, social, and moral black hole we seem to have fallen into:
… More ...1 Liberalism
Nothing human lasts. Times change, and waves of the future break and recede. But people believe liberalism
Here’s the text of my talk at the 2021 Roman Forum Summer Symposium-in-Exile, delivered in Huntington, Long Island, on July 5, 2021:
… More ...Trads and Normies
James Kalb
1 Introduction
Today I will talk about what the traditionalist movement looks like to other Catholics. What would make people interested in it? What would horrify them?
It’s
I deliver a lecture on how Catholic traditionalists look to non-traditionalists at the Roman Forum 2021 conference.
A lecture I presented at the 2018 meeting of the H. L. Mencken Club:
Is New York Still a City?
by James Kalb
We’re here at the conference to talk about whether America is still a nation. On this panel we’re discussing the limits of democratic pluralism. So I’ll discuss whether New York is a … More ...
Here’s a lecture I presented at a meeting of the H. L. Mencken Club, probably the 2018 one:
I’m going to speak about the idea of a decentralized American nation.
The topic’s an obvious one. The Mencken Club has mostly tended paleoconservative, and paleoconservatism was all about having a … More ...