The Brown University Spectator:A Journal of Conservative and Libertarian Thought

Author Archive

This Side of Providence

By Sean Quigley • Nov 25th, 2008 • Category: Local

Okay, I must admit to my infatuation with the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and the high culture which he often described with tantalizing detail – hence, the title. But my words here should not appeal solely to those persons who wish that they could count Amory Blaine and Nick Carraway among their friends.
You might [...]



The Advance of the Cougar

By Sean Quigley • Oct 24th, 2008 • Category: Culture

Flummoxed. That seems to be the most appropriate word to describe my mental state when, this past summer, I first learned of the word, “Cougar”. A quick search on Urban Dictionary could define this rather nasty term – nasty in the sense not only of its inherent derisiveness, but also of the type of behavior [...]



Hedged Sympathy

By Sean Quigley • Sep 15th, 2008 • Category: Culture

PublicAffairs, 1152pp. Forty Dollars.
After reading this tome on Richard Milhous Nixon,written by Conrad Black, one can only regret that Nixon’s legacy seems forever to be colored by the Watergate affair. For not only did he make his mark as an accomplished politician and statesman, but also Nixon was an exemplary student and son.
He graduated third [...]



The need for deconstruction

By Sean Quigley • May 8th, 2008 • Category: Brown University

In the two years that I have been attending Brown, one aspect of the school’s environment has been particularly annoying, and even infuriating at times. And while I am tempted to write that the statist impulses and cries of many fellow students are the cause of this deep-felt annoyance, such is actually not the [...]



The necessity of invective

By Sean Quigley • Apr 17th, 2008 • Category: Brown University

Recently, The Brown Daily Herald published a letter (”Attack on Chafee unmerited,” Mar. 3), penned by Matthew Lieber GS, which took issue with several criticisms that I made of former Senator Lincoln Chafee ‘75, in an editorial (“There are Yankee Republicans, and then there is Lincoln Chafee,” Feb. 27). The letter deserves a pointed [...]



Solutions, not Platitudes

By Sean Quigley • Mar 21st, 2008 • Category: Culture

Twenty-Seven Dollars and Ninety-Five Cents, 310 pp., Regnery Publishing, Inc.
Former Speaker Newt Gingrich’s latest book, Real Change: From the World That Fails to the World That Works, is a quick read with an enlightened approach to the countless problems which our nation faces in the present, and in the rapidly approaching future. More [...]



A Body Politic No More

By Sean Quigley • Feb 20th, 2008 • Category: National

It hardly needs to be proven, beyond the years of personal experience which we each possess, that human beings are creatures of habit, that we often prefer the humdrum of daily bourgeois life to the uncertainties of political activity and civic action. The present writer is no exception to this general trend – it would [...]



Faith, hope, and love

By Sean Quigley • Dec 6th, 2007 • Category: National

On the weekend of November 9th, a group of Brown University students ventured down to Princeton, New Jersey, to attend a conference on the ever-intriguing issue of “The Christian Worldview and the Academy.” Sponsored and organized by The Witherspoon Institute, the conference was chiefly held in a Princeton University lecture hall, and the attendees were generously afforded a [...]



The Art of the Counter Protest

By Sean Quigley • Oct 26th, 2007 • Category: Brown University

Invariably, protests seem to be viewed as the domain of left-leaning individuals – “taking it to the streets” has, for quite some time, not been regarded as a conservative tactic for effecting change or, perhaps more accurately, preventing change. If asked why protests are not common among the right, a conservative would probably respond by [...]



A Genuine Man

By Sean Quigley • Sep 9th, 2007 • Category: National

The Reverend Jerry Falwell, regardless of whether one despises or praises him for doing so, has left an indelible mark on the culture, history, and politics of the American nation. From the founding of the Thomas Road Baptist Church in 1956, to the establishment of Liberty University in 1971, to the creation of the Moral [...]