It's Time to Build—Aboveground, Not Underground

My Keynote at the 2023 American Economic Forum

The Uprising – Honoré Daumier

Dear Readers,

I’m back. Thank you for bearing with me while I was not able to keep up a regular publication schedule over the past month. On October 26, our first child, a healthy daughter, was born: Rome Frances Cecilia Burgis. Claire and I feel like new people.

And from Nov. 2-4, I hosted 350+ people in Washington, DC (including about 200 readers of this newsletter, most of whom I was meeting for the first time) for the first NOVITĀTE gathering on the campus of the Catholic University of America. We explored and celebrated the life and work of René Girard on the 100th anniversary of his birth. I’ll have more to say on that experience shortly (but others, like speaker and attendee

Andrew McLuhan

, have already begun writing about it…)

The lead-up to both of these events left me little time to write. Even now, I am burning it at both ends—but I have many things to share in the coming days and weeks. I think I’m experiencing a type of “horseshoe” phenomenon: the sleep-depr…