Sightings Articles
God's Graffiti — Jeremy Biles
There's been quite a stir a few blocks from my apartment on Chicago's northwest side. According to many of the neighborhood's pious, the Blessed Virgin Mary has manifested in a most unlikely spot. On the concrete wall alongside W. Fullerton Ave., in ...
April 28, 2005
Extreme Makeover: Bible Edition -- Jeremy Biles
A recent CBS news article reported on "the biggest trend in making Christianity more mainstream": the "reshaping of the Bible into a contemporary format" ("Bible Magazines: Big Sellers," December 29, 2004). Thomas Nelson, Inc., is the vanguard of thi...
January 20, 2005
The Cicada Complex — Jeremy Biles
As the swarm of periodical cicadas known as Brood X emerged along the Atlantic coast over the past couple months, the American media clambered to track the eruption. Alongside news reports and web sites tending to the cicadas, there were scores of ar...
July 22, 2004
Critique of Normalcy — Jeremy Biles
Those who partake of the lonely occupation of listening to late-night radio know that this sector of American media can be rather squalid. Much of what occupies the AM airwaves during those hours when normal people are sleeping is divided between dro...
March 25, 2004
Twilight of the Icons — Jeremy Biles
Among contemporary America's many media spectacles, professional wrestling is perhaps the most spectacular. Indeed, World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), the most prominent "all-star" wrestling outlet, can hardly be matched for its sheer grandiloquenc...
October 23, 2003
Camera Pieta — Jeremy Biles
Perhaps no one still believes that photographs exhibit unadulterated reality. Photos, we know, are subject to any number of editorial, compositional, and other strategic effects that might be used not to display reality, but to convey ideology under ...
April 24, 2003
The Varieties of Wounding Experience — Jeremy Biles
Even a cursory reading of the day's news will turn up frequent references to wounds. Whether they occur in military combat, in nightclub disasters, or on city streets, wounds are sites of heightened interest, and too often the visible reminders of un...
February 27, 2003
Code Orange: Panic in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction -- Jeremy Biles
Over a year has passed since the disaster of September 11, 2001. During this time, America has been in a state of "heightened alert." Code Orange, even when not officially declared by the government, has become the order of the day. The panic that en...