The Madonna of the Future
Scientists are working on artificial wombs that will allow infants to develop entirely outside the human body. In the near future, not only will we not need to have sex to reproduce, we won’t need to be functionally male or female either. We’re facing a revolution in the role that sex plays in human identity.…
Finishing a painting begun twenty years ago
While studying in Florence in my twenties my home was an attic room in a convent run by Irish nuns in Fiesole. It was called the convent of San Girolamo (or Saint Jerome), just up the hill from the Medici Villa. There were images of him everywhere. Jerome seemed to be one of the Renaissance…