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Elizabeth Bruenig

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Elizabeth Bruenig
Elizabeth Bruenig in February 2018
Bruenig in 2018
Born
Elizabeth Stoker

(1990-12-05) December 5, 1990 (age 34)
Arlington, Texas, U.S.
Other names
  • Liz Bruenig
  • Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig
Alma mater
OccupationJournalist
Years active2015–present
EmployerThe Atlantic
Spouse
​
(m. 2014)​
Children2

Elizabeth Bruenig (née Stoker; born December 6, 1990) is an American journalist working as an opinion writer for The Atlantic since 2021. She previously worked as a staff writer for The New Republic (2015), an opinion writer and editor for The Washington Post (2016–2020), and as an opinion writer for The New York Times (2020–2021). Bruenig has written about ethics, politics, theology, morality, economics, gender, family, class, and faith. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 2019 and in 2023.

Early life and education

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Bruenig was born in Arlington, Texas.[1] She attended Martin High School.[2] She graduated from Brandeis University in 2013 with a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in English and sociology and a minor in Near Eastern and Judaic studies.[3] As a recipient of the Marshall Scholarship,[4] Bruenig studied at Jesus College at the University of Cambridge, where she earned a Master of Philosophy degree in Christian theology,[1] under the supervision of John Hughes, an Anglo-Catholic and Christian socialist who wrote The End of Work: Theological Critiques of Capitalism.[5][6] She was named a 2014–2015 Presidential Fellow at Brown University, where she was a doctoral student in religious studies, politics, and philosophy.[7][8] In 2015, Bruenig left Brown University without a degree when she was offered a fulltime writing position at The New Republic.[9]

Career

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Bruenig was an opinion writer and editor for The Washington Post and its Outlook and PostEverything sections,[1] The New York Times,[10] and since 2021 writes for The Atlantic.[11][12] Previously in 2015, she was also a staff writer for The New Republic.[13] As an assistant editor, Bruenig began to edit the Outlook and PostEverything sections of The Washington Post in early 2016,[13] before being promoted in 2017 as opinion writer and editor,[13] and in 2018 as a columnist.[9] Her essays and reviews have appeared in publications including among others America,[14] The American Conservative,[14] The Atlantic,[1] Boston Review,[1] The Daily Beast,[14] First Things,[1] Jacobin,[1] Los Angeles Review of Books,[15] The Nation,[1] Salon,[15] and The Washington Post.[1]

Bruenig writes about topics like ethics, politics, theology, and economics from a progressive viewpoint,[16] and describes herself as "a chronicler of the human condition".[17] With her husband Matt Bruenig, with whom she wrote together two articles for The Atlantic in 2013, she co-hosts The Bruenigs Podcast since 2018.[18][19] Until April 2020, she was also a contributor to the Left, Right, & Center radio show.[19] On May 12, 2021, it was announced that she would depart The New York Times, which she had joined in January 2020, for The Atlantic at the end of the month.[20][21] Politico reported that this was the third New York Times opinion journalist to have gone to The Atlantic in the first five months of 2021.[22]

In September 2018, Bruenig wrote about a 2006 sexual assault on a woman by the name of Amber Wyatt at Martin High School in Arlington, Bruenig's own alma mater (Bruenig was a 15-year-old sophomore),[23] in a story for The Washington Post,[1] describing the assault's repercussions.[24][25][26] She started tracking the details of Wyatt's story in April 2015 when she worked at The New Republic.[27][28] In 2019, Bruenig was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Feature Writing for one of her pieces covering Wyatt's sexual assault, "What Do We Owe Her Now?"[23][29][nb 1] Bruenig was named in the 2019 edition of Forbes's 30 Under 30 list.[31] During her time at The Washington Post and The New York Times, Bruenig advocated democratic socialist policies.[32][33][34] In August 2020, she also wrote a racial reckoning article in The New York Times, "Racism Makes a Liar of God: How the American Catholic Church Is Wrestling with the Black Lives Matter Movement", which included a profile of EWTN radio host Gloria Purvis.[35][36][37] As of 2021, she was a two-time Livingston Award finalist.[20] Bruenig was again a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2023.[38][39][nb 2]

Political and religious views

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In a Washington Monthly profile published in 2018 by Gilad Edelman, Bruenig is described as "perhaps the most prominently placed of a small but increasingly visible group of young writers unabashedly advocating for democratic socialism", and that she "cautioned against treating socialism versus capitalism as a binary choice" but echoed the idea of Jacobin founder Bhaskar Sunkara to "not merely tame but overcome capitalism".[32] About why she did not subscribe to the New Brandeis movement, Bruenig observed that "the answer to the destruction wrought by capitalism isn't more, better capitalism".[32] In a 2021 article in Brandeis Magazine, Lawrence Goodman described Bruenig's political positions thusly: "She's a democratic socialist but holds a number of socially conservative positions. She advocates for a strong Scandinavian-style welfare state but also opposes abortion and extols the benefits of having children early."[41] In a 2022 article in Deseret News, Lois Collins described Bruenig as "just left of Bernie Sanders on economics, openly religious and quietly anti-abortion".[42] For the American edition of The Week, she wrote an article in April 2014 explaining why she was a pro-life liberal.[43][44] In April 2020, her New York Times article titled "Bernie Was Right" was republished by the Chicago Tribune and also in German by the International Politics and Society. She argued that Sanders was right about many issues, such as income inequality, climate change, and student loan debt,[45][46] and that the United States would wave goodbye to an "honest man's campaign".[47][48]

In February 2015, Bruenig wrote a New Republic article titled "Is ISIS Authentically Islamic? Ask Better Questions". She argued: "But since most of our public discussions of religion take place within this liberal framework, we lack a grammar and vocabulary for arguing about the content of religions in the public sphere. Because our presumptions about how to source religious authority are largely private and rarely interrogated in public (especially in interfaith contexts) we presume those assumptions are either broadly shared or simply correct, and base our public statements about the authenticity of religious belief and practice on them."[49][50] In March 2015, Bruenig wrote "Fear of a Radical Pope", a profile of Pope Francis. In the article, she observed: "The Catholic Church has always been 'liberal' [e.g. left-wing] on economic matters. Since the early centuries of the Church, prominent theologians such as Ambrose, Augustine, and Saint John Chrysostom have emphasized that private property rights obtain only after all human needs have been met, and that the excess of the wealthy truly belongs to the poor."[5][6]

Also in March 2015, several of Bruenig's articles at The New Republic attracted attention. In one article, titled "Conservatives' Prison Reform Plans Won't Work", she argued that "criminal justice reform, especially prison reform, has become a rare point of bipartisan activism" but that conservatives support it only for the money saved. Bruenig commented that sentencing reform "won't work" without more welfare spending, and wrote: "The real question isn't whether these conservatives care about the disadvantaged, but whether their approach will indeed improve the lives of the disadvantaged. There's strong evidence of quite the opposite—that it would make their lives worse."[51][52] The other article was a response to David Brooks in The New York Times, where he had argued that poor people needed to learn to behave themselves. In her article, titled "Poor People Don't Need Better Social Norms. They Need Better Social Policies", Bruenig wrote: "If the problems plaguing poor communities persist after poverty is drastically reduced, that would seem an appropriate time to pursue the matter of a better 'moral vocabulary,' as Brooks calls it."[53][54]

Her March 2018 Washington Post article, titled "It's Time to Give Socialism a Try", where she stated that "I would support a kind of socialism that would be democratic and aimed primarily at decommodifying labor, reducing the vast inequality brought about by capitalism, and breaking capital's stranglehold over politics and culture",[55][56] drew more than 3,000 comments in contrast to the usual 1,000.[32] This was followed by a response article,[32] titled "Let's Have a Good-Faith Argument About Socialism", where she argued that "it makes sense to think of socialism on a spectrum, with countries and policies being more or less socialist, rather than either/or",[57] and also received much attention.[32] In a July 2018 article for The Washington Post, titled "Conservatives Will Always Call Socialists Hypocrites. Ignore them", Bruenig observed that "the failure of one set of accusations along these lines usually just leads to another, and it forms an ugly paradox that applies only to the left: If you care about material equality and you aren't destitute, you're a hypocrite; if you care about material equality and you are destitute, you're never going to have a real shot at political engagement to begin with."[58][59] Other socialist-related Washington Post articles by Bruenig include "It's Time to Reclaim 'Socialism' from the Dirty-Word Category" about socialism in the United States.[60][61] In April 2019, she wrote a Washington Post article about the American Christian left, titled "The Religious Left Is Always Just About to Happen: Will It Ever Arrive?"[62][63]

Personal life

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Bruenig was raised Methodist but converted to Catholicism after studying Christian theology and the work of Augustine of Hippo in university,[42] becoming confirmed into the Catholic Church during Easter 2014.[14][64][65] That same year, she married Matt Bruenig, whom she met in their high school debate team in Arlington.[32] They have two daughters together,[42] and live in Washington, D.C.[1] In addition to English, Bruenig can speak German.[66] As a religious Catholic, her views on abortion attracted criticism among other American leftists.[32][44] Bruenig, who joked that her husband "loves abortion", is more concerned with philosophical questions rather than specific policies, and said: "I make a much more romantic case for socialism than Matt does."[32]

Published works

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  • "Taking Augustine as Guide". In Schwindt, Daniel (ed.). Radically Catholic in the Age of Francis: An Anthology of Visions for the Future. Valparaiso, Indiana: Solidarity Hall Press. 2015. ISBN 978-0-692-40977-0.
  • "Church". In McElwee, Joshua J.; Wooden, Cindy (eds.). A Pope Francis Lexicon. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press. 2018. pp. 15–17. ISBN 978-0-8146-4545-1.

See also

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Notes

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  1. ^ The citation reads: "For eloquent reflections on the exile of a teen sexual assault victim in the author's Texas hometown, delving with moral authority into why the crime remained unpunished."[1][23][30]
  2. ^ The citation reads: "For exposing the tortuous last hours of inmates awaiting execution on Alabama's death row and the efforts by the state to conceal the suffering, which led to a temporary moratorium on executions."[40]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Finalist: Elizabeth Bruenig of The Washington Post". The Pulitzer Prizes. Columbia University. 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  2. ^ "What Happens When a Rape Is Reported, but No One Is Prosecuted". All Things Considered. NPR. September 24, 2018. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  3. ^ "Where Will Your Future Take You?". Brandeis University. Archived from the original on July 24, 2017. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  4. ^ "Elizabeth Stoker '13 Wins Marshall Scholarship". BrandeisNOW. Brandeis University. November 19, 2012. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  5. ^ a b Bruenig, Elizabeth (March 2, 2015). "Fear of a Radical Pope". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  6. ^ a b Zmirak, John (March 18, 2015). "Using My Religion: Elizabeth Stoker-Bruenig and the New Christian Left". The Stream. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  7. ^ "2014–2015 Presidential Fellows". Brown University. 2014. Archived from the original on February 12, 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  8. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (December 23, 2014). "Marketing Motherhood: The Meaning of Vocation in a Secular World". America. Vol. 212, no. 1. ISSN 0002-7049. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  9. ^ a b "Sorensen Lecture: Elizabeth Bruenig, 'In Praise of Shadows'". Yale Divinity School. October 26, 2021. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  10. ^ Yglesias, Matthew (August 31, 2020). "The Case for Adding 672 Million More Americans". New York. ISSN 0028-7369. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  11. ^ "Elizabeth Bruenig". The New Republic. 2014. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  12. ^ "Elizabeth Bruenig". KCRW. 2018. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  13. ^ a b c Hiatt, Fred; Marcus, Ruth; Diehl, Jackson (October 25, 2017). "Elizabeth Bruenig Joins Opinions Staff as Writer and Editor". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  14. ^ a b c d Mitchican, Jonathan (December 12, 2014). "Poor People Are Bruised Reeds". The Living Church. ISSN 0024-5240. Archived from the original on April 1, 2015. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  15. ^ a b "Matt Bruenig and Elizabeth Stoker". The Atlantic. 2013. ISSN 2151-9463. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  16. ^ "Shorenstein Center Speaker Series: Elizabeth Bruenig". Harvard University. 2018. Archived from the original on April 28, 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  17. ^ Ori, Alex (November 12, 2021). "Atlantic writer Elizabeth Bruenig discusses ambiguity and mystery at Divinity School lecture". Yale Daily News. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  18. ^ Newcomer, Eric (May 26, 2020). "Left-Wing Podcasters Are Charting A Future Without Bernie Sanders". Bloomberg News. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  19. ^ a b "Elizabeth Bruenig". The Atlantic. 2021. ISSN 2151-9463. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  20. ^ a b "Elizabeth Bruenig to Join The Atlantic as a Staff Writer". The Atlantic (Press release). May 12, 2021. ISSN 2151-9463. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  21. ^ Bade, Rachael; Lizza, Ryan; Palmeri, Tara; Daniels, Eugene (May 12, 2021). "Politico Playbook: Cheney prepares for martyrdom, and the Big 4 meet Biden". Politico. ISSN 2381-1595. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  22. ^ Ahmed, Mariam (May 12, 2021). "Bruenig departs NY Times for The Atlantic". Talking Biz News. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  23. ^ a b c "Winners and finalists from The Washington Post". The Washington Post. April 16, 2019. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on April 15, 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  24. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (September 19, 2018). "What Do We Owe Her Now?". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Archived from the original on September 19, 2018. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  25. ^ Allen, Cynthia M. (September 28, 2018). "If You Want to #believesurvivors, Start with This Arlington Rape Victim". Fort Worth Star-Telegram. ISSN 0889-0013. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  26. ^ Scanlan, Chip (September 11, 2019). "Exposing what the police and courts wouldn't — and what society owes in return". Nieman Storyboard. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  27. ^ Dreher, Rod (September 19, 2018). "What Happened to Amber Wyatt". The American Conservative. ISSN 1540-966X. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  28. ^ Stevens, Heidi (September 21, 2018). "2 Stories That Remind Us the Brett Kavanaugh Story Is About Us as Much as It Is About Him". Chicago Tribune. Archived from the original on April 28, 2019. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  29. ^ Benet, James (December 23, 2019). "Elizabeth Bruenig Joins Opinion". The New York Times (Press release). ISSN 1553-8095. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  30. ^ "2019 Pulitzer Prizes". The Pulitzer Prizes. 2019. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
  31. ^ "30 Under 30 2020: Media". Forbes. 2019. ISSN 0015-6914. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  32. ^ a b c d e f g h i Edelman, Gilad (July 15, 2018). "What the New Socialists Really Want". Washington Monthly. Vol. 50, no. 7/8. p. 10. ISSN 0043-0633. Archived from the original on January 25, 2022. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  33. ^ Long, D. Stephen; Womack, Tyler (July 20, 2020). "The Shape of Eugene McCarraher's Romantic Left Politics". Modern Theology. 36 (4): 900–907. doi:10.1111/moth.12641. ISSN 1468-0025. Retrieved January 10, 2025. The democratic socialist Elizabeth Bruenig is an opinion writer for The New York Times, of all places, advocating democratic socialist policies.
  34. ^ Cho, Joshua (October 9, 2020). "Socialism's Increasing Popularity Doesn't Bring Media Out of McCarthy Era". Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting. Retrieved January 10, 2025. The New York Times opinion writer Elizabeth Bruenig appears to be the only pundit employed by corporate media who both explicitly identifies as a 'socialist' and makes arguments for some form of socialism in the US (Washington Post, 3/6/18).
  35. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (August 6, 2020). "'Racism Makes a Liar of God'". The New York Times. p. SR4. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  36. ^ Seeley, Monica (August 19, 2020). "Three black Catholics reflect on faith, race, and the prevailing narrative". The Catholic World Report. ISSN 1058-8159. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  37. ^ Paiano, Maria, ed. (2022). Violenza sacra: 2. Guerra santa, sacrificio e martirio in età contemporanea (PDF). Viella Libreria Editrice. p. 250. ISBN 979-12-5469-063-5. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  38. ^ "2023 Pulitzer Prize Winners & Finalists". The Pulitzer Prizes. Columbia University. 2023. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  39. ^ "The Atlantic's Staff Writer Caitlin Dickerson Wins 2023 Pulitzer Prize". The Atlantic (Press release). May 8, 2023. ISSN 2151-9463. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  40. ^ "Finalist: Elizabeth Bruenig of The Atlantic". The Pulitzer Prizes. 2023. Retrieved January 21, 2025.
  41. ^ Goodman, Lawrence (2021). "The Examined Life". Brandeis Magazine. No. Fall 2021. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  42. ^ a b c Collins, Lois M. (April 26, 2022). "Meet the socialist Catholic who confounds the left and the right". Deseret News. ISSN 0745-4724. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  43. ^ Stoker, Elizabeth (April 16, 2014). "Why I'm a pro-life liberal". The Week. ISSN 1533-8304. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  44. ^ a b Doyle, Jude (May 23, 2019). "The Myth of the 'Personally' Anti-Abortion Politician". Dame Magazine. Retrieved January 9, 2025. For decades now, Democrats and the wider left have endorsed the genteel fiction of 'personal' anti-choice beliefs—a fig leaf claimed by everyone from socialist podcaster Elizabeth Bruenig to Clinton VP pick Tim Kaine—as if it were possible to separate personal belief from political principle. ... The left is no refuge. Leaving aside the Bruenig problem—though the prominence and popularity of anti-choice pundits within the socialist left certainly sends a clear message about that movement's priorities ... .
  45. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (April 8, 2020). "Bernie Sanders Was Right". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  46. ^ "What Bernie Sanders Accomplished, and What He Didn't". The New York Times. April 9, 2020. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  47. ^ "Column: Bernie didn't lie and has been right about almost everything. It wasn't enough". Chicago Tribune. April 10, 2020. ISSN 2165-171X. Archived from the original on January 9, 2025. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  48. ^ "Bernie Sanders was right". International Politics and Society. Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. April 15, 2020. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  49. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (February 18, 2015). "Is ISIS Authentically Islamic? Ask Better Questions". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  50. ^ McCutcheon, Russell (February 20, 2015). "Studying the Shifting Tides". Studying Religion in Culture. Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  51. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (March 5, 2015). "Why Conservatives' Prison Reform Plans Won't Work". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  52. ^ Sullum, Jacob (March 6, 2015). "Christian Ethicist Says Freeing Prisoners 'Would Make Their Lives Worse'". Reason. ISSN 0048-6906. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  53. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (March 10, 2015). "Poor People Don't Need Better Social Norms. They Need Better Social Policies". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  54. ^ Williamson, Kevin D. (March 12, 2015). "Speaker for the Poor". National Review. ISSN 0028-0038. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  55. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (March 6, 2018). "It's time to give socialism a try". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  56. ^ Mertz, Chuck (March 10, 2018). "Americans are ready for socialism". This Is Hell!. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  57. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (March 11, 2018). "Let's have a good-faith argument about socialism". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  58. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (July 4, 2018). "Conservatives will always call socialists hypocrites. Ignore them". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  59. ^ Vadaketh, Sudhir Thomas (November 20, 2020). "Why are there so many Champagne (Panettone) Socialists in Singapore?". Musings from Singapore. Retrieved January 9, 2025. Perhaps the Champagne Socialist label is best viewed simply as a symptom of capitalism. As long as there is inequality, there will always be some further up the income ladder who are uncomfortable with the privilege of their class, with perceived injustices. Their attempts to promote greater social justice will, in turn, inevitably invite scorn. '...it forms an ugly paradox that applies only to the left,' writes Elizabeth Bruenig of The Washington Post. 'If you care about material equality and you aren't destitute, you're a hypocrite; if you care about material equality and you are destitute, you're never going to have a real shot at political engagement to begin with.'
  60. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (August 19, 2018). "It's time to reclaim 'socialism' from the dirty-word category". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  61. ^ Hasan, Mehdi (February 7, 2019). "Deconstructed Podcast: Who's Really Afraid of Socialism?". The Intercept. Retrieved January 10, 2025.
  62. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (April 11, 2019). "The Religious Left Is Always Just about to Happen: Will it Ever Arrive?". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  63. ^ Reed, Ashley (2020). https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/255/oa_monograph/chapter/2683480. Heaven's Interpreters: Women Writers and Religious Agency in Nineteenth-Century America. Cornell University Press. pp. 177–191. ISBN 978-1-5017-5138-7. Retrieved January 9, 2025. {{cite book}}: |chapter-url= missing title (help)
  64. ^ Bruenig, Elizabeth (August 7, 2017). "How Augustine's Confessions and Left Politics Inspired My Conversion to Catholicism". America. Vol. 217, no. 3. ISSN 0002-7049. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  65. ^ Bourbon, Julie (September 19, 2018). "Young Catholics debate where they -- and the church -- go from here". National Catholic Reporter. ISSN 0027-8939. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
  66. ^ "Elizabeth Bruenig". The Washington Post. 2016. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved January 9, 2025.
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