Ava DuVernay: ‘Selma’ Is the ‘Vision of a Black Storyteller Undiluted’ Ava DuVernay: ‘Selma’ Is the ‘Vision of a Black Storyteller Undiluted’
The director explains why Selma matters now.
Jan 9, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Mychal Denzel Smith
Lessons From ‘Selma’: It Takes a Movement Lessons From ‘Selma’: It Takes a Movement
Pushing this country forward takes more than a sympathetic president.
Jan 8, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Katrina vanden Heuvel
What ‘Selma’ Gets Right—and Wrong—About Civil-Rights History What ‘Selma’ Gets Right—and Wrong—About Civil-Rights History
It took MLK’s activism and LBJ’s leadership to pass the Voting Rights Act.
Jan 8, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Ari Berman
Faith and Suspicion: On Marilynne Robinson’s ‘Lila’ Faith and Suspicion: On Marilynne Robinson’s ‘Lila’
The novelist offers an elegant answer to the question, “What is it to be human?”
Jan 7, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Roxana Robinson
A Conversation With Marilynne Robinson A Conversation With Marilynne Robinson
The novelist talks about liberalism, the language of fiction, and the humanism of John Calvin.
Jan 7, 2015 / Books & the Arts / The Nation
Gunboy Gunboy
killing the child said became like drinking water clean or clean enough though one says that one is part of everything there is a conflict there is a resistance involved this for that that life for this a finger to the lips or to the trigger the revolver is vulgar in the boy’s hands decorated with beads the weapon turns over like a word on the tongue bella bellum the war of all against all the beauty of all against all to emerge from emergency form out of force equal to all those bodies bathed in that free water
Jan 7, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Beth Bachmann
The Picasso Variations The Picasso Variations
Why the painter’s late work veers from the sloppy to the sublime.
Jan 7, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Censor This? Censor This?
The bogus moral outrage over The Interview.
Jan 7, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Clover
How White Liberals Used Civil Rights to Create More Prisons How White Liberals Used Civil Rights to Create More Prisons
In their quest to wipe out extra-legal racial violence, white liberals created a system that continues to kill black people—legally.
Jan 6, 2015 / Books & the Arts / Vicky Osterweil
‘The Story of Hurry’—a Children’s Book that Brings Gaza to Life ‘The Story of Hurry’—a Children’s Book that Brings Gaza to Life
In this uncommon book by Emma Williams, Jean Stein and Ibrahim Quraishi, a donkey tries to cheer Gaza’s traumatized children—by becoming a zebra.
Dec 24, 2014 / Books & the Arts / Lizzy Ratner