The Illusory Beauty of “Nickel Boys” The Illusory Beauty of “Nickel Boys”
An avant-garde adaptation of Colson Whitehead's Pulitzer Prize–winning novel careens between questions of style and substance.
Dec 17, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Kearse
Isabella Hammad and the Politics of Recognition Isabella Hammad and the Politics of Recognition
In her capacious book of criticism, Recognizing the Stranger, Isabella Hammad asks: “How large is the gulf between us?”
Dec 16, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Abdelrahman ElGendy
What Happened to the Democratic Party? What Happened to the Democratic Party?
The squalid state of our present political institutions points to a failure of not just individuals but the system as a whole.
Dec 16, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Chris Lehmann
The Peculiar Case of Ignatius Donnelly The Peculiar Case of Ignatius Donnelly
The Minnesota politician presents a riddle for historians. He was a beloved populist but also a crackpot conspiracist. Were his politics tainted by his strange beliefs?
Dec 12, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Andrew Katzenstein
The Agony of Aaron Rodgers The Agony of Aaron Rodgers
Is he the world’s most interesting athlete or is he just a washed-up crackpot?
Dec 11, 2024 / Books & the Arts / John Semley
Can You Understand Ireland Through One Family’s Terrible Secret? Can You Understand Ireland Through One Family’s Terrible Secret?
In Missing Persons, Clair Wills's intimate story of institutionalized Irish women and children, shows how a family's history and a nation’s history run in parallel.
Dec 10, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Emily McBride
Peter Schjeldahl’s Pleasure Principle Peter Schjeldahl’s Pleasure Principle
His art criticism fixated on the narcissism of the entire enterprise. But over six decades, his work proved that a critic could be an artist too.
Dec 9, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Zachary Fine
How the Western Literary Canon Made the World Worse How the Western Literary Canon Made the World Worse
A talk with Dionne Brand about her recent book, Salvage, which looks at how the classic texts of Anglo-American fiction helped abet the crimes of capitalism, colonialism, and more...
Dec 5, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Elias Rodriques
Along the Roads That Built Modern Brazil Along the Roads That Built Modern Brazil
José Henrique Bortoluci's What Is Mine tells the story of his country’s laborers, like his father, who built its infrastructure, and in turn its fractious politics.
Dec 4, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jimin Kang
The Long History of the "Elsewhere Museum" The Long History of the "Elsewhere Museum"
Can the ethnographic museum be reinvented?
Dec 2, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Farah Abdessamad