How Becoming a Mother Is Like Space Travel How Becoming a Mother Is Like Space Travel
The astronaut told us he didn’t look out the window for eight and a half minutes as the rocket launched him beyond our atmosphere. Terrifying things happened— ground vanished, boos…
Jul 14, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Catherine Pierce
On the Record’s Act of Witness On the Record’s Act of Witness
Telling the stories of three women who accused Russell Simmons of sexual assault, the documentary is a powerful case study in how institutions have failed Black women.
Jul 14, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Kearse
J.M. Coetzee’s States of Exile J.M. Coetzee’s States of Exile
In writing an allegory that is barely an allegory and a trilogy of novels that are often not novels, Coetzee appears to have made his own literary displacement total.
Jul 14, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Siddhartha Deb
The Many Lives of Catherine the Great The Many Lives of Catherine the Great
A new Hulu show presents the life of the Russian empress as a narrative of lean-in empowerment. But was it?
Jul 13, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Sophie Pinkham
Not Catharsis but Vengeance: The Startling Fiction of Fernanda Melchor Not Catharsis but Vengeance: The Startling Fiction of Fernanda Melchor
Her novel Hurricane Season burrows into the circumstances of a small-town murder and what it says about a society that disregards femicide.
Jul 9, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Lucas Iberico Lozada
The Past and Future of Latinx Politics The Past and Future of Latinx Politics
Two new books look at the history of Latinx Democrats and Republicans and the role each will play in the future.
Jun 30, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Ed Morales
Maria Reva’s Mordant and Profound Fiction Maria Reva’s Mordant and Profound Fiction
In her short story collection, Good Citizens Need Not Fear, Reva documents the chaos, joy, and serendipity of life before and after the fall of the Soviet Union.
Jun 29, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Jennifer Wilson
Run the Jewels’ Wake-up Call Run the Jewels’ Wake-up Call
While other mainstream rappers might create one song or one album dedicated to the unrest, Killer Mike and El-P have carried that torch for six years.
Jun 29, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Marcus J. Moore
Bodies & Water Bodies & Water
I think about my kneecaps, my ear canal, the slight webbing between toes & fingers; I think about brown bodies, my body; how my belly ebbs & sinks & floats & calms…
Jun 16, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Felicia Zamora
I used a tool to reach… I used a tool to reach…
I used a tool to reach a tool I used to make a tool I used to make a metaphysics. The crows, those rocket scientists, those medieval scholars, were exhaustively doing and knowing t…
Jun 16, 2020 / Books & the Arts / Bruce Smith