Books and Ideas

Nation Poetry

Song of My Having Song of My Having

Jun 4, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jack Underwood

The Enigma of Frantz Fanon

The Enigma of Frantz Fanon The Enigma of Frantz Fanon

A revolutionary and an intellectual, a nationalist and a cosmopolitan, a doctor and a revolutionary, Fanon was always multiple.

Jun 3, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Ken Chen

Aziz Rana

Aziz Rana Wants Us to Stop Worshipping the Constitution Aziz Rana Wants Us to Stop Worshipping the Constitution

A conversation with the legal scholar on why its unusual the Constitution is core to American national identity and his new book The Constitutional Bind.

Jun 3, 2024 / Q&A / Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins

Nation Poetry

from “Missionary” from “Missionary”

May 30, 2024 / Books & the Arts / L. Lamar Wilson

The State of the Gay Bar

The State of the Gay Bar The State of the Gay Bar

A new book explores the phenomenon of gay bar closures and the forms of nightlife that have emerged to replace them.

May 30, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Daniel Felsenthal

Maria Ressa in Manila, Philippines, 2021.

In Maria Ressa’s Philippines In Maria Ressa’s Philippines

The Nobel Prize–winning journalist's memoir offers a portrait of a country's struggles to battle the forces of populism and social media.

May 29, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Noah Flora

Ella Fitzgerald at the Newport Jazz Festival in Newport, Rhode Island, 1970.

The Genius of Ella Fitzgerald The Genius of Ella Fitzgerald

She remade the American songbook in her image, uprooting the very meaning of musical performance.

May 28, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Sam Fentress

Edward Hopper's “October in Cape Cod,” 1946.

A Coming of Age Novel That Puzzles Through Gender A Coming of Age Novel That Puzzles Through Gender

In Griffin Hansbury’s Some Strange Music Draws Me In, a man’s recollections of his transition opens up into a nuanced examination of gender identity’s many contradictions.

May 27, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Grace Byron

Aran Islands woman

The Imperial Gaze Turns on Britain’s Isles The Imperial Gaze Turns on Britain’s Isles

In Elizabeth O’Connor’s Whale Fall, an encounter between English documentarians and a remote Welsh island community provokes questions of sexual and national identity.

May 23, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Emmet Fraizer

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