Books and Ideas

American author, screenwriter, and satirist Terry Southern (1924–1995).

Why Terry Southern Was “the Most Useful Writer” in America Why Terry Southern Was “the Most Useful Writer” in America

The satirist, Nation critic, Dr. Strangelove cowriter, and “eggheaded prankster” was born exactly 100 years ago, and his work remains as relevant as ever.

May 1, 2024 / Column / Richard Kreitner

John Rawls in 1987

To Imagine a Better Future, Look to John Rawls To Imagine a Better Future, Look to John Rawls

While we cannot change the world with dreams alone, moral ideas can inspire people to come together and change their societies for the better.

Apr 30, 2024 / Daniel Chandler

Jack Conroy

Jack Conroy and the Lost Era of Proletarian Literature Jack Conroy and the Lost Era of Proletarian Literature

In the midst of the Depression, Conroy helped encourage a new generation of working-class writers.

Apr 30, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Devin Thomas O’Shea

The Cook County Jail in Chicago, Illinois, 2020.

Want to Fight Mass Incarceration? Start With Your Local Jail Want to Fight Mass Incarceration? Start With Your Local Jail

A new collection of essays from academics and activists devoted to prison abolition focuses on the quiet but rapid expansion of the carceral system in small towns and municipaliti...

Apr 25, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Jarrod Shanahan

The New York location of the Laugh Factory, 2004.

Is Comedy Really an Art? Is Comedy Really an Art?

A history of comedy’s last three decades of pop culture dominance argues that it is among the consequential American art forms.

Apr 24, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Ginny Hogan

Jessi Jezewska Stevens

Data, Desire, and Where Fiction Goes Next Data, Desire, and Where Fiction Goes Next

The Nation speaks to Jessi Jezewska Stevens about her new short-story collection, which dramatizes late-capitalist living.

Apr 24, 2024 / Q&A / Rose D’Amora

The Use of “Attention Capture” Technologies in Our Classrooms Has Created a Crisis 

The Use of “Attention Capture” Technologies in Our Classrooms Has Created a Crisis  The Use of “Attention Capture” Technologies in Our Classrooms Has Created a Crisis 

We have a choice: We can allow Big Tech to solve the problem with invasive brain technology. Or we can let educators teach students how to pay attention. 

Apr 22, 2024 / Jac Mullen

The Milton S. Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins University, 1965.

The Education Factory The Education Factory

By looking at the labor history of academia, you can see the roots of a crisis in higher education that has been decades in the making.

Apr 22, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Erik Baker

Prisoners at a prison in Tel Mond, Israel, 2004.

Bringing a Seminal Palestinian Resistance Novel to the World Bringing a Seminal Palestinian Resistance Novel to the World

Talking with the translators of Wissam Rafeedie's The Trinity of Fundamentals, a book whose genesis is as extraordinary as its contents.

Apr 19, 2024 / Q&A / Rayan El Amine

Young boy with Hamas militants

Where Is the Leftist Critique of Hamas? Where Is the Leftist Critique of Hamas?

What is the view of most of the organizations and activists in the Palestinian solidarity movement about Hamas? The answer remains unclear—and rarely talked about.

Apr 17, 2024 / Hillel Schenker

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