Books and Ideas

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 07: United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito poses for an official portrait at the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court building on October 7, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Supreme Court has begun a new term after Associate Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was officially added to the bench in September.

Don’t Reform the Courts. Disempower Them. Don’t Reform the Courts. Disempower Them.

The Supreme Court’s extreme anti-worker decision calls for a radical response.

Jun 2, 2023 / Jeet Heer

A visitor takes a picture with his mobile phone of an image designed with artificial intelligence inspired by Johannes Vermeer’s painting “Girl With a Pearl Earring.”

Truth in the Age of the Deepfake Truth in the Age of the Deepfake

Could our interest in true-crime podcasts and celebrity biopics be telling us something about our collective discomfort with faking it?

Jun 2, 2023 / Marianela D’Aprile

Katherine Dunn’s Counterculture Parables

Katherine Dunn’s Counterculture Parables Katherine Dunn’s Counterculture Parables

Dunn’s books are often described as cult classics, which fits not only in the sense that they inspire devotion but also in the sense that cults of personality always appear in them...

Jun 1, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Nora Caplan-Bricker

The front page of The Black Dispatch, a weekly newspaper published in Oklahoma City, on June 10, 1931.

The Trauma and Resilience of Tulsa’s Greenwood District The Trauma and Resilience of Tulsa’s Greenwood District

Karlos K. Hill, a historian of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, speaks with Victor Luckerson, author of an “epic” new book on Greenwood.

May 31, 2023 / Q&A / Karlos K. Hill

Rudy G in Trump T

The Other Race The Other Race

May 30, 2023 / Column / Calvin Trillin

The Lost Worlds of Anton Shammas’s  “Arabesques”

The Lost Worlds of Anton Shammas’s “Arabesques” The Lost Worlds of Anton Shammas’s “Arabesques”

A new translation of the 1988 novel documents not only the loss and exile created by the Nakba but also the loss and exile created by occupation.

May 30, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Raja Shehadeh

The Revolutionary Fight to “Begin the World Over Again” Did Not End in 1776

The Revolutionary Fight to “Begin the World Over Again” Did Not End in 1776 The Revolutionary Fight to “Begin the World Over Again” Did Not End in 1776

We do well on Memorial Day to remember that the struggle for liberty and justice was not settled by the break with British colonialism. It extends to this day.

May 29, 2023 / John Nichols

A student in the Mills College library, 1964.

The Reluctant Feminists of the 1960s The Reluctant Feminists of the 1960s

Wendell Stevenson’s campus novel Margot examines the life of a woman who initially resists the political and sexual education her era offers.

May 25, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Lily Meyer

Liberating a Palestinian Novel From Israeli Prison

Liberating a Palestinian Novel From Israeli Prison Liberating a Palestinian Novel From Israeli Prison

The Trinity of Fundamentals, a book Wisam Rafeedie penned while imprisoned, is a stirring account of dissidence and resistance to the Occupation.

May 24, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Danya Al-Saleh and Samar Al-Saleh

What Are Rules For?

What Are Rules For? What Are Rules For?

A conversation with historian Lorraine Daston about her recent book on the history of rules and how they have structured life across centuries.

May 23, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Ishan Desai-Geller

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