Cultural Criticism and Analysis

Emma Rothschild’s Family Sagas and Microhistories

Emma Rothschild’s Family Sagas and Microhistories Emma Rothschild’s Family Sagas and Microhistories

Can one tell the story of a country through one family?

Aug 23, 2021 / Books & the Arts / David A. Bell

Smog In Los Angeles

Mythos and Cliché: The Fractured History of Los Angeles Mythos and Cliché: The Fractured History of Los Angeles

Learning from and reckoning with the stories writers tell about a world-historical city. 

Aug 17, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Kate Wolf

Washington Square Park protest

Welcome to Washington Square Park, Capital of Woke Bohemia Welcome to Washington Square Park, Capital of Woke Bohemia

A vibrant new youth scene is taking shape in Greenwich Village. Some people want to shut it down.

Jul 30, 2021 / Richard Goldstein

Bruegel Dath

Where Do Wars Come From? Where Do Wars Come From?

Two new books, Margaret MacMillan’s War and Martin Sherwin’s Gambling with Armageddon, offer close studies of how we end up, or almost end up, marching into war.

Jul 19, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Michael T. Klare

The Novel Solutions of Utopian Fiction

The Novel Solutions of Utopian Fiction The Novel Solutions of Utopian Fiction

Climate catastrophe has transformed a minor literary genre into an important tool of human thought.

Jul 16, 2021 / Feature / Kim Stanley Robinson

Shulamith Firestone Wanted to Abolish Nature—We Should, Too

Shulamith Firestone Wanted to Abolish Nature—We Should, Too Shulamith Firestone Wanted to Abolish Nature—We Should, Too

Revisiting her brilliant, irritable, deeply flawed manifesto in the pandemic.

Jul 14, 2021 / Feature / Sophie Lewis

‘What Would It Mean to Think That Thought?’: The Era of Lauren Berlant

‘What Would It Mean to Think That Thought?’: The Era of Lauren Berlant ‘What Would It Mean to Think That Thought?’: The Era of Lauren Berlant

Four writers on the legacy of Berlant’s thinking both in the academy and in public life.

Jul 8, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Judith Butler, Maggie Doherty, Ajay Singh Chaudhary, and Gabriel Winant

COUCH IN PARLOR

Analysis Interminable: On Janet Malcolm Analysis Interminable: On Janet Malcolm

The insight and rigor of her writing changed the way we understood the work of psychoanalysis.

Jun 25, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Hannah Gold

Janet Malcolm.

Janet Malcolm’s Provocations Janet Malcolm’s Provocations

Her writing cut through propriety and pretentiousness and revealed us for who we are: desiring creatures, complicated and simple at once.

Jun 22, 2021 / Books & the Arts / Maggie Doherty

Stone Mountain GA Confederate Monument

Un-Critical Race Theory Un-Critical Race Theory

What if CRT’s conservative critics actually got what they want?

Jun 18, 2021 / Joshua Adams

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