Cultural Criticism and Analysis

A Critic’s Job of Work

A Critic’s Job of Work A Critic’s Job of Work

I don’t see my job as making or breaking an artist. I have other responsibilities toward art.

Mar 9, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky

My Life as a Tour-Bus Driver in LA

My Life as a Tour-Bus Driver in LA My Life as a Tour-Bus Driver in LA

It sent me right back to The Day of the Locust—the masses ultimately want to cannibalize their celebrity gods.

Feb 25, 2016 / Mike Davis

Danny Bowien

‘Mission Chinese Food Cookbook’: Tell Them the Truth ‘Mission Chinese Food Cookbook’: Tell Them the Truth

Not all cookbooks would benefit from the Mission treatment, but, perhaps, quite a few memoirs would.

Feb 25, 2016 / Wei Tchou

A Little Life

A Larger Life A Larger Life

What A Little Life, the churn of narrative nonfiction, and, thus, likely our real views of victims of trauma are missing is the recognition of agency.

Feb 24, 2016 / Larissa Pham

Visible and Invisible Women: ‘Pairing Picasso’ at the MFA

Visible and Invisible Women: ‘Pairing Picasso’ at the MFA Visible and Invisible Women: ‘Pairing Picasso’ at the MFA

The woman’s body is the unspoken subject of a remarkable new exhibit at Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts.

Feb 16, 2016 / Eve L. Ewing

The Paris Metro

Who Was Kafka? Who Was Kafka?

A collection of ephemera complicates the picture of Franz Kafka as a tortured neurotic.

Feb 11, 2016 / Books & the Arts / Reiner Stach

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Beautiful Mind

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Beautiful Mind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Beautiful Mind

Sitting down with a basketball legend with a genius-level IQ demands eclectic questions and invites delicious answers.

Jan 11, 2016 / Dave Zirin

December 28, 1973: Alexsander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Gulag Archipelago’ is Published

December 28, 1973: Alexsander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Gulag Archipelago’ is Published December 28, 1973: Alexsander Solzhenitsyn’s ‘Gulag Archipelago’ is Published

“The duty is not only to memorialize the fallen, it is also to confront the living.”

Dec 28, 2015 / Richard Kreitner

Donald Trump speaks before a crowd of supporters.

The Dickensian Politics of Trump and His Fellow Scrooges The Dickensian Politics of Trump and His Fellow Scrooges

Political misers still refuse to make it their business to improve the lot of the working poor.

Dec 24, 2015 / John Nichols

December 21, 1892: Rebecca West Is Born

December 21, 1892: Rebecca West Is Born December 21, 1892: Rebecca West Is Born

“Pleasure is not arbitrary; it is the sign by which the human organization shows that it is performing a function which it finds appropriate to its means and ends.”

Dec 21, 2015 / Richard Kreitner

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