Cultural Criticism and Analysis

Strangers in the Land Strangers in the Land

Human Cargo and The Rights of Others chronicle the plight of refugees and migrants, revealing how seemingly simple moral positions can assume toxic political form.

Mar 23, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Corey Robin

Brother From Another Planet Brother From Another Planet

If you missed the 1995 CUNY "Question of Identity" conference, the issue of October magazine devoted to it, the "remarkable" essay on the same subject in Diacritics or--even wo...

Mar 23, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Russell Jacoby

The Color of Money The Color of Money

Four new books explore the politics, culture and racial awareness of the hip-hop generation.

Feb 9, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Greg Tate

A Letter to the American Left A Letter to the American Left

The American left is in a semi-comatose state, thanks to the striking ideological transformation wrought by its neoconservative battalions.

Feb 9, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Bernard-Henri Lévy

Easier Said Than Done Easier Said Than Done

Kwame Anthony Appiah's Cosmopolitanism explores the middle ground between the universal laws of liberalism and relativism's blind respect for all differences.

Jan 11, 2006 / Books & the Arts / John Gray

Harry Magdoff Harry Magdoff

The late socialist economist Harry Magdoff read Marx at fifteen and never looked back. A self-educated co-editor of the Monthly Review, he not only fought for a just and humane wor...

Jan 5, 2006 / Books & the Arts / The Nation

Of Queers and Kong Of Queers and Kong

From Brokeback Mountain's closeted cowboys to King Kong's embrace of Anne Darrow, Hollywood has queered cherished icons of masculinity. But the two films paint a bleak picture: Lov...

Jan 5, 2006 / Books & the Arts / Richard Goldstein

Wartime Lies Wartime Lies

As Nazis dropped bombs in Warsaw, poet Czeslaw Milosz wrote a collection of literary criticism that sought to trace the rise of totalitarianism by deconstructing the mythologies of...

Dec 20, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Timothy Snyder

Rembrandt’s Year Rembrandt’s Year

2006 marks Rembrandt's 400th birthday, and an array of exhibitions, from the sublime to the silly, will open in Amsterdam, Washington and beyond. As the aesthetic hype escalate...

Dec 19, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Abigail R. Esman

Farewell to the Working Class Farewell to the Working Class

Two new books on indolence, How To Be Idle and Bonjour Laziness, issue low-energy cries for political apathy, a shorter work week and the fine art of slacking off.

Dec 15, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Austin Kelley

x