Cultural Criticism and Analysis

Lauren Boebert points toward the crowd onstage

Lauren Boebert Is Not the Only Republican Ruining Musicals Lauren Boebert Is Not the Only Republican Ruining Musicals

How failed theater kids are destroying a great art form—and American politics.

Sep 18, 2023 / Jeet Heer

Kate Zambreno’s Lessons in Looking

Kate Zambreno’s Lessons in Looking Kate Zambreno’s Lessons in Looking

A conversation about how the pandemic changed our relationship to the natural world, distrusting beauty, the challenges of writing about climate change, and her new book, The Ligh...

Sep 12, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Larissa Pham

What It Takes to Be a Public Intellectual

What It Takes to Be a Public Intellectual What It Takes to Be a Public Intellectual

In 2014, Adam Shatz’s “Writers or Missionaries” appeared in The Nation, a piece about his relationship, as a Jewish American journalist, to the political conflicts in the Arab-spea…

Aug 15, 2023 / Books & the Arts / J. Howard Rosier

Robbie Robertson circa November 1994 at The National Museum of the American Indian in New York City.

The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution The Indigenous Roots of Robbie Robertson’s Rock and Roll Revolution

The music called Americana was created by a Jewish-Canadian-Cayuga-Mohawk.

Aug 14, 2023 / Jeet Heer

Screenshot of Richard Hanania talking to Bryan Caplan

Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money? Why Does This Racist Keep Getting Silicon Valley Money?

The charmed life of Richard Hanania.

Aug 11, 2023 / Jeet Heer

A mural by street artist Jorit Agoch, depicting Pier Paolo Pasolini, in the Scampia district of Naples, 2019.

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Eye Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Eye

For the Italian filmmaker, the act of seeing was its own kind of art.

Aug 2, 2023 / Books & the Arts / T.J. Clark

Sinéad-O'Connor

Sinéad O’Connor (1966–2023): Premature Anti-Fascist Sinéad O’Connor (1966–2023): Premature Anti-Fascist

For years, O’Connor had been raising an alarm about pedophile priests exploiting children with impunity while an enabling Vatican hierarchy looked the other way.

Aug 1, 2023 / Obituary / Margaret Spillane

Is the History of American Art a History of Failure?

Is the History of American Art a History of Failure? Is the History of American Art a History of Failure?

Sara Marcus’s recent book argues that from the Reconstruction to the AIDS era, a distinct aesthetic formed around defeat in the realm of politics.

Jul 31, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Lynne Feeley

black and white photo of j. robert oppenheimer testifying before the senate

Even as the Oppenheimer Film Rights a Historic Wrong, the Memo That Smeared Him Remains Redacted Even as the Oppenheimer Film Rights a Historic Wrong, the Memo That Smeared Him Remains Redacted

The physicist was punished for opposing development of the hydrogen bomb, and for warning about the dangers of nuclear proliferation.

Jul 21, 2023 / Peter Shinkle

Still from campaign ad made by an anonymous Ron DeSantis supporter.

Ron DeSantis, American Psycho Ron DeSantis, American Psycho

The Florida governor’s irony-poisoned ad uses far-right memes to sanction homophobic and transphobic violence.

Jul 10, 2023 / Jeet Heer

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