Language Arts

Dirtying White Dirtying White

Why does Benn Steil’s history of Bretton Woods distort the ideas of Harry Dexter White?

Jun 5, 2013 / Books & the Arts / James M. Boughton

White Wigs, Black Masks: On Surveillance Pop

White Wigs, Black Masks: On Surveillance Pop White Wigs, Black Masks: On Surveillance Pop

The cameras no longer look at us because we’re famous; we’re famous because they look at us to death.

Jun 5, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Joshua Clover

Hitler’s Classical Architect

Hitler’s Classical Architect Hitler’s Classical Architect

Why is Léon Krier defending anew the work of the Third Reich’s master builder?

May 21, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Michael Sorkin

Shelf Life Shelf Life

Ralph Lemon’s Come Home Charley Patton

May 21, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Marina Harss

Attacks From Within: On Janet Malcolm

Attacks From Within: On Janet Malcolm Attacks From Within: On Janet Malcolm

The war between democracy and aristocracy in Janet Malcolm’s Forty-One False Starts.

May 21, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Mark Oppenheimer

Flappers and Philosophers

Flappers and Philosophers Flappers and Philosophers

Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, Richard Linklater’s Before Midnight

May 21, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

Fight Clubs: On Napoleon Chagnon

Fight Clubs: On Napoleon Chagnon Fight Clubs: On Napoleon Chagnon

One anthropologist’s place in his field’s ongoing battle over questions of power, means and ends.

May 15, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Peter C. Baker

Adler’s Way

Adler’s Way Adler’s Way

The slowly panic-making power of Renata Adler’s novels Speedboat and Pitch Dark.

May 15, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Alexandra Schwartz

At Brú na Bóinne At Brú na Bóinne

The tumulus—I thought it was a hill at first (trees grow out of one in Sulm)— entered into. It was a clear day, bright, the grass bounded by its hedgerows  too green all around and down,  the fields’ squares troubled only by the Boyne  that just about makes an island of this place snaking through. Sunbeams don’t snake, at least not visibly,  though 5,000 years have worked at the Earth’s orbit. Still  the light goes in, into the mound through holes one to a side that tunnel towards each other but don’t meet, the sun arriving on time every year unless it’s cloudy.                      But to do what? Wake the corpse.

May 15, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Elizabeth Arnold

Empire States: On Pankaj Mishra

Empire States: On Pankaj Mishra Empire States: On Pankaj Mishra

Why a passionate history of global alternatives to liberal capitalism becomes an exercise in nostalgia.

May 15, 2013 / Books & the Arts / Thomas Meaney

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