March 24, 2023 | T.S. Eliot and the study of power. The drama that takes place across the span of his poetry seems more vital than ever... more »
March 23, 2023 | What is the proper relationship between art and morality? One answer lies in Philip Roth's Sabbath's Theater, a filthy book about an intolerable man... more »
March 22, 2023 | To take to heart Awakenings, published by Oliver Sacks 50 years ago, is to embrace the possibility of an awakening of our own common humanity... more »
March 21, 2023 | Leonardo was drawn to youth and beauty. He was also obsessed by strange, diseased, "monstrous" faces, which he sketched in caricatures... more »
March 20, 2023 | After 23 years and 2,293 published reviews, A.O. Scott is hanging it up as a film critic. Time for his exit interview... more »
March 17, 2023 | “The history of art is the history of the underrated and overlooked, as well as the overblown and over-sold”... more »
March 16, 2023 | A dearth of deep talk. College was once for airing out one’s views completely. Now students — and professors — choose their words very carefully... more »
March 15, 2023 | Diane Arbus’s photography of the socially marginalized is not revolutionary, but it does have a leveling effect... more »
March 14, 2023 | Distraction, then and now, is driven by sweeping societal changes. So why do we insist that it does private damage to the mind?... more »
March 13, 2023 | The worse things get, the more we want to know: What role has critical theory played in getting us into a democratic crisis?... more »
March 10, 2023 | Where did the Scientific Revolution take place? In Europe, yes, but also in Mexico, Suriname, India, and East Asia... more »
March 9, 2023 | In a rush to dispense lucrative uplift, the happiness industry has lost sight of the long and difficult effort to determine what happiness is... more »
March 8, 2023 | A data scientist tried to optimize daily life using algorithmic principles. The unexpected result: a wicked hangover... more »
March 7, 2023 | In 1705, Damaris Masham put things plainly: “I see no Reason why it should not be thought that all Science lyes as open to a Lady as to a Man”... more »
March 6, 2023 | A Jew in Berlin. How Max Czollek brought U.S.-style identity politics to the German literary-political scene... more »
The battle against euphemism and cliché is longstanding and continuing. Consider the rise of equity language and the proliferation of guides that prescribe its use
... more »March 3, 2023 | “Nobody would have the balls today to write The Satanic Verses,” says Hanif Kureishi. But if someone did, would anyone have the balls to defend them?... more »
March 2, 2023 | The sensitivity readers have come for Roald Dahl. Katha Pollitt on the falsification of history and the dumbing down of great literature... more »
March 1, 2023 | In a designer suit and bulletproof vest, Bernard-Henri Lévy set out for Ukraine. Is the philosopher just play-acting at seriousness?... more »
Feb. 28, 2023 | The art of the blasphemer is based on a question: “Why do the feelings of the religious matter more than mine?”... more »
Feb. 27, 2023 | Hannah Rose Woods: “It feels terrible as a writer to admit, but I’ve been struggling to read for pleasure” ... more »
Feb. 25, 2023 | “It is an infernal riddle of digital culture that ‘authenticity’ is constantly breeding its opposite: the ‘spontaneous’ event that proves to be no such thing” ... more »
Feb. 24, 2023 | Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis built the tenets of modern dance: pastoral simplicity, revolutionary fervor, Eastern ritual... more »
Feb. 23, 2023 | Most concerned with technology and the economy, does “progress studies” have room for progress in art, ethics, and culture? ... more »
Feb. 22, 2023 | Painters have rendered shadows incorrectly for centuries. But artistic liberties with physics can contain aesthetic multitudes... more »