Jan. 11, 2024 | Once you enter Guy Davenport’s labyrinth of learning and imagination, you never get out. John Jeremiah Sullivan explains... more »
Jan. 10, 2024 | “No one can really believe in an apology until after it happens,” says Agnes Callard. “That’s the telltale mark of a miracle”... more »
Jan. 9, 2024 | “Critique is not against reason; it is the very practice of reason.” Peter Gordon lays to rest some misconceptions of critical theory... more »
Jan. 8, 2024 | Tom Wolfe was less an inventive journalist or mediocre novelist − though he was both – than a grand theorist of American life... more »
Jan. 5, 2024 | Planning to give up alcohol, smoking, or chocolate? Behind such self-sacrifice lies the despair of just wanting to give up... more »
Jan. 4, 2024 | Samuel Moyn laments liberalism’s lack of an aspiration to perfection. But that never was a liberal tenet, and shouldn’t be... more »
Jan. 3, 2024 | Amid calls to “decolonize” everything from hipsters to universities, one wonders: Where did this jargonized swagger originate?... more »
Jan. 2, 2024 | “The abandonment of ornament has levied a heavy toll on the practice of architecture, tantamount to misplacing a crucial instrument of one’s toolbox”... more »
Jan. 1, 2024 | We never tire of trying to live better lives. For better results, consult better thinkers. Start with John Stuart Mill... more »
Dec. 29, 2023 | The chief risk facing elite higher education isn’t financial, but that its authority will grow brittle and its appeal sectarian... more »
Dec. 28, 2023 | We are witnessing a highly fractious workplace dispute at the heart of the American culture industry. Andrea Long Chu explains... more »
Dec. 27, 2023 | The two Chomskys. How did the political activist reconcile a lifetime spent in close proximity to the US military?... more »
Dec. 26, 2023 | Pissarro’s Jewishness has typically been treated by biographers as a minor matter. That is a mistake... more »
Dec. 25, 2023 | What turns serious people into comedic figures? For some, it’s the rigidity of their thinking. Consider Christopher Hitchens... more »
Dec. 22, 2023 | A year into ChatGPT, what’s the verdict? AI is simultaneously impressive and pretty dumb... more »
Dec. 21, 2023 | When Mala Chatterjee was most broken and vulnerable, only one thing could soothe and sustain her: Infinite Jest... more »
Dec. 20, 2023 | Tyler Austin Harper: “Humanists today need to reckon with the fact that the only thing our politicking is accomplishing is hastening our own demise”... more »
Dec. 19, 2023 | As a child, Kathryn Schulz heard rumors that she was related to the Polish novelist Bruno Schulz. Is it true?... more »
Dec. 18, 2023 | An open society is based upon the malleability of opinion. So what happens when persuasion is no longer possible?... more »
Dec. 15, 2023 | When a library's entire digital footprint is stolen by a ransomware gang, what remains? The British Library is finding out... more »
Dec. 14, 2023 | Moral clarity is rarely clear, and simplistic certitudes have no place at institutions of higher learning... more »
Dec. 13, 2023 | A great poet, such as Robert Frost, affords misreadings, "perhaps even welcomes them, and is misread anew by each successive generation”... more »
Dec. 12, 2023 | Philosophy and pseudonymity. Why do so many philosophers write under so many names? Consider Kierkegaard... more »
Dec. 11, 2023 | Humans have always wanted to become like Gods. Francis Bacon understood this desire better than most... more »
Dec. 8, 2023 | Flaubert was once described as a “martyr of literary style.” His letters reveal just how apt that assessment was... more »