March 19, 2025 | A rarefied gig. Has there ever been a more lucrative place to be a writer than Graydon Carter’s Vanity Fair?... more »
March 18, 2025 | The history of AI is dashed hopes and blind alleys. You don't have to be an “accelerationist” or a “doomer" to see that this time is different... more »
March 17, 2025 | House of Albert Barnes. What drove the curmudgeonly collector to acquire so many Renoirs, Cézannes and Modiglianis?... more »
March 14, 2025 | Through binges, bankruptcies, and depressive spells, Edgar Allan Poe knew where the best of him lay: in making art... more »
March 13, 2025 | In the 18th century, hypochondria was a rarefied disease tied to leisure and luxury. Then the laboring classes began to develop it... more »
March 12, 2025 | Dante’s divine… autofiction? The Commedia is not a “memoir” in the conventional sense, yet it’s a deeply personal reflection... more »
March 11, 2025 | Van Gogh, age 32, arrived in Paris a "provincial rube" and “painter of no particular skill." Did the city really transform him?... more »
March 10, 2025 | “The only people who connect ancient and modern Greece are tour guides, Fulbright scholars, and fascists”... more »
March 7, 2025 | When it comes to sexual matters, the Bible is neither clear nor consistent. Diarmaid MacCulloch teases out the contradictions... more »
March 6, 2025 | Many academics tolerate the metaphysical commitments of mainstream religionists. But a belief in the paranormal?... more »
March 5, 2025 | Free speech and its discontents. “We cannot have truth and wisdom without accommodating error and folly”... more »
March 4, 2025 | Here come the pedagogy gurus, with their gaseous abstractions and bureaucratic proceduralism... more »
March 3, 2025 | Experiencing an obscure, hyper-specific emotion? In some language, there’s probably a word for that... more »
Feb. 28, 2025 | What is "woke"? An abundance of zeal, a lack of proportion, and self-interest masquerading as general interest... more »
Feb. 27, 2025 | Stanley Fish goes to the movies. At 86, the "totalitarian Tinkerbell" is still at it, yoking legal theory to Hollywood production... more »
Feb. 26, 2025 | The debate over privacy has bogged down in stalemate between user agreements and opt-out buttons. We've lost sight of what privacy is for... more »
Feb. 25, 2025 | Social psychology is a field in crisis. What’s the main problem: bad methods or bad ideas?... more »
Feb. 24, 2025 | A faithful pet, some liquor, books stacked just so — since Montaigne’s time the private library has been a place of quiet joy... more »
Feb. 21, 2025 | As three recent books show, “arguing about criticism is far less pleasurable than arguing about books”... more »
Feb. 20, 2025 | The medieval mob. Crowds broke political regimes just as quickly as they made them... more »
Feb. 19, 2025 | What makes a “monster”? Human boundaries are always shifting, redefining what constitutes monstrous abnormality ... more »
Feb. 18, 2025 | In every age, diet advice reflects the perennial and the faddish, the sensible and the ludicrous. The ancients were no exception... more »
Feb. 17, 2025 | Épater la bourgeoisie. Artists once sought to disturb the conventions and the complacency of polite society, but no more... more »
Feb. 14, 2025 | In 1945, Olivier Messiaen split the Parisian music scene: Was his work modernist genius? Or hopelessly lost in idolatry and kitsch?... more »
Feb. 13, 2025 | R.E.M. had a sound that was "sonically sui generis and abnormally normal" and a knack for cashing in without being seen as selling out... more »