Sept. 22, 2021 | As an undergraduate, Carl Schorske asked Charles A. Beard and Lionel Trilling if they thought he should become an academic. Both said no ... more »
Sept. 21, 2021 | Byron, Shelley, and the strange prominence of poets and poetry in the Greek War of Independence... more »
Sept. 20, 2021 | “Utopian fervor can spread through the social order like wildfire,” says Robert Darnton. “Something similar took place in the French Revolution” ... more »
Sept. 18, 2021 | The Clement Greenberg problem: A modern critic’s single most lucrative move is to announce the newest new thing ... more »
Sept. 17, 2021 | “Annotate the world!” declared the web start-up Genius, which was seen as the future of journalism. Things soon went south... more »
Sept. 16, 2021 | John Gray: “While Western liberalism may be largely defunct, illiberal Western ideas are shaping the future” ... more »
Sept. 15, 2021 | If you like ebooks, great. If you don't, here's why: ebooks violate the essence of bookiness ... more »
Sept. 14, 2021 | Acoustic hallucinations; sudden, inexplicable paralysis; crippling psychoses: A strange peek inside post-Hitler Germany... more »
Sept. 13, 2021 | Franz Liszt, witty, handsome, charismatic. Women were said to carry his discarded cigar butts in their cleavage ... more »
Sept. 11, 2021 | Autocomplete and other AI-based writing offend our literary taste. But so much of our literary history has relied on the very clichés we now decry... more »
Sept. 10, 2021 | A tide of talented Black journalists, historians, artists, directors, novelists, and poets has risen to meet the urgency of our moment ... more »
Sept. 9, 2021 | The American National Ballet promised its dancers world class facilities, TV appearances, and other “big things.” It delivered rather less... more »
Sept. 8, 2021 | “My father is a fly.” “Are you a hare?” Ancient Roman humor is lame, conservative, and head-scratching ... more »
Sept. 7, 2021 | Kathryn Paige Harden understands the odious implications of linking genetics to social outcomes. But that doesn’t mean genetic differences don’t matter... more »
Sept. 6, 2021 | Inferring a gene’s-eye view of evolution has endured decades of criticism. Yet it remains one of biology’s most powerful thinking tools ... more »
Sept. 4, 2021 | Adam Smith was a secular genius, even though his thinking was influenced by religious beliefs he didn’t share ... more »
Sept. 3, 2021 | The empathy riddle. Witnessing injustice can just as easily hinder responsible political action as spur it ... more »
Sept. 2, 2021 | Torn between the esoteric Judaism of Scholem and the materialism of Brecht, Walter Benjamin was a Marxist awaiting the Messiah ... more »
Sept. 1, 2021 | Last year the Poetry Foundation and the book critics' circle were roiled by debates over race. Now similar drama has erupted in the Romance Writers of America... more »
Aug. 31, 2021 | “The news that a well-known study on dishonesty was based on a lie is, as ironies go, almost too perfect” ... more »
Aug. 30, 2021 | “Self-help for the aspiring ratiocinator.” What to think about the raft of books that purport to train us to be better thinkers... more »
Aug. 28, 2021 | “I like an example that’s a pure counterintuitive,” says Zeynep Tufekci. “But in reality, they’re almost never true” ... more »
Aug. 27, 2021 | Since the 1970s, America has seen the rise of a curious coterie of political thinkers: elite anti-intellectuals... more »
Aug. 26, 2021 | For years a clever thief has plagued the publishing world. No one knows who it is, but everyone has a theory ... more »
Aug. 25, 2021 | Denis Donoghue was an opponent of what he called the “political turn in criticism.” But he wasn’t indifferent to politics ... more »