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Nation Topics - Books and the Arts

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Nation Topics - Books and the Arts

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robert bresson's still from, the devil, probably

Robert Bresson’s The Devil, Probably; Maurice Pilat’s Police; Leo McCary’s My Son John.

Torture and Taboo: On Elaine Scarry

How the work of a literary critic became the proxy for our preoccupation with the horrors of torture.

Portrait of  Victor Shklovsky

A Russian novelist’s fight, in life and art, to see the world afresh in all its cruelty and splendor.

Photo of Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger

Amos Oz and Fania Oz-Salzberger’s Jews and Words.

Judith Long on Jane Sharples, Allison Kilkenny on the fight for Philly’s schools

Zero Dark Thirty

The film’s torture scenes do not excuse or glorify torture; they do something worse: draw the audience into accommodating it.

Picture of Thomas Bernhard and Siegfried Unseld

In his writing and life, Thomas Bernhard led a charge in the opposite direction. His publisher always broke his fall.

Blogs

A new book shows that the HIV virus was triggered by wanton imperial depredations.

February 28, 2012

Though complicated by controversy, a weekend in Los Angeles with thirty domestic workers underscores the power of Hollywood to propel social change. 

February 27, 2012

How does the movie The Help "photoshop" American history?

February 27, 2012

Whitney's death reminds us of a music industry that does not take care of its own.

February 13, 2012

Romney misattributed the key quote of his Florida victory speech to the pamphleteer. But that's hardly the only reason why Paine would have decried the Bain Capitalist.

February 1, 2012

In the new bio-pic, Margaret Thatcher's iron isn’t just rusty, it’s melted down into something soft and personal. The Iron Lady gives us Thatcher, the ABBA Version. It’s the last thing we need. 

January 4, 2012

Will the new president's mega-million-dollar makeover of the main library scare off scholars and leave the branches begging?

December 6, 2011

&ldquotLiberty Walk,” the one percenter teen sensation’s catchy, if repetitive, remixed single sets her music to laudatory images from OWS encampments throughout the nation.

November 29, 2011

Since every great protest movement needs its culture, here's my stab at a list of the ten best songs ever written about class and poverty in tribute to #OccupyWallStreet.

October 3, 2011

An incomplete list of ten of the best songs ever written about school.

September 9, 2011
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