Cultural Criticism and Analysis

Have Americans Become More Conspiratorial?

Have Americans Become More Conspiratorial? Have Americans Become More Conspiratorial?

In their new book, Russell Muirhead and Nancy L. Rosenblum argue that a new form of conspiracy thinking is consuming our culture in dangerous and alarming ways. But is it?

Sep 16, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Sophia Rosenfeld

Wendell Berry’s Lifelong Dissent 

Wendell Berry’s Lifelong Dissent  Wendell Berry’s Lifelong Dissent 

At the core of both his writing and activism is the insight that we can’t imagine a harmonious future without confronting the destruction in our past.

Sep 9, 2019 / Books & the Arts / Jedediah Britton-Purdy

A Blueprint for an Anticapitalist Life

A Blueprint for an Anticapitalist Life A Blueprint for an Anticapitalist Life

In the T Fleischmann’s book-length essay, Time Is the Thing a Body Moves Through, they present a theory of identity and community outside the strictures of hegemony.

Sep 4, 2019 / Becca Schuh

Richard Holbrooke and the Lost Idealism of a Generation

Richard Holbrooke and the Lost Idealism of a Generation Richard Holbrooke and the Lost Idealism of a Generation

Holbrooke’s public and personal life captures the contradictions of a cohort of liberals that came of age in the 1960s.

Aug 13, 2019 / Books & the Arts / David Klion

Philip Roth’s Great American Estate Sale

Philip Roth’s Great American Estate Sale Philip Roth’s Great American Estate Sale

The bidding is sparse, but the late author’s modest effects are revealing.

Jul 19, 2019 / Editorial / Elizabeth Pochoda

‘Mad’ Magazine Told the Truth About War, Advertising, and the Media

‘Mad’ Magazine Told the Truth About War, Advertising, and the Media ‘Mad’ Magazine Told the Truth About War, Advertising, and the Media

An obituary for America’s greatest and most influential satirical magazine.

Jul 8, 2019 / Jeet Heer

Stonewall Inn interior

It Doesn’t Matter Who Threw the First Brick at Stonewall It Doesn’t Matter Who Threw the First Brick at Stonewall

Infighting over ownership of the riots obscures their significance as a messy, spontaneous, diverse rebellion.

Jun 30, 2019 / Reclaiming Stonewall / Morgan M. Page

Adam Gopnik and the Cul-de-sac of 21st-Century Liberalism

Adam Gopnik and the Cul-de-sac of 21st-Century Liberalism Adam Gopnik and the Cul-de-sac of 21st-Century Liberalism

In his new book, the New Yorker writer sets out to defend liberalism from its critics, but only ends up revealing its current limitations.

Jun 12, 2019 / Books & the Arts / David A. Bell

Morgan Bassichis

Morgan Bassichis’s Haunted American Songbook Morgan Bassichis’s Haunted American Songbook

The performer’s work presents a riotous vision of what an intergenerational left might look like.

May 23, 2019 / Ari M. Brostoff

Sophie Lewis

Want to Dismantle Capitalism? Abolish the Family Want to Dismantle Capitalism? Abolish the Family

Feminist theorist Sophie Lewis’s new book looks at how rethinking pregnancy and the idea of family as forms of labor is central to emancipatory politics.

May 16, 2019 / Q&A / Rosemarie Ho

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