Books & the Arts

The Faith of Eugene McCarthy The Faith of Eugene McCarthy

Eugene McCarthy, the Minnesota senator, frequent presidential candidate and poet who died Saturday at age 89, never had a chance at the Democratic nomination in 1968. But his passi...

Dec 13, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Robert Sherrill

Remembering Eugene McCarthy Remembering Eugene McCarthy

Eugene McCarthy's political life was full of contradictions: A conventional cold war liberal and fierce anti-Communist, in the Vietnam era, he was transformed into the standard-bea...

Dec 12, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Jon Wiener

The Outsider The Outsider

Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker movement, died 25 years ago this month. Today Catholic Workers are in Cuba, keeping vigil outside the US Naval Prison at Guantanamo Bay ...

Dec 10, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Colman McCarthy

Harold Pinter: Art, Truth and Politics Harold Pinter: Art, Truth and Politics

The pursuit of truth in drama is elusive, but in life it is mandatory, wrote Harold Pinter, who died Wednesday at 78. When he won the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature, he condemned ...

Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / The Nation

Imitation of Art Imitation of Art

The Chronicles of Narnia is the perfect combination of Christian allegory and The Lord of the Rings, a well-crafted commodity and nothing more. The Ice Harvest, an anti-Christmas f...

Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans

The Look of Truth The Look of Truth

Photographs are supposed to be unbiased recognitions of reality, but they're really self-portraits of the photographer. The Ongoing Movement, a blend of biography and analysis, exa...

Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Peter Plagens

Octoberfest Octoberfest

Four editors of October magazine trace the history of contemporary art. Though Art Since 1900 seeks to be comprehensive, its writers leave out entire movements and impose moralisti...

Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky

Pop Torture Pop Torture

Pop culture does more than validate the claim that torture could help foil bombs seconds before detonation.

Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Richard Kim

Rogue Scholars Rogue Scholars

Defenders of torture dwell not only in the White House and Pentagon, but in the halls of academia. When prominent law professors and academics cite the fantastic "ticking-bomb theo...

Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Tara McKelvey

Disco Inferno Disco Inferno

Military detainees have been subjected to starvation, sleep deprivation and now Metallica and Britney Spears. Blasted at high volume, torture music has become a weapon of war, used...

Dec 8, 2005 / Books & the Arts / Moustafa Bayoumi

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