The Misguided Satire of “American Fiction” The Misguided Satire of “American Fiction”
A buzzy film adaptation of Percival Everett’s Erasure, a novel about publishing’s racial politics, misreads what is truly ailing the book industry.
Dec 22, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Kearse
A Memoir for the Post-Truth Era A Memoir for the Post-Truth Era
In Sarah Viren’s To Name a Bigger Lie, she investigates how conspiracy theories have changed her relationship to the world.
Dec 21, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Julia Case-Levine
Reading “Mumbo Jumbo” in the Post-Covid Age Reading “Mumbo Jumbo”" "in the Post-Covid Age
Ishmael Reed's novel depicts an American government dedicated to public health as long as its efforts keep hierarchy and the status quo in place.
Dec 20, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Melvin Backman
Sasha Frere-Jones, a Life Remixed Sasha Frere-Jones, a Life Remixed
Sasha Frere-Jones is an institution of music criticism in an era when music critics are no longer institutions. Roughly over the course of the 1990s, Frere-Jones made a transformat…
Dec 19, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Piccarella
Isaac Julien’s Truth Isaac Julien’s Truth
Dealing with time, race, and utopias, his work challenges conventional notions of where film belongs and should be consumed.
Dec 18, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky
Joan Baez Looks Back Joan Baez Looks Back
I Am a Noise, a career-spanning documentary, makes it clear that the folk singer was one of the most important political musicians of her generation.
Dec 14, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Sarah M. Seltzer
Christina Sharpe and the Art of Everyday Black Life Christina Sharpe and the Art of Everyday Black Life
In Ordinary Notes, Sharpe considers Black culture “in all of its shade and depth and glow.”
Dec 13, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Omari Weekes
The Dubious Feminism of the Natural Childbirth Movement The Dubious Feminism of the Natural Childbirth Movement
Pregnant women are everywhere, but in a way it’s hard to see them. The pregnant woman’s body is shrouded in a veil of symbolism, made an object of our anxieties and hopes in a way…
Dec 12, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Moira Donegan
How Did Marxism Become Marxism? How Did Marxism Become Marxism?
A new book examines a set of thinkers and activists who helped transform a set of radical ideas into a political tradition.
Dec 11, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Peter E. Gordon
The Work of Black Life: A Conversation With Christina Sharpe The Work of Black Life: A Conversation With Christina Sharpe
In Ordinary Notes, a extraordinary work of memoir, poetry, and criticism, she writes a love letter to Black art.
Dec 8, 2023 / Books & the Arts / Rhoda Feng