Books & the Arts

Fernanda Melchor’s Dark Morality Plays

Fernanda Melchor’s Dark Morality Plays

In her third novel, Melchor turns her allegorical powers in an even more explicitly political direction.

Nicolás Medina Mora

The Reflections of Kendrick Lamar

His intimate new album Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers lifts a mirror to his listeners.

Joshua Bennett

The Brutal Verisimilitude of “The Northman”

Robert Eggers’s latest work, a Viking epic, pushes his obsessive and detail-oriented filmmaking to its limit. 

Erin Schwartz

From the Magazine

Nijinska’s Revolutionary Vision of Dance

Nijinska’s Revolutionary Vision of Dance

Lynn Garafola’s biography of the dancer and choreographer charts her globetrotting life and radical art. 

Jennifer Wilson
Hubert Harrison, Giant of Harlem Radicalism

Hubert Harrison, Giant of Harlem Radicalism

A two-volume biography tracks the life and times of one of Harlem’s leading socialists.

Robert Greene II
Andrea Stewart-Cousins

Andrea Stewart-Cousins Is Albany’s Best Hope

The New York State Senate’s new majority leader is championing women’s rights—and giving Governor Andrew Cuomo a piece of her mind. 

Raina Lipsitz

Literary Criticism

The Ambitious and Overstuffed World of Hanya Yanagihara

The Ambitious and Overstuffed World of Hanya Yanagihara

To Paradise attempts to break out of the common insularity of contemporary fiction, but in doing so it often ends up focusing more on the author.

Tope Folarin
John Keene’s Poetry of Others

John Keene’s Poetry of Others

In Punks, the self is never static and cannot exist outside its relationships to others.

Ken Chen
Me Too and the Not Me Novel

Me Too and the Not Me Novel

Julia May Jonas’s new novel is a study of a campus scandal and a woman caught in the middle of it.

Laura Marsh

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History & Politics

The Many American Revolutions

The Many American Revolutions

Woody Holton’s Liberty is Sweet charts not only the contest with Great Britain over “home rule” but also the internal struggle over who should rule at home. 

Eric Foner
Cedric Robinson’s Radical Democracy

Cedric Robinson’s Radical Democracy

Rejecting the resignation of the 1970s and ’80s, Robinson found hope and resistance in the ruins of the American city.

Jared Loggins
What Is Left of History?

What Is Left of History?

Joan Scott’s On the Judgment of History asks us to imagine the past without the idea of progress. But what gets left out in the process?

David A. Bell

Higher Education

Has the Pandemic Pushed Universities to the Brink?

Has the Pandemic Pushed Universities to the Brink?

Covid has turned the gap between universities and colleges serving mainly privileged students and those serving needy ones into a chasm and it is unclear if the latter will be able to survive.
Andrew Delbanco

In January 2020, just days before the first case of Covid-19 was identified in the United States, Bryan Alexander, a scholar at Georgetown University known as a “futurist,” published a new book, Academia Next: The Futures of Higher Education. Alexander made no claim to clairvoyance, only to “trend analysis and… Continue Reading >

Television and Films

Does “Severance”’s Workplace Satire Work?

Does “Severance”’s Workplace Satire Work?

On the ups and downs of the year's most talked-about office drama.

Vikram Murthi
The Brutal Verisimilitude of “The Northman”

The Brutal Verisimilitude of “The Northman”

Robert Eggers’s latest work, a Viking epic, pushes his obsessive and detail-oriented filmmaking to its limit. 

Erin Schwartz
Nadav Lapid’s Cinema of Shame

Nadav Lapid’s Cinema of Shame

His new film Ahed’s Knee is a shallow cri de coeur against the Israeli state. 

Kaleem Hawa

Theater

The Making of Tom Stoppard

The Making of Tom Stoppard

How mistaken identity and acts of reinvention define the life and work of the British playwright.
Hannah Gold

Tom Stoppard has long been averse to weaving explicitly autobiographical material into his plays, so it’s only appropriate that one of his more revealing lines about himself would be voiced by a 19th-century liberal literary critic. The speech, which appears in Voyage, the first of Stoppard’s trilogy on the Russian… Continue Reading >

Poems

Editor's Picks

The Rise of Adjunct Lit

The Rise of Adjunct Lit

Maggie Doherty
Graham Greene’s God

Graham Greene’s God

John Banville

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