Culture

The Flame Lights, but Doesn’t Cause Burns The Flame Lights, but Doesn’t Cause Burns

Oaxaca, Mexico: The role art plays to empower the people.

Anonymous

Art During Wartime Art During Wartime

Can it really be that to call for sympathy with victims of murder and kidnapping is necessarily to demand violence in return?

Barry Schwabsky

A Broadway Play’s Clumsy Intervention Into Antisemitism A Broadway Play’s Clumsy Intervention Into Antisemitism

Prayer for the French Republic is among a spate of recent dramas devoted to the precarity of Jewish life at the expense of solidarity.

Books & the Arts / Alisa Solomon

Books

Lucy Sante

Lucy Sante and the Solitude and Solidarity of Transitioning Lucy Sante and the Solitude and Solidarity of Transitioning

In her new memoir, I Heard Her Call My Name, Sante dissects her past in order to understand her future.

Books & the Arts / Stephanie Burt

Bad Brains in London, 1987.

Black Punk Means Liberation Black Punk Means Liberation

The present and future of Black punk culture.

Books & the Arts / Marc Bayard

What Happened to the 21st-Century City?

What Happened to the 21st-Century City? What Happened to the 21st-Century City?

And how we can save it.

Books & the Arts / Kate Wagner

Film

Who Will Win Big at the Oscars?  Who Will Win Big at the Oscars? 

A Nation reader from American Fiction to The Zone of Interest

Books & the Arts / The Nation

What’s Missing From “Dune: Part Two” What’s Missing From “Dune: Part Two”

While Frank Herbert’s original series was about the dangers of messianism, Denis Villeneuve’s rendition wields ambivalence like a secret weapon in its effort to avoid the tough qu…

Books & the Arts / Jorge Cotte

What James Baldwin Saw What James Baldwin Saw

A documentary that follows the writer’s late-in-life journey to the South chronicles his vision for Black politics in a post–Civil Rights era world.

Books & the Arts / Kelli Weston

The Genius of Nuri Bilge Ceylan The Genius of Nuri Bilge Ceylan

About Dry Grasses is long, dense, elliptical—and brilliant.

Books & the Arts / A. S. Hamrah

Television

“Masters of the Air,” With John Orloff

“Masters of the Air,” With John Orloff “Masters of the Air,” With John Orloff

On this episode of American Prestige, a discussion about the new Apple TV miniseries.

American Prestige / Daniel Bessner and Derek Davison

Alabama Senator Katie Britt in a kitchen

Senator Katie Britt: A Star Is Not Born Senator Katie Britt: A Star Is Not Born

The Alabaman’s disastrous debut was so weird even Scarlett Johansson—who’s played everything from a man-eating alien to Black Widow to Maggie the Cat—couldn’t do it justice.

Jeet Heer

The Era of Nicki Minaj

The Era of Nicki Minaj The Era of Nicki Minaj

How the queen of rap revolutionized American music.

Books & the Arts / Bijan Stephen

Architecture

What Happened to the 21st-Century City?

What Happened to the 21st-Century City? What Happened to the 21st-Century City?

And how we can save it.

Books & the Arts / Kate Wagner

Urban Surveillance Is More Menacing Than Ever

Urban Surveillance Is More Menacing Than Ever Urban Surveillance Is More Menacing Than Ever

Cameras aren’t just monitoring us in public—now they’re actually yelling at us.

Column / Kate Wagner

An illustration of interior design, 1951.

The Bad Politics of Good Taste The Bad Politics of Good Taste

Nathalie Olah’s exploration of the ethics of tastefulness dissects the class-bounded nature of most social and cultural mores.

Books & the Arts / Lauren Kelly

Music

The Era of Nicki Minaj The Era of Nicki Minaj

How the queen of rap revolutionized American music.

Books & the Arts / Bijan Stephen

And the Winner Is… Annie Lennox and Artists for Cease-Fire And the Winner Is… Annie Lennox and Artists for Cease-Fire

The singer’s call for an end to the killing in Gaza politicized the Grammys, which is fantastic.

John Nichols

Taylor Swift May Yet Save Joe Biden Taylor Swift May Yet Save Joe Biden

Attacks on the popular singer help highlight the sheer weirdness of Trump’s GOP.

2021 Year in Review / Jeet Heer

Taylor Swift, Enemy of the People Taylor Swift, Enemy of the People

The MAGA movement—including the big man himself—has gone on the offensive against the megastar pop singer.

Chris Lehmann

Publishing

Los Angeles Times Guild members rally outside City Hall against layoffs at the paper.

The Death and Life of Great American Media The Death and Life of Great American Media

The crisis of the news business is far from over, but we’re still doing what we’ve been doing for over 159 years.

Editorial / D.D. Guttenplan

Martin Baron announcing that he is leaving The Boston Globe to become the executive editor of The Washington Post.

What Happened to “The Washington Post” Under Marty Baron? What Happened to “The Washington Post” Under Marty Baron?

In a new book, the former editor tirelessly hymns how he and the newspaper protected their journalists and shored up the foundations of our crumbling republic. But was that the ca…

Books & the Arts / Chris Lehmann

The Misguided Satire of “American Fiction”

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.

Books & the Arts / Stephen Kearse

Latest in Culture

Nation Poetry

A Portrait of the Artist as I Hate You A Portrait of the Artist as I Hate You

Mar 12, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Christopher Spaide

The Enchanted Worlds of Marshall Sahlins

The Enchanted Worlds of Marshall Sahlins The Enchanted Worlds of Marshall Sahlins

What if we saw the study of ghosts, gods, and other metapersons as worthy of a science of its own?

Mar 6, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Anna Della Subin

New York Times headquarters in New York City on Sunday, February 4, 2024.

The Nixonian “New York Times” Stonewalls on a Discredited Article About Hamas and Rape The Nixonian “New York Times” Stonewalls on a Discredited Article About Hamas and Rape

The newspaper of record botches an important story about sexual violence on October 7.

Mar 1, 2024 / Jeet Heer

Artemisia Gentileschi's “Judith and Her Maidservant with the Head of Holofernes” (detail), c. 1623–25.

A Hidden History of Europe’s Pre-Modernist Women Artists A Hidden History of Europe’s Pre-Modernist Women Artists

A recent exhibition documenting four centuries of art from female painters and illustrators provides a new way of looking at an era of art history where women are often left out.

Feb 29, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Barry Schwabsky

Ukrainians in Exile: A Documentary Short Film

Ukrainians in Exile: A Documentary Short Film Ukrainians in Exile: A Documentary Short Film

Watch The Nation’s newest documentary film, about Ukrainian refugees in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

Feb 22, 2024 / Multimedia / Janek Ambros, The Nation Video, and Ludwig Hurtado

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