Books & the Arts
What to Do About the Police?
Two new books examine the austerity policies and administrative overreach behind the expansion of local law enforcement.
E. Tammy KimComing to Terms With Ezra Pound’s Politics
What is the relationship between Pound’s fascism and his poetry?
Evan KindleyFrom the Magazine
Waiting for Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment
The genre that Pinker’s latest book most closely resembles is not 18th-century philosophie but a TED Talk.
David A. Bell
The Missed Opportunity of the Kerner Report
A new history recovers the forgotten legacy and radical implications of the Kerner Commission.
William P. Jones
The World of ‘Crime and Punishment’
A new translation captures the painful backdrop of Dostoyevsky’s classic: the poverty, crime, and violence that shaped much of everyday life in 19th-century St. Petersburg.
Jennifer WilsonHistory & Politics
Selma and the Unfulfilled Promise of Civil Rights
The city’s 20th-century history not only marked a high point in the civil-rights movement; it also captures why America needs more than sporadic intervention if it is to uproot the institutions of racism in this country.
Elias Rodriques
Life Among the Bundists
Through his family history, Mark Mazower maps the upheavals and dislocations of early 20th-century Europe and Russia.
Sheila Fitzpatrick
The Rise and Fall of Clintonism
What two recent books on Bill and Hillary tell us about the political and economic costs of the New Democrats.
Ryan CooperLiterary Criticism
Clarice Lispector’s Lifelong Project
At the core of Clarice Lispector’s works is the tension between language’s profound potential and its inability to reach the vital realm of the unspeakable.
Nathan Goldman
A Recognizable Dystopia
Leni Zumas’s Red Clocks suggests a different method for fashioning a dystopian novel.
Mike Mariani
Zadie Smith’s Dream City
In a moment when ideological surety is the order of the day, Feel Free asks us to remember that another mode of thought is possible.
Ismail MuhammadSocial Criticism
The Other Foucault
What led the French theorist of madness and sexuality to politics?
Bruce RobbinsAt his death in 1984, Michel Foucault left a letter stating that he wanted no posthumous publication of his work. He should have known better: The hunger for further clarification and elaboration of the master’s positions would prove irresistible. So too has been the flow of posthumous publications, the most… Continue Reading >
Music
Young Fathers Find a New Sound
The band’s sense of what would pass for fitting into the pop-music mainstream is draped in their own idiosyncrasies.
Briana Younger
The Genre of Post-Genre
William Brittelle has drawn from classical music, punk rock, and electronica to produce music that is at once free-ranging and a thrill to experience.
David Hajdu
Moby’s Muzak
His new album, Everything Was Beautiful, and Nothing Hurt, sounds teleported directly from 1999.
Bijan StephenArt
The Ubiquitous Medium
Carissa Rodriguez’s work leads viewers to scrutinize our choices and values as they relate to video—to recording and being recorded.
Larissa PhamMuch of the world’s art is inaccessible to “ordinary” people. For every piece on display in a museum, a hundred others are hidden in vaults. A recent survey of major museums found that most of Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings are in storage and that, of 53 Egon Schiele drawings, none are… Continue Reading >
Poems
-
February 1, 2018
America Will Be
Joshua Bennett -
December 14, 2017
Lincoln, Midnight
Sandra Beasley -
November 2, 2017
A Guide to the Louisa County Free Negro & Slave Records, 1770–1865
Kiki Petrosino -
October 26, 2017
Gay Bingo at a Pasadena Animal Shelter
Henri Cole
More in Culture
- Arts and Entertainment
- Architecture
- Autobiography and Memoir
- Books and Ideas
- Dance
- Fiction
- Film
- Fine Art
- Higher Education
- Language Arts
- Media
- Shelf Life
- Music
- Poetry
-
The Power of the Word
-
Today’s Life and War
-
Language Is a ‘War Zone’: A Conversation With Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
-
Flirtations With Anarchy
-
Don’t Play It for Laughs: A Q&A With Armando Iannucci
-
A New Picture of Karl Marx
-
STEM Students Are Asking More of the #MeToo Movement
-
What Do Debt-Free College Plans Actually Mean for Students?
-
Why Are New York’s Public Funds Going to For-Profit College Tuition?
-
Language Is a ‘War Zone’: A Conversation With Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
-
In Turkey, Repression of the Kurdish Language Is Back, With No End in Sight
-
What Herman Melville Can Teach Us About the Trump Era
-
Dennis Kucinich Is Back in the Running
-
Comix Nation
-
‘Russiagate’ Allegations Continue to Escalate the Danger of War With Russia