Cultural Criticism and Analysis

Central Park Tower, One57, and 111 West 57th Street, 2022.

What’s the Deal With Manhattan’s Pencil-Thin High Rises? What’s the Deal With Manhattan’s Pencil-Thin High Rises?

A walk along 57th Street.

Jun 10, 2024 / Books & the Arts / Karrie Jacobs

The Myths of Anne Carson

The Myths of Anne Carson The Myths of Anne Carson

Throughout her long and prolific career, Carson has specialized in unexpected juxtapositions between modern life and ancient times, contemporary art and the literature of the...

Jun 4, 2024 / Emily Wilson

The Enigma of Frantz Fanon

The Enigma of Frantz Fanon The Enigma of Frantz Fanon

A revolutionary and an intellectual, a nationalist and a cosmopolitan, a doctor and a revolutionary, Fanon was always multiple.

Jun 3, 2024 / Ken Chen

The State of the Gay Bar

The State of the Gay Bar The State of the Gay Bar

A new book explores the phenomenon of gay bar closures and the forms of nightlife that have emerged to replace them.

May 30, 2024 / Daniel Felsenthal

Illustration from “The Ship That Sailed to Mars,” by William M. Timlin.

The Radical World-making of Joanna Russ The Radical World-making of Joanna Russ

In her science fiction, the novelist offered not only an astringent critiques of the present but also bold visions of the future.

May 13, 2024 / Stephanie Burt

Left: Nazi propaganda poster from the early 1940s depicts Jews as conspiring to provoke a war with Germany. Right: Just as the Nazis recycled medieval antisemitic tropes, this 21st-century update, featured in a “Jerusalem Post” story on vaccine resistance, incorporates the visual vocabulary of the Nazi era.

Antisemitism, Then and Now: A Guide for the Perplexed Antisemitism, Then and Now: A Guide for the Perplexed

A short history of the origins, uses, and abuses of a long hatred.

May 10, 2024 / Omer Bartov

Vinson Cunningham’s Searching Novel of Faith and Politics

Vinson Cunningham’s Searching Novel of Faith and Politics Vinson Cunningham’s Searching Novel of Faith and Politics

In Great Expectations, Cunningham examines the hope and aspirations of the Obama generation.

May 8, 2024 / Tope Folarin

Nell Irvin Painter’s Chronicles of Freedom

Nell Irvin Painter’s Chronicles of Freedom Nell Irvin Painter’s Chronicles of Freedom

A new career-spanning book offers a portrait of Painter’s career as a historian, essayist, and most recently visual artist.

May 7, 2024 / Elias Rodriques

Leslie Jamison and the Travails of Millennial Divorce

Leslie Jamison and the Travails of Millennial Divorce Leslie Jamison and the Travails of Millennial Divorce

In her new book, the novelist and essayist examines life before and after marriage.

May 7, 2024 / Edna Bonhomme

Peggy Noonan

Campus Protesters Were Right to Spurn Peggy Noonan, Emblem of Media Obtuseness Campus Protesters Were Right to Spurn Peggy Noonan, Emblem of Media Obtuseness

Our narcissistic media elite doesn’t understand why their lies have made young people wary.

May 6, 2024 / Jeet Heer

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