Song of the Sunshine State Song of the Sunshine State
Campbell McGrath's entertaining and frustrating fifth book of poems--every single one of them devoted to some aspect of Florida--raises two large questions. One has to do with rep...
Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stephen Burt
Sonnet: Against Making Blood Speak Out Sonnet: Against Making Blood Speak Out
If I die one day from the bullet of a young killer-- a Palestinian who crosses the northern border-- or from the blast of a hand grenade he throws, or in a bomb explosion while I'...
Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Meir Wieseltier
Oscar Opens the Door Oscar Opens the Door
As Halle Berry elegantly strode to the podium to accept her best actress Oscar, the first for a black woman, she wept uncontrollably and gasped, "This moment is so much bigger tha...
Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Michael Eric Dyson
Have Car, Will Travel Have Car, Will Travel
If you're in the mood to see great acting, I recommend that you watch Aurélien Recoing get caught in a lie in Laurent Cantet's Time Out. As Vincent, a French management con...
Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Stuart Klawans
The Fishnet Fallacy The Fishnet Fallacy
When a girl becomes her school's designated slut, her friends stop talking to her. Pornographic rumors spread with dazzling efficiency, boys harass her openly in the hallways, gir...
Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Elaine Blair
The China Syndrome The China Syndrome
Like it or not, America has been able to achieve and maintain its supremacy as a global power because of its capacity to absorb the best from the rest of the world. This dependenc...
Mar 28, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Peter Kwong and Dusanka Miscevic
We’ve Gotta Have It We’ve Gotta Have It
Black filmmakers seize the moment.
Mar 27, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Gene Seymour
Populism: The Thriller Populism: The Thriller
A few years ago I concocted a theory about John Grisham I was too lazy to prove. Here was the hypothesis: This bestselling author was the most successful popularizer of populist n...
Mar 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / David Corn
The Politics of Ethics The Politics of Ethics
By identifying ethics with civic virtue, we create an ethics of the left.
Mar 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Randy Cohen
Artemisia and the Elders Artemisia and the Elders
In the vestibule of the superb exhibition of Orazio and Artemisia Gentileschi at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art (until May 12), the organizers have installed a large colore...
Mar 21, 2002 / Books & the Arts / Arthur C. Danto