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Articles of NoteTales from Odessa. The city’s literary brilliance – Babel, Pushkin – lives on in a run-down museum founded by an ex-KGB officer... more» Orhan Pamuk’s obsession with objects: He wrote fiction about an imaginary museum. Then he built that museum. Why?... more» Brash yet logical, sharp-edged yet lyrical, Elliot Carter’s sound was entirely his own. He composed for himself... more» Maurice Sendak had many loves: William Blake, Proust, Mozart, Schubert, noses. He was passionate about noses... more» The roots of MOOC’s. Postal courses, said Frederick Jackson Turner 100 years ago, would carry “irrigating streams of education into the arid regions”... more» Preacher or power-hungry opportunist? Fethullah Gülen may be a cult leader – or simply a well-intentioned businessman... more» Oliver Sacks: place-blind, face-blind, nearly blind blind, prone to hallucinations. But the doctor is more than the sum of his disorders... more» How did Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer triumph over Revolutionary Road and Catch-22 at the 1962 National Book Awards? The fix was in... more» William Manchester’s death left his Churchill biography unfinished. Enter an unknown journalist. “If I didn’t do it, it wasn’t going to get done”... more» What’s so appealing about an asexual, aloof character like Sherlock Holmes? It’s that Conan Doyle created a superhero, not a superhuman... more» “Listen,” Colm Tóibín says. Silence. Nights are spent alone in a hard rattan chair. “Dublin is a quiet city when you get to a certain age”... more» A modern-day Diderot. Like the Enlightenment encyclopedist, Lewis Lapham sifts through history for clues to human nature... more» Secret history of Monopoly. Known variously as Auction and Finance, the board game may have been invented as a paean to socialism... more» How literature became data: The dispiriting tale of intellectual failure begins on a Friday in 2002. Stephen Marche explains... more» Jacques Barzun, historian, essayist, critic, gadfly, is dead at 104. Writing for a general audience, he said, was “a responsibility of scholars”... NY Times... Wash Post... Telegraph... LA Times... Guardian... NY Post... The Atlantic... First Things... New Criterion The psychopathic society. Our era is marked by a casual callousness. Empathy is down, narcissism up. What good news!... more» A man falls into a coma and lands in heaven. (Lots of butterflies there.) It’s a story that a brain scientist could sell. And one of them has... more» Boualem Sansal’s novels are full of big ideas. He has attracted a following in Algeria and France. Now Hamas has made him a star... more» Tom Wolfe in full. Above New York, amid marble sinks and monogrammed towels, the man in white punctures the vanities of others... more» A life in books. Joe Queenan can’t stop touching them, smelling them, scribbling in them, and reading them – 6,128 of them, to be exact... more» We like our politicians authentic – and funny. Though prepared political humor is inauthentic, it’s effective. Can a bon mot win votes?... more» The digital future is nigh. Art grows immaterial, ephemeral, impermanent. Will there be a place for sculpture, that most inconvenient of fine arts?... more» Fatwa against films. In Saudi Arabia, moviemaking can land you in jail. Hide your camera in an abaya so that secret cinema can endure... more» To understand art, it helps to understand the mind, says Eric Kandel. “I see psychoanalysis, art, and biology ultimately coming together”... more» Forgery at its finest. The biggest art scam in history netted millions for a German hippie and his wife. Then they lost it all... more» Naturalist, philosopher, oddball – Thoreau wrote prodigiously but remains inscrutable. “I love Henry,” Emerson said, “but I cannot like him”... more» How to write a 400-page, historically accurate novel in five months? Take pains in the research, of course. And listen to the voices in your head... more» Chinese novelist Mo Yan has won the Nobel Prize in Literature... NY Times... Guardian... LA Times... Wash Post... WSJ... Telegraph... Global Times... New Yorker... Independent... Globe & Mail... At the Obesity Society, every angle of soda is debated, except the argument that drinking it is pleasurable and pleasure is a good thing... more» Clive James insists that he’s not about to die. In fact, the man with every illness in the book is translating The Divine Comedy... more» “Th’ Dustiest of Th’ Dustbowlers.” Woody Guthrie’s “aw, shucks” persona was both genuine and a masterly work of performance art... more» Hitler had no foes more admirable than Hans von Dohnanyi and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Both died just before Germany’s surrender... more» The Greeks had Oedipus. We have TMZ and the celebration of petty misfortune. We’ve democratized tragedy, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing... more» Chess and art. Man Ray has designed pieces; Damien Hirst, too. The former’s is sleek, the latter’s lumpy. Neither rivals Marcel Duchamp’s... more» Brian Thomas, fast asleep, strangled his wife. He awoke and remembered nothing. Are murderers responsible if they’re unconscious?... more» Is TED running out of ideas? Yes, says its founder, Richard Saul Wurman. He’s got a new notion for a big-think conference: “intellectual jazz”... more» Eric Hobsbawm, historian of Europe, lifelong Marxist, intellectual polymath, is dead at 95... Guardian... NY Times... AP... Telegraph... Independent... Jacobin... Economist... Mark Mazower... Timothy Snyder... Michael Burleigh... Stephen Kotkin... Eric Foner... Timothy Shenk... Ramachandra Guha... James Cronin... Jonathan Derbyshire... James Heartfield... Paul Gottfried... Christopher Caldwell... Modris Ecksteins... Jonathan Jones... Theodore Dalrymple... David Feldman... Morgan Meis... Build your own iPhone. Throw away your nuts and bolts, grab some bits and atoms. Digital fabrication is coming. It’ll change everything... more» Camille Paglia at the Met: “This is the way a museum should be.” She isn’t so sanguine about the contemporary art scene. Or about Stanley Fish... more» Long ago, the search for rules that govern the physical universe was religious in nature. It may yet be so again... more» How do punk rockers pass the time in a Russian jail? Reading the Bible, mostly. “Prison is like a monastery – it’s a place for ascetic practices”... more» The marketplace in your brain. Neuroscientists say they know how people compute value. Why won’t economists listen?... more» “Tastes like chicken.” Why is the phrase a constant? The story began 350 million years ago, with an iguana-like animal, Pederpes finneyae... more» A volunteer fireman in San Francisco, Tom Sawyer went on an epic bender in 1864 with a loudmouthed chain-smoker named Samuel Clemens... more» Derrida in Baltimore. The unknown 36-year-old arrived on short notice. He left days later as the man who tore down the temple of structuralism... more» We fetishize memory, which “can be a burden, even an illness,” says Philip Gourevitch. “Memory – hallowed memory – is a kind of disease”... more» The Gospel of Jesus’ Wife. In the world of biblical creeds, will a scrap of papyrus change everything? Karen King believes so... more» Separating the pseudo from science. The greater science’s prestige, the more fringe theories flourish, like shadows of the real thing... more» Is digital self-publishing – its books widely ignored, endlessly revisable – the beginning of the end of literature, of works that endure over time?... . more» The word hung around his neck like a millstone: “Fatwa.” He was no longer Salman Rushdie, writer, but a villain, a victim, an apostate, a cause... more» It’s easy to dismiss Slavoj Žižek for his buffoonish antics, maddening prose style, contradictory arguments. Or maybe he’s just misunderstood... more» Can a robot be moral? Can a drone exercise a conscience? Can ethics be reduced to an algorithm? Answers are inevitable and imminent... more» Can a photograph be true or false? No, says Errol Morris. “Truth and falsity properly considered are properties of language, not of images”... more» “An incredible ass.” Few dispute Archibald MacLeish’s description of Ezra Pound. But was the poet guilty of treason, or was he loony?... more» Three Hasidic Jews and a philosophy professor walk into a bar. On tap, the big questions: God, reason, doubt, the meaning of life... more» An open letter from a novelist. Dear Wikipedia: If Philip Roth is not a credible source regarding his own work, who is?... more» From the Greek for “sneer at or taunt,” sarkasmos is among man’s great achievements. Can it survive our sensitive, oh-so-sincere age?... more» When Naomi Wolf’s orgasms went from transcendent to lifeless, she sought the wisdom of a man who’d seen an image of the Virgin Mary in a vagina... more» The idea of a gentleman seems quaint, the stuff of a Trollope novel. That magnanimous type has vanished, leaving a sad gap in our culture... more» John Templeton had an interest in mysticism and science – and an eye for investing. His foundation is pouring money into philosophy. To what end?... more» The multiple Martin Amises. How to reconcile the scabrous wit, the dark philosopher of evil, and the romantic sentimentalist?... more» Yes, AC Grayling is starting a college. No, he’s not out to “milk the parents of dim rich kids.” Never mind the Bentley brochure outside his office... more» For as long as writers have written, they’ve tried to retract what they wrote. Hawthorne did it; Gogol and Auden, too. They rarely succeed... more» “How good it is to be us,” Christopher Hitchens told his wife. Their life was raucous, joyous, never dull. Carol Blue remembers her husband... more» Doubt is crucial to intellectual life. But a malign and exaggerated skepticism has undermined science. What’s to blame, gullibility or greed?... more» “Don’t think, look!” For Wittgenstein, the maxim was fundamental to his philosophy. Seeing connections precedes understanding... more» “I had suicidal thoughts,” says Clive James. ”They all promptly vanished the moment I was under real threat. There was a sudden urge to live“... more» In any language, the word for red is typically coined before the word for blue. Why? Theories come and go. A new one is in vogue... more» Richard Dawkins talks with Playboy. They discuss the usual things: Jesus, Darwin, creationism, bipedalism, and buggering a bald transsexual... more» “I shall die in the gutter,” Melville said about Moby Dick’s reception. Instead he went to Jerusalem. But he found a backwater, not God’s grace.... more» The path to Infinite Jest. At 28, David Foster Wallace lived in a halfway house, barely sober. "I will be a fiction writer again or die trying”... more» Tom Stoppard is a connoisseur of stories, not topics. A play is not the product of an idea, he says. “The idea is the end product of the play”... more» Plato was wary; Horace, too. And why not? Magic is irrational, a false science. Yet our fascination continues unabated in this rationalist age... more» Overpopulation, famines, plagues, falling sperm counts: Religious zealots hardly have a monopoly on apocalyptic thinking... more» Has neuroscience undermined free will? Not at all, says Eddy Nahmias. The science explains how free will works, not that it doesn’t exist... more» Let us praise the pallet. Whether pooled or one-way, block or stringer, wood or plastic, pallets pretty much move the global economy... more» Oscar Wilde’s office job: editing a women’s magazine. He needed money but found a style, later plagiarizing his own work for Dorian Gray... more» Does God exist? Doesn’t matter, says David Sloan Wilson. Better to ask why belief in God has been so useful for so long... more» Steve Jobs is a paragon of entrepreneurial intensity, a role model. Or is his a cautionary tale, of an abusive boss with a broken family?... more» Robert Hughes had an aversion to pretense and a knack for the withering putdown. He tried to save art from the art world... more»... more»... Life’s been pathologized – fear is an abnormal anxiety, persistent sadness a mental illness – and psychiatry faces a crisis of legitimacy... more» Imagine if art were as integral to the Olympics as sport is. Imagine medals for painting, music, literature. That’s how the games used to be... more» Type “Cormac McCarthy” into your smartphone. The result: “Comcast McCarthy.” Is autocorrect progress? Regardless, it’s the future... more» In 19th-century America, the line between seer and scammer was vague. Enter Joseph Smith, who sparked the religious scandal of his time... more» So history adheres to no general laws, no discernible patterns. Then why are huge databases being used to predict events?... more» Lenny Bruce taught Zappa, Mailer, and Roth how to be macho. His fury was not merely nihilistic; Bruce was trying to save the world... more» A museum in Italy is setting paintings on fire. If nobody cares about the art, says the cash-strapped director, “I’ll burn it”... more» Does LSD have a bum rap? Can it improve problem solving? Steve Jobs said it was among the most important things he’d done... more» Gore Vidal, witty, acerbic gadfly, novelist, memoirist, essayist – “an American version of Montaigne” – is dead at 86... NY Times... LA Times... Wash Post... Telegraph... LA Review of Books... Telegraph... Alex Nazaryan... Jay Parini... Lee Siegel... Andrew Sullivan... Christopher Buckley... Heidi Landecker... David Greenberg... Hilton Als... Andrew Ferguson... Adam Mars-Jones... Morris Dickstein... Sam Tanenhaus... Paul Berman Adam Wheeler went to Harvard to study English and ended up in prison. His crime? Fraud. What’s worse, he made Harvard look stupid... more» Holocaust histories dodge a central question, says Timothy Snyder: Why did it take place in Eastern Europe rather than elsewhere?... more» How did the Aleppo Codex – the oldest text of the Hebrew Bible – end up in an iron case at Hebrew University? Why are 200 pages missing?... more» Leopold Munyakazi was a friendly, if dull, man about campus. Could the overly formal French professor really be a war criminal?... more» Fast cars, fast boats, fast women: The life of Dmitri Nabokov – a 6 foot 5, stentorian-voiced child of exile – could resemble a James Bond film... more» Is environmentalism an ideology with totalitarian overtones? Beware the “commissars of carbon,” warns Pascal Bruckner... more» Old polymaths never die. Isaiah Berlin and Hugh Trevor-Roper dispensed with academic formalities, addressing big subjects, not cloistered scholars... more» Hans heard voices. They commented on how he dressed, how he looked, what he should do. (Die, mostly.) Then Hans started talking back... more» King of the body snatchers. Astley Cooper was unfathomably rich. He taught Keats, he severed limbs, he accused others of unmanliness... more» How to fake a masterpiece: Simulate the spider-web cracking in the paint, the dots of fly droppings, the slimy green look of old varnish... more» When Nietzsche died, among the combatants over his legacy was Harry Kessler, whom Auden called “the most cosmopolitan man”... more» Money is an abstraction. Whatever it looks like or whatever it’s backed by, what matters is that people believe in it... more» Walter Kirn left the Mormons long ago. But they would not forget him. And they were still there when he needed a place to land... more» So only now does everything seem to be for sale? In medieval churches, aisle chapels were as likely to be named for bankers as for saints... more» Stanford University is “the germplasm for innovation,” the farm system for Silicon Valley. Who can argue with such success?... more» In 1965, well before Stonewall, New York cops put aside their own prejudice to bust an exortion ring that preyed on prominent gay men... more» A young psychologist’s research on brain activity proves useful in planning military attacks. Does he have a problem with that?... more» The city of booze. Bangalore’s growth from quaint colonial outpost to an info-tech hotspot was fueled by arrack, toddy, rum, and whiskey... more» Albert Barnes was a progressive idealist and a hard-hearted bastard. The museum that bears his name reflects both qualities... more» What would you call a chocolate bar stuffed between two slices of white bread? Andy Warhol called it cake. He had issues with food... more» Where did the modern Olympic Games get their start? Meet Penny Brookes, a town magistrate in a backwater near Wales... more» An unlikely fact: Marxism is undergoing a renaissance. But is socialism relevant to our economically catastrophic times?... more» Defusing Mein Kampf. The German ban on Hitler’s 700-page, two-volume monstrosity will soon expire. What then?... more» Philosophy, long specialized and introverted, is again becoming a communal exercise. So much for the lonely thinker in a garret... more» The Paris Ritz. For Proust it was a refuge; for Scott and Zelda it was home; for Hemingway it was heaven – all for $17,770 per night... more» Professor Google, Dr. Xerox, and Mr. Jumbo Jet have made research much more efficient. But what of the thrill of the hunt? It’s gone... more» Computers trounce humans at chess, but Marvin Minsky is unimpressed. “The majesty of general intelligence still awaits our attack”... more» Boycott threats, menacing graffiti, cyberattacks: Behold the radioactive celebrity of the Polish historian Jan T. Gross... more» The perfect shot. Grind, temperature, pressure: Good espresso is good chemistry. It’s also good art. Done well, it’s pure sensory pleasure... more» The Right Honourable Edmund Burke was corpulent, petulant, and fond of lewd jokes. He was also eloquent, brilliant, and brave... more» When countries fail. Collapse is marked by a whimper more often than a bang. An economy built on exploitation cannot long stand... more» More than 12 million civilians were expelled from their birthplaces; at least 500,000 died: This is the European atrocity you never heard about... more» Alan Turing’s insights hinged on a new view of intelligence and this strange inversion of reason: Competence doesn’t require comprehension... more» Varieties of linguistic experience. So your Spanish is good? What about your Wintu, or Tofa, or Aka? One language dies every 14 days... more» Rudolph Valentino was an on-screen original: the brooding, slightly effeminate, but irresistible lover. It was an image he despised. .. more» George Plimpton’s voice, serious and antiquated, could sound affected. Still, it was one of the great voices of modern storytelling... more» Don’t be fooled by Mario Vargas Llosa’s image as a prim and proper man of letters. This is the guy who punched out Gabriel García Márquez... more» The rise of the tweet. Does it already seem pretentious and old-fashioned to write anything, anywhere, with patience and care?... more» Literature’s most tyrannical estate. James Joyce didn’t care for biographers, coining “biografiend.” But he has nothing on his irascible grandson... more» Camus looked like a movie star, all laid-back cool. Sartre looked like a gargoyle. Enter a woman named Wanda... more» Can we learn from the Victorian “poverty diet”? You bet. Hold the spoiled-eel pie, but don’t scrimp on the bread and margarine... more» Slavoj Žižek can’t fathom why people ask him for advice. “Look at me!” he shouts. “Look at my tics! Don’t you see that I’m mad?”... more» What happened to Norman Finkelstein? The controversial critic of Israel is confined to a small apartment, surrounded by Jews... more» Worried about big data? Don’t be. We fretted about the printing press, the encyclopedia, the dictionary. It’s how we use technology that matters... more» Why would you forgo speech? Let’s ask a Trappist monk. “Silence keeps me from idealizing myself.” Well, that’s the idea... more» |
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New BooksScholarly writing and journalism are as different as cross-country skiing and downhill. Few excel at both. Then there’s Jill Lepore... more» Skull clamps and scrotum calipers. Harvard scholars poked and prodded students to learn the secrets of a successful life. What did they find?... more» The politics of famine. Mao’s Great Leap Forward caused 36 million people to starve to death. The takeaway? The best foreign policy is calorie-based... more» Anarchish. Reasonable leftists like Yale’s James C. Scott have turned anarchy into a tepid derivation of self-help. What’s anarchy without insurrection?... more» Politics in the age of Caesar: “Surround yourself with the right people.” “Give people hope.” “Know the weaknesses of your opponents.” Sound familiar?... more» Raised in an anarchist utopian community, Gilbert Seldes never lost his sympathy for the radical fringe, the pseudoscientific, the ridiculous or faddish... more» Once upon a time, fairy tales raised social consciousness. Then their revolutionary soul was subverted, commodified, extinguished. Blame Disney... more» Robert Oppenheimer had a personality made of “many bright, shining splinters.” Nothing quite cohered. He was a brilliant disaster, elegant and obscure ... more» Catastrophism. Immanuel Velikovsky was a psychoanalyst who expressed a unifying idea in planetary astronomy. Was he as crazy as his critics thought?... more» Built to last, but for how long? We all want to protect architectural treasures, but sentimental attachments may be stifling creativity... more» How did the Master’s reputation survive the culture wars? He became a shape-shifter, a worldly, gay, feminist. Henry James: He’s just like us!... more» The charismatic, paranoid, melancholic Jacques Derrida acquired his textual tics at an early age. He was reprimanded for his “tendency to complication”... more» Europe under the Soviets. How were its agricultural, conservative, religious regions forced behind the industrial, atheistic Iron Curtain?... more» In 1914 Edward Thomas, 36, wrote his first poem. He was killed by a German shell a few years later, having no idea his reputation would survive... more» Jazz and the Great American Songbook – think Irving Berlin, Cole Porter – evolved together. Then the Songbook style withered, and so has jazz... more» Benoit Mandelbrot set out to alter our view of the world. He succeeded, discovering fractal geometry. He was in his own mind a second Kepler... more» Victim, symbol, sexy mess – Marilyn Monroe has spawned a large literature. Of the many theories, few regard her as a person rather than an archetype... more» Foreign-policy intellectuals attach catchy labels to existing trends. They craft grand strategies, doctrines, op-eds. They have little influence... more» Joseph Epstein: Even his detractors must concede that the man can’t write a boring sentence. His favorite trick: toeing the line between amiable and smug... more» Reading George Steiner. Polyglot polymath? Glorified dilettante? Eurocentric blowhard? Amit Majmudar has some thoughts... more» Cambridge, 1946. Wittgenstein returned after his wartime service, a cranky, mercurial mutterer: “I get stupider and stupider every day”... more» Forget “beautiful” or “elegant,” “painterly” or “sublime.” We now talk about art as “interesting” or “cute,” even “zany.” What do those things mean?... more» Empathy and altruism. To change a heart, tell a story. To change politics, says Martha Nussbaum, it takes more. It takes history and economics... more» Immanuel Velikovsky was wrong about everything but wildly popular nonetheless. The pseudoscientist wanted to be friends with Einstein... more» Is immortality a vain, heedless pursuit, a contemptible act of cowardice? Or is meekly resigning ourselves to our mortal fate tantamount to murder?... more» Gay men call one another many things – “Dinge Queen,” “Potato Queen,” “Rice Queen,” “Princess Pencil Meat”. But how do they learn to be gay?... more» Descartes was wrong: The brain is the mind. But how? The answer lives at the intersection of neuroscience and psychoanalysis... more» Sophocles’ insights into humility and tragedy were elegant and incisive, which is why it’s dismaying to see him handled by a ponderous scholar with a tin ear... more» Knowledge doubles every 15 years. But much of what you know is wrong. What to do? “Stop memorizing things and just give up”... more» Thomas Nagel takes on natural selection. His tools? Inconsistent logic and an idiosyncratic view of common sense. The result? Unconvincing... more» A few scientists write fiction, but the neuroscientist Giulio Tononi has produced a deeply bizarre, deeply imaginative work about science... more» Learning from taxidermy. How we look at dead animals is linked to how we see each other. Taxidermy offers clues – and warnings – about our collective past.... more» Leviathan was always an enemy-maker for Hobbes, for a time the most loathed thinker in Britain. But his heresies helped generate British philosophy... more» Evolution hints at why women lag behind men in the workplace. How to fix the discrepancy? Simple: compulsory paternity leave... more» Poet, war hero, drug addict – Gabriele D'Annunzio was also a notorious womanizer – and, remarked Lenin, “the only real revolutionary in Italy”... more» Followers of Jane Austen faithfully look to her for insights. What explains their devotion? Her novels are the archetypal self-help guides... more» August Strindberg, whether eccentric or mad, had an immense talent for writing, polarizing opinion, and striking up awful relationships with women... more» The real Count of Monte Cristo was a slave and renegade aristocrat, a strapping, six-foot dandy and valiant leader. Did Napoleon condemn him to die?... more» Science and speculation. Do we know what we’re talking about when we talk about the evolution of the mind? Not really, says Anthony Gottlieb... more» A tale of two cities. Hitler adored Munich but hated the hedonism of Berlin. So when it was his, he tried to remodel the city as Germania, capital of the world... more» John Keats was no mere star-crossed, sickly neurasthenic. He could walk 600 miles, and for a time he considered joining the forces of Simón Bolívar... more» Condemned as a heretic, Savonarola was later considered for sainthood. Though convinced he was a prophet, he was no simple pretender... more» Something strange happens when we read the trickiest of poems. We become embarrassed or panicky. Relax. Difficulty is innate in poetry... more» The spat between Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael might feel archaic now, even irrelevant, but it remains misunderstood. It was about sexism... more» Robert Duncan was immersed in myth: Greek, Sumerian, and Egyptian sources; the Bible; kabbalah; fairy tales. All of it found its way into his verse... more» Webster’s Third Dictionary, billed as an unfussy catalog of common English, was simply too much for Jacques Barzun. “The longest political pamphlet ever”... more» The algorithmic takeover. Automated decision-making is on the rise. If this sounds like something from a Vonnegut novel, that’s because it is... more» Bernard Lewis has studied the Middle East since 1933. Now he’s witness to the region’s great upheaval, the Arab Awakening. He’s not optimistic... more» “Rap is poetry,” says Jay-Z, “and a good MC is a good poet.” But a good MC is a good MC; isn’t that enough? Why the grasping for literary stature?... more» Alvin Plantinga’s philosophy is subtle and scientifically informed. His theism is comprehensive, even ingenious, but ultimately hard to agree with... more» Fairy tales are memes, told and retold across generations until only the fittest survive to shape the way humans live together... more» Charles de Gaulle was a genius at blurring the line between myth and history. His legend is a comfortable blanket in which all can wrap themselves... more» A good magic book is like a good self-help book. It must provide user-friendly spells to fend off forces of evil. The Long Lost Friend is that book... more» Aung San Suu Kyi has traded in house arrest for a seat in parliament. Her next challenge: transitioning from godlike savior to pragmatic politician... more» What do you call it when Madison Avenue co-opts Motown jingles to peddle raisins, cars, or cake frosting? The sweet sound of capitalism... more» Hoover and Reagan. The FBI director trusted few but found a comrade in the former-actor-turned-politician. For a time, they shared a foe: UC Berkeley... more» What’s the matter with meritocracy? It breeds a cult of intelligence, a sense of entitlement, and unequal outcomes. But what’s the alternative?... more» What about Katie Roiphe so annoys people? There’s her contrarianism, her controversialism, her solipsism. But give her this: She’s not boring... more» Listening to silence. John Cage knew that nothing is not nothing. It is always something – a provocation, a joke, an invitation to pay attention... more» The language wars have raged since the beginning of language. Battles have been bloody, front lines move back and forth, but there’s no victor... more» When is a book more than a book? When it’s wielded as a weapon, or used to signify wealth, status, taste. Or to wrap food, wipe bottoms... more» At National Review, William Rusher was “the other Bill.” But in many ways it’s Rusher, not Buckley, who shaped contemporary conservatism... more» Philanthropy and foreign policy. Bankrolled by private foundations, the American Century was sustained by an unshakable faith in expertise... more» By the end of her life, Lillian Hellman had accumulated many titles: ”archetype of hypocrisy,” “embodiment of ugliness,” “the quintessential liar”... more» Chomsky’s intellect is promiscuous, his take on linguistics formidable, his view of America cartoonish, and his contradictions glaring... more» There’s nothing funny about scholars parsing political humor. Still, no one else asks an important question: Can conservatives do satire?... more» Why is it that so many academics fail to write well, or even intelligibly? Because too often they write not to be read, but merely to be published... more» Charles Rosen likes difficult prose. Take the Marquis de Sade’s writings – difficult because they’re repellent but “fascinating because they are so sordid”... more» Behind every Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, or Solzhenitsyn was an overworked, underappreciated wife. Do they deserve pity? No, they deserve more credit... more» Here’s the thing about Pauline Kael: You could trust her diligence and enthusiasm. The question, says Clive James, is whether you could trust her judgment... more» Peter Sloterdijk, who’s never met a neologism he doesn’t like, is an immodest, unfashionable thinker. But when he doesn’t convince, he provokes... more» Paul Auster’s self-mythologizing is epic – and odious. He likens himself to Keats, but Keats would not have published such an ill-conceived, rambling diary... more» Homo mysterious. Evolution is a fact, but aspects of human development remain unexplained. One persistent riddle: Why do women have orgasms?... more» Witold Gombrowicz settled in Argentina, far from the Polish intelligentsia. He loved catastrophe and lived in penury. He wanted to maroon himself... more» What would you do with more leisure time? Explore the mysteries of space and time? Or brawl, steal, and drink? Richard Posner has some thoughts... more» “Modern classic” is a fuzzy term. Does it mean anything at all? At least this: A “writers’ writer” is more marketable dead than alive... more» Philip Larkin lauded Louis MacNeice as a poet of everyday life: shop windows, traffic, ice cream. He was also an exquisite love poet, if a fickle lover... more» China, 1974. Roland Barthes noted the “uniformity of clothes” and a joyless May Day celebration. “Wherever do they put their sexuality?” he wondered... more» Sincerity is a fickle friend, an artful pretense. Machiavelli manipulated it, Montaigne prized it, the Romantics made a fetish of it... more» The work of a critic. Roger Kimball’s task is twofold: preserve tradition and collect the cultural trash, disposing of the faddish and ephemeral... more» Pleased to meet you? Joyce turned up sloshed to meet Proust. Allen Ginsberg thought Patti Smith was a pretty boy. He was dismayed to learn otherwise... more» Law and libido. Harmless titillation to some is a grave crime to others. 'Twas always thus: Mesopotamia was no place to get caught cheating... more» In America, “isolationism” is an epithet, a philosophy for xenophobes and fools. Though its future is dubious, its history is rich... more» “To what should we cling?” Joachim Fest’s father asked as Germany lay in rubble after the war. Fest spent his life grasping for a suitable answer... more» George Orwell was a Tory anarchist, political radical, and cultural conservative. It was his contradictions that made him great... more» Hitler was the “screaming little defective in Berlin.” But early studies of the Nazi mind reveal more about psychoanalysis than about Nazism... more» Ryszard Kapuscinski was evasive in person, and he had much to evade. His reporting was full of fictions; he was a Communist spy… more» The New Yorker is often ridiculed as a bastion of upper-middle class banality. But the magazine has long been home to abrasive and subversive art... more» Ours is not a dignified age. But what is dignity? And how can it justify both human rights and Iran’s nuclear program?... more» The anticolonialism of Liang Qichao, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and Rabindranath Tagore shapes our post-Western world. Their influence cannot be doubted... more» Titian was a mercenary who was expert at satisfying the vanity of the highest bidder, whether wealthy duke, corrupt pope, or powerful emperor... more» T.S. Eliot was down. He’d separated from his wife, The Criterion was struggling, and he’d failed to get a position at All Souls. He wasn’t yet 40... more» Shark! We hunt them; they hunt us. The very word summons fear. But here’s what’s really scary: shark sex. It’s rough. Brutal, in fact... more» Dickens’s defects – melodrama, contrived plots, manufactured happy endings – were those of his era. He was a crowd-pleaser, says Joyce Carol Oates... more» What’s the meaning of nothing? The edifice of pop cosmology rests on that question, says Ron Rosenbaum. The search for answers goes on... more» What do you call someone who feels immune to norms of decorum? Geoff Nunberg has a seven-letter noun in mind, beginning with “a”... more» The 19th-century ascendance of the West was an unprecedented crisis for intellectuals in the East. Their response was notable in its ambivalence... more» The world wars brought about mass slaughter, the destruction of entire cities, genocide, and a great flowering of Modernist architecture... more» Can evolution explain the instinct to make and appreciate art? No, thought Darwin. Yes, argued Denis Dutton. Adam Kirsch sorts it out... more» Facts turn out to be fetishes; fetishes turn out to be facts. The philosophical superstar Bruno Latour, post-midlife crisis, introduces the “factish”... more» Mickey Mouse and existentialism. Albert Camus was once a 20-something with a degree and no job in sight. Then he joined up with Walt Disney... more» Same as it ever was. Philosophy no longer speaks to the way we live. Or so its critics claim. But the discipline has always had its share of theoretical thickets.... more» Pretty much every cultural assumption about women’s breasts is wrong. But then, what men think about them doesn’t really matter... more» Doves in Basque country, calves’ brains in Lyon. This reminiscence of fine dining in France is best consumed in small portions... more» Many tales in the Arabian Nights were born far from Arabia. Like the genie, they took on magical new forms under new masters... more» A Bolshevik’s memoirs. The totalitarian virus did not enter the Soviet state with Stalin. It was there when Lenin and Trotsky were still in charge... more» W.G. Sebald is better known for his haunting prose than for his poetry. A new collection of those poems, never before in English, shows why... more» A little sincerity is a good thing, but too much is toxic. Nietzsche said it best: “The truly sincere person ends up understanding that he is always lying”... more» Why is there something rather than nothing? That question was posed by Leibniz. He didn’t know the answer. But Jim Holt has some thoughts... more» The human rights movement has become awash in moral certainty and platitudes. Will a new generation of purists take heed of the old guard?... more» A literary history of sex. When it comes to debauchery, to voyeuristic enjoyment of pain, Christian Grey is no Marquis de Sade... more» Matisse worked alone. A member of no school, no group, he relied on his patrons, many of them Jews who departed from the expectations of their times... more» Aung San Suu Kyi is traditional and cosmopolitan, whimsical and short-tempered, prim and heroic. Can she manage her cult of personality?... more» To Winston Churchill, historian of “English-speaking peoples,” facts were malleable. More than one account, he said: “is all true, or ought to be”... more» Camus once asked Sartre why he was so relentless a seducer of women. Sartre pointed at his own face: “Have you seen this mug?”... more» Is he really losing it? William Ian Miller says he’s old and infirm. But his whines, kvetches, and oy veys are fooling no one... more» The world Robert Kagan made. Admired on the left and right, his views on American power rest on questionable theory, economics, and politics... more» Is there a more overexposed poet than Robert Pinsky? Popular doesn’t mean predictable. His work is varied, prolific, and still evolving... more» The evolution of T.S. Eliot. Why did the iconoclastic American poet choose to become a religious, donnish English man of letters?... more» People who live alone are more fit, more culturally attuned, and better for the environment, says Eric Klinenberg. That’s a novel view. It’s also nonsense... more» Gertrude Stein’s radical aesthetics mixed easily with her reactionary politics. It’s an old combination, but no less chilling for that... more» To disentangle nature and nurture, study twins. Meet Oskar, raised as a Nazi, and his identical brother, Jack, raised as a Jew... more» Before Fred and Ginger, there was Fred and Adele – the woman who put “the flap in flapperdom.” They were agile, versatile, goofy, and graceful... more» | |
Essays and OpinionEngineering evil. It is an enduring shibboleth that science and technology are amoral. Consider Albert Speer, who may not seem relevant today. Unfortunately, he is... more» There are about 6,000 languages, though Larry Summers thinks we need only one: English. But prophecies of an Anglophone future are overstated... more» Biology and Buddhism share a view of the nature of reality and the reality of nature. Never mind the aspects of Buddhist tradition that no scientist can believe... more» Why read books? To learn, yes. But also to escape the messiness of life, to establish a sense of superiority, to distract ourselves from ourselves... more» The conscience has long been considered the site of moral reasoning. But from Plato to Sara Ruddick, the female conscience has proven confusing... more» Totalitarianism: The term originated in Italy; the system was perfected in Eastern Europe. It wasn’t about efficiency, it was about remaking man for the future... more» Do you prefer obscurity over clarity? Fond of neologisms? Name-checking Heidegger? Peter Sloterdijk stands in a long line of hip European philosophers... more» Tolstoy preached Tolstoyism, but there was no “Chekhovism.” Chekhov’s genius wasn’t for big ideas, but petty concerns – a small lie, filthy latrines, a slovenly manner... more» Magicians of money. Jackson Lears on the connection between religious belief and social practice, mystical ideas and earthly success, Mormonism and capitalism... more» If solitude doesn’t lead us back to companionship, then where does it lead? Emerson and Thoreau knew well “the dangers of forest thinking”... more» The journalist-as-translator has been replaced by the journalist-as-sage. Jonah Lehrer is a product of this new world, and its first real casualty... ... more» The education of George Scialabba. It arrived between covers – On Liberty and Middlemarch. It is a march of progress, or at least he thinks it is... more» We turn to science for certainty. And scientists are all too happy to play soothsayer. But it’s folly to think catastrophes can be predicted... more» Poet on the road. Having moved for decades from reading to reading, party to party, Donald Hall has some advice: Beware of strangers bearing poems... more» Karl Popper, George Soros, Francis Fukuyama: What is it about promoting democracy that drives otherwise sensible thinkers to embrace extreme positions?... more» The Theory Generation. Franzen, Eugenides, Egan, and Lipsyte were educated while Derrida and Foucault ruled the humanities. Their novels reflect this, uneasily... more» Pass the bone-marrow and caviar. So you think it’s a waste to spend lavishly on food? You miss the point. The meal is ephemeral, it’s true, but so are you... more» The Rotterdam thieves made off with a Picasso, a Monet, a Matisse, a Gauguin, a Meyer de Hann. Wait, who? It must be a clue!... more» History flows from geography. Place is everything. So says Robert Kaplan. What about the impact of ideas? They’re no match for mountains and monsoons... more» The greatest artist of our time? It’s the man who closed the gap between art and technology. It’s George Lucas, or so says Camille Paglia... more» Translating jokes takes luck and pluck. Just ask David Bellos or Gary Shteyngart. Have you heard the one about the pair of translators who walk into a bar?... more» Orwell the anti-Semite. A public advocate of tolerance, he was a bigot in private. His racism was more than an embarrassing tic, more than an emblem of his times... more» Poetry is a salve for emotional pain, says Christian Wiman. For physical pain, however, it’s useless. But as a lesson in suffering, even as a model for how to die, it’s essential... more» They were middle-class Oxford boys who bonded over hatred – of women, Evelyn Waugh, their families. They were Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin. They were Lucky Jim... more» Some dream of a theory of everything, a unity of knowledge. But maybe disciplinary boundaries are not so much an accident of history as a result of how we understand the world... more» Isaiah Berlin was charming, affable, erudite. But was his primary contribution to the art of conversation or to the field of political philosophy?... more» Oliver Wendell Holmes described the camera as a “mirror with a memory.” At that time, photography was not yet routine; a single picture could capture a person for life... more» The fine arts have become a wasteland, says Camille Paglia. A blasé liberal secularism has killed off creativity. More capitalism is the solution... more» In politics, says Jonathan Haidt, truth or falsity is beside the point – a “rationalist delusion.” Likewise the idea that “reasoning is our most noble attribute”... more» Born to lie. You fake smile, fake laugh, think you’re smart and good-looking. You’re neither, probably. But it’s OK: You’re hard-wired to deceive... more» Handwriting is sensuous, immediate, personal. The movement away from writing by hand diminishes, in a quiet but real way, our humanity... more» Theodor Adorno’s mystique. His arguments are essentialist, sweeping, and unconvincing, his prose obfuscatory. Perfect that Judith Butler has won an award that bears his name... more» Allan Bloom may have been many things – culture warrior, scourge of feminism and rock music, “Philosopher Despot” – but here’s one thing he wasn’t: conservative... more» Given the cult that surrounds Portrait of a Lady, it’s worth remembering that its author was a young man crafting subtle yet catty – even bitchy – prose... more» Baathism – the anticolonial, pan-Arab ideology – is near collapse. Damascus is its last stand. What will remain after the fall? Intellectual bafflement and paranoia... more» The world’s worst words. How did they get that way? Overuse, mostly. Here’s the thing: Resistance is futile. “Yesterday’s abomination is today’s rule”... more» The American Heritage Dictionary, once the choice of fogies, stood as a bulwark against the loose argot of popular culture. Yet it was first to drop an F-bomb into its pages... more» Letters from the editor. At The Criterion, clerical routine fueled literary insights for T.S. Eliot, who was masterly at cajoling difficult contributors... more» Free markets and fast growth are well and good, but they won’t make you happy. There remain political, philosophical, and ethical questions that markets can never address... more» Kingsley Amis was a bleak, bigoted curmudgeon. But when it came to the necessary task of skewering snobs and sycophants, and tweaking liberal pieties, he was without peer... more» Self-immolation is an extreme, extraordinary, and increasingly routine act. It has little to do with suicide and everything to do with politics... more» Intellect is a disadvantage in American politics. The curious mind is a trivial mind, unless it’s used to make money. This was as true in Richard Hofstadter’s day as it’s today... more» The new gender economics. In 40 percent of American marriages, the wife outearns the husband. What's the future? A more feminine workplace, a more masculine home... more» Ray Bradbury liked gadgets – indeed, he anticipated the invention of many, including the iPod – but it was the habits of humans that preoccupied him... more» Call it what you want – neuroscientism, neurobabble – it’s evidence that quackery is on the rise. No matter what the question, it seems, brain research has the answer... more» In which Terry Castle explores the fabulously eccentric world of the Jazz Age smart set, muses about sex in the academy, and coins a necessary word: lesbuffoon... more» Politics and the novel. A writer should resist the temptation to simply promote his views. Political fiction thrives on contradiction and irresolution... more» Are you a migrant, living in a city, born poor? You’re at higher risk of schizophrenia. Our social interactions make us who we are, and they can make us sick... more» Those who knew Ford Madox Ford – Conrad, Hemingway – wrote about him. Admired and resented, he’s among the more mercurial figures in literary history... more» Ghost stories make metaphysicians of us all. “Let us honor the marvelous as well as the matter of fact!” writes Michael Dirda... more» When Simon Schama was young, gangly, and peculiar, he fell in love with the essay. Long-form nonfiction, he says, is still “our best hope of liberating text from texting”... more» In apocalyptic times, Simkha-Bunim Shayevitch believed, great care must be given to culture. He died at Auschwitz; his poems survive as a Jeremiad... more» Call Susan Jacoby an “ugly old atheist” if you choose, but don’t dare describe her atheism as “soft”. It’s by no means flabby or weak-minded... more» Great books and grand subjects are soul-saving, except when they’re not. Too much of what gets taught in the liberal arts isn»t great, but merely what interests professors... more» Science’s imperialist ambitions. Are the only real questions empirical ones? Can human behavior be explained by physics or biology alone?... more» Queer kids used to be cool. Now they’re boring and banal. If gay men are to recover their panache, it’ll take some practice. Here’s where to start... more» The dream of a world governed by earnest technocrats, guided not by ideology or nationalism but by efficiency and “best practice,” is an old dream – one with a noble but checkered past... more» Punk tactics and political art. Ai Weiwei shows that one man can shame a state, that art can undermine propaganda and become the conscience of reform... more» Parody gets bad press. It’s mistaken for pastiche; F.R. Leavis thought it “demeaned” those lampooned. But at its best, parody is literary criticism... more» One day Norman Mailer, ever self-indulgent, decided to become a film director. Watching the movies he made is like being trapped in an elevator with obnoxious drunks... more» Why did conservation – a gentle, optimistic undertaking – give way to the more divisive environmentalism? Two words: Rachel Carson... more» Lewis Carroll and Jorge Luis Borges imagined it, and now Google might make it real: a one-to-one scale map of the world. Useful or creepy? “The map is mapping us”... more» Here’s something true about sentences: The ones built for a purpose tend to hold up; the ones built to be beautiful tend to collapse. Christopher Beha explains... more» Sure, “paradigm shift” is a banal buzz of hucksters and marketers. But Thomas Kuhn really did upend the way we think about how science does – and should – work... more» Daniel Mendelsohn is no hatchet man, but he can sling a zinger – and face the consequences. If you want to avoid awkwardness at parties, he says, become a caterer, not a critic... more» Reading is a habit, another thing we do. But then you read something that renews the act. For Sven Birkerts, who has a thing for melancholy brooders, that something is W.G. Sebald... more» Economics is a discipline in denial, says Howard Davies. Flawed models remain in fashion; economists no longer even try to explain the world as it is... more» Can a butterfly build a better TV? Indeed so. And a camel's nose can irrigate a greenhouse. The answer to many of life's problems has already been crafted by natural selection... more» Against acknowledgements. That extraneous page at the end of a novel is a narcissistic, cliché-ridden act of faux-modest self-promotion. Sam Sacks makes the case... more» Hype, superficiality, übercurators: Contemporary art is an easy thing to hate, says Simon Critchley. What can save it? More disgust and revulsion... more» The Economist, Michael Lewis once said, “is written by young people pretending to be old people.” That voice – slightly creaky, sophisticated, at times offbeat – is now that of the new global elite... more» The balance of power in science is changing. Those with analytical skills used to be ascendant. Now it's the custodians of big data who hold sway... more» What’s a national writer to do in a global literary marketplace? Keep telling tales from the margins, says Irvine Welsh. Express your culture, “however movable a feast that is”... more» Morbid curiosity has always been with us. After all, death up close is unusual and uncomfortable--and irresistible. Macabre displays humanize us, says Stephen Asma... more» “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money,” Samuel Johnson remarked. His was a quaint notion. Remuneration can play too small a role in the lives of artists... more» The tools of hard science – statistics, data sets – have migrated to the humanities. Want to study social networks in Beowulf? You’re not alone. But what’s the point?... more» Enough with America’s tread-so-carefully literary culture, says Dwight Garner. Criticism isn't for uplift. It’s for straight talk, a little humor, and above all, an argument... more» Culture thrives on conflict. Warfare, terror, and bloodshed nurtured the Renaissance in Italy. Peace and democracy in Switzerland gave rise to... what, exactly?... more» Lonely Planet politics: Kim Jong Il was a pragmatist. Iran is benign. The burqa is “a tool to increase mobility and security.” Why do the travel guides coddle tyrants?... more» The end of affluence. Economic growth, a secular religion, is stuck in a long-term fizzle. The future promises to be crimped and contentious... more» Foodie sanctimony is not new. Meet the Michael Pollan of the 19th century, Sylvester Graham. “A greater humbug or a more disgusting writer never lived”... more» What is the nature of knowledge? Can a theory be valid if it cannot be proved? Where does knowledge end and philosophy or religion begin?... more» Edward Gorey’s drawings – macabre and discomfiting, whimsical and witty – reveal “a whole little personal world,” as Edmund Wilson put it... more» The West must tend to “the starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant.” Kipling? Churchill? No, Tony Blair. What’s with the neo-imperialism?.. more» Rock 'n' roll is thick with nostalgia, says Leon Wieseltier. Enough with the swooning over Bruce Springsteen. It’s unseemly and undeserved. “He is Howard Zinn with a guitar”... more» What happened to the hatchet job? Critics today praise the pugnacity of, say, Pauline Kael, but won’t land a blow themselves. Even well-considered pans are now shunned... more» In the world that TED built, marketing masquerades as theory, charlatans as philosophers, slogans as truths. Evgeny Morozov explains... more» A philosophy of sleep might sound sleep-inducing. It isn’t. After all, sleep is so strange. For around eight hours a day you lose control of your faculties and become delusional. What’s that about?.. more» Religion isn’t just what you believe, says Robert Bellah, it’s what you do. “The misinterpretation of people like Dawkins is that religion is a mistaken proto-science. But religion is about action”... more» What does a dispute among the muses have to do with empathy? Literature helped ignite a humanitarian revolution, or so argues Elaine Scarry... more» Photography is about disappearance: cultures changed beyond recognition, lives long gone. As Cartier-Bresson put it, “A contact sheet is full of erasures”... more» Henry Luce and James Agee were an odd couple. The conservative Time publisher clashed with the rebellious, bohemian writer. Agee fantasized about shooting the boss... more» For W.B. Yeats, the spirit world was anything but false and foolish. “The mystical life is the center of all that I do and all that I think and all that I write”... more» Walter Benjamin’s oeuvre: Ideas migrate among texts, letters morph into essays. Books are unstarted, unfinished, abandoned, aborted... more» Friderike Burger was 30 when she met Stefan Zweig, soon taking the title of Wife of a Famous Writer. There are worse lots in life, but not many... more» What are aurochs? Caesar called them “elephantine creatures prone to unprovoked attack.” Much later, Nazi ideology, a zookeeper named Konrad Lorenz, and the Heck brothers revived the brutal breed... more» “The idea of a utopia has always been completely repulsive to me,” says Martin Amis. “If you are at all artistic, you want all those inequalities – that’s what makes life interesting”... more» Does quantum physics undermine materialism? Ostensibly, yes. But it sort of depends. Can the mind transcend matter?... more» The truth about truth is complicated. After all, lying is sometimes desirable. Indeed, small lies can reveal big truths. Ask Gulliver... more» What’s happened to intellectual life on the right? In flight from elitism, conservatism has dead-ended in a populist swamp, says Russell Jacoby... more» Promoting democracy might seem like a good idea. It’s not. The world is riven by sectarian conflicts and allegiances. Will we ever learn from history?... more» The European Union is “not merely an institutional fantasy,” insists Jürgen Habermas. Such cosmopolitanism is not without its charms, but can it ease the financial crisis?... more» The Brothers Grimm, 18th-century terrorists, savored violence in their art. Toes are chopped off, severed fingers fly through the air. The fairy tales validate our own fears... more» “Hitch-slap.” Any subject can reach a state of worship that threatens criticism and free thought. So noted Christopher Hitchens, that most Orwellian of Orwell’s successors... more» What’s considered proper English is, like so much else, a matter of fashion. “I wish you was here,” John Adams wrote to Abigail from France in 1778... more» The artist installs apps in Macs at an Apple store for a work called “People Staring at Computers.” Then the Secret Service rings his doorbell and assumes the role of critic... more» The creator of The Norton Anthology of English Literature spoke only Yiddish until he was 5. Now about to turn 100, M.H. Abrams still has plenty to say... more» Computers are dumb. Of course, they’re also necessary. But as we increasingly shape our lives to accommodate computers, their dumbness will become ours... more» What made George Orwell tick? Being an amateur anthropologist, understanding things – poverty and squalor, politics, himself – at the level of basic experience... more» Don’t confuse Allan Bloom with his admirers: He was no culture warrior, aiming at both left and right. It’s time to rescue Bloom from the partisans... more» It’s true: Talented people can be unpleasant or immoral. But do they behave worse than the untalented? Not always. Consider Haydn, neither tormented nor cruel... more» “Man can live about 40 days without food,” said André Gide, “but only for one second without hope.” Can a secular worldview provide the degree of hope that religion can? more» What is intellectual humility? It’s the love of knowledge swamping concern for status. It’s knowing your opinion might be misguided. It’s a virtue, or so we’re told... more» John Updike thought James Agee was feckless, inadequate, and rambling. Perhaps he was right, but isn’t there something magnificent about Agee’s amateurism?... more» Stephen Wolfram was an academic. But he wanted to turn his ideas into things – quickly. So he left. “I look at academia and think: ‘Wow, things moved so slowly there in the last 25 years!’”... more» What would Rousseau, a great education theorist, make of the modern university? Two words come to Terry Eagleton’s mind: “squalid betrayal”... more» James Joyce was a raconteur and a barfly. He wrote pornographic letters to Nora, the “man-killer,” and preferred a low figure of speech, the pun... more» Full of outlandish proverbs of dubious origin, H.L. Mencken’s New Dictionary disparaged the Irish and the married man. The million-word monster just turned 70... more» When it comes to the relationship between art and morality, Walter Benjamin put it best: “At the base of every major work of art is a pile of barbarism”... more» For Edvard Munch, art was an act of memory, a revisiting of images and ideas, a blurring of the line between original and copy. “I don’t paint what I see – but what I saw”... more» For lonely people in a lonely age. Psychoanalysts were once imbued with intellectual authority, dabbling in religion and philosophy. Now therapists are more like artificial friends... more» Is the human brain shaped by group selection? Appealing idea, says Steven Pinker, but there’s no use for it in psychology or social science... more» The banality of money. Pity the novelist who writes about the rich. Demonizing Wall Street might be good politics, but it’s usually bad art... more» Is higher education a credentials cartel? College isn’t primarily about imparting knowledge; it’s about certifying graduates. To join you must pay, and pay dearly... more» Martha Gellhorn came to regard her antifascist journalism from the 1930s as a “a perfectly useless performance.” Among war reporters, despair is now the norm... more» Why do we tell ourselves particular stories in particular ways at particular times? What does a boxer reveal about the transformation of Eastern Europe? Carlo Rotella has some thoughts... more» What is wealth for? How much is enough? Now that we have achieved abundance, the habits bred into us by capitalism leave us unable to enjoy it properly... more» Read Claude Lanzmann’s memoir for his portrait of Beauvoir, his sometime lover. Read him on the making of Shoah. Read him as a case study of vainglory... more» You don’t easily give up Saul Bellow to death. His novels were obsessed with big questions. But he didn’t impose his ideas. “No amount of assertion will make an ounce of art”... more» There was a time when we sought heavenly, artistic, or political glory. Now we seek happiness. Social scientists even measure it. But can such a thing be quantified?... more» How is it that a father of historic preservation was also a forerunner of the Surrealists? Both schools sprang from a mind with an instinct for the strange and forbidding... more» The rumors have long swirled around Batman and Robin. And remember Wonder Woman’s catchphrase: “Suffering Sappho!” Costumed crusaders are finally coming out of the closet... more» The tyranny of the clock. Our ever more intimately clocked world is increasingly efficient. The problem: We are forever on the edge of being late... more» Why is it that some eminent scholars, late in their careers, suddenly exclaim, “This profession really is getting to be a crock!” George Scialabba has some thoughts... more» Dolling up declining linguistic standards as cultural diversity makes a virtue out of dumbness, and turns illiteracy into a perverse form of literacy... more» Pop music makes you feel vital, vigorous, intense. And that’s just it – pop neatly packages the emotions. All you have to do is listen. It’s so easy... more» Mary McCarthy might have been a viperish, bipolar nymphomaniac. Who cares? Pay attention to what matters most: her writing... more» Most people in academe want to get out, says Terry Eagleton, who is himself getting out. And it’s just as well. So often the intellectual is the opposite of the academic... more» David Graeber was once certain a new age was dawning. Jet-packs, antigravity shoes, flying cars – all within reach. He wasn’t alone. How did we get the future so wrong?... more» “What will survive of us is love.” Oprah? The Beatles? Hallmark? No, Philip Larkin. As soon as he wrote it, he had second thoughts... more» What is the lesson of culture? That it is a precious but precarious inheritance, more difficult to achieve than destroy. And once destroyed, it’s irretrievable... more» Linguists vs. The New Yorker. Language conventions are desirable, even if all of them are arbitrary and many are spurious. Steven Pinker explains.. more» Can a literary interview be a weapon? What if the magazine in which it appears – The Paris Review – is part of a CIA-financed campaign of psychological warfare?... more» Psychology’s most misunderstood visionary. B.F. Skinner’s ideas about behavior modification have been maligned as morally bankrupt, even fascist. A bum rap?... more» |
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