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Nota Bene
Paradox of bunnies
Andrew Greeley, R.I.P.
Kipling a plagiarist?
How Edmund Wilson said NO
Knowledge and beauty
Block that metaphor!
Q&A;: Adam Kirsch
Wanted: literary mentor
Meanderings of Memory
Breakfast with Boswell
Kenneth Waltz, R.I.P.
Likeability of characters
Riot of Spring 1913
The Gatsby cover
History of swearing
New Statesman at 100
Henry Miller, Brooklyn hater
Gender and reading
Reformish conservatives
Ask America
Restoring Freud’s couch
Keep your day job

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Francis Fukuyama on the End of History

Robert Kagan on Power and Weakness

New York Review of Books, vol. 1 no. 1

The Russian Empire, 1910, in full color

Elizabeth Loftus on False Memories

Kahlil Gibran, forsooth

Is God an Accident?

The Death of Lit Crit

Keep Computers Out of Classrooms

Newsweek on Threats of Global Cooling

Julian Simon, Doomslayer

Martha Nussbaum on Judith Butler

George Orwell: English Language

World's Worst Editing Guide

The Fable of the Keys

The Snuff Film: an Urban Legend

The Abduction of Opera

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Articles of Note

Arendt biographer Elzbieta Ettinger saw herself in her subject. Each fled the Nazis, was cut off from her native culture, and fell for a famous professor... more»
Plimpton!, the movie. Unable to make sports teams at Exeter, The Paris Review editor made a career of professional amateurism... more»
John Richardson, 89, won’t finish his multivolume biography of Picasso. The problem is not his age. “I know too much. I know where the bodies are buried”... more»
The era of essayism. Montaigne’s literary form has become a way of life--one that encourages self-absorption, short attention spans, a lack of commitment... more»
Sylvia Plath died largely unknown. Since then she’s been psychoanalyzed, politicized, turned into a feminist martyr. Why can’t we get enough?... more»
Ninety-six percent of the universe is dark energy and dark matter. We know almost nothing about them. Now Lisa Randall says she has found a clue.... more»
“All history is the history of unintended consequences,” says Jackson Lears. Good-intentioned efforts lead to self-defeating outcomes. “That’s the tragedy”... more»
Thomas Nagel’s critique of evolution isn’t shocking. What is shocking? That the ensuing debate about the philosophy of science has ignored the science... more»
Whither thug lit? Wahida Clark served nine years in prison and wrote three best-sellers. She lives the life she writes about. Her genre peers, not so much... more»
In Seattle, 2,000 people gather to eat vegan lunches, use gender-neutral bathrooms, and talk about race. It’s the White Privilege Conference... more»
Immortality and its discontents. Sure, death is a drag. But what could be more lonely, boring, or morally ruinous than living forever?... more»
Theophilus Carter, Oxford cabinet maker, had a prominent nose, receding chin, and a fondness for top hats. Was he the real Mad Hatter?... ... more»
The European Union is betting $1.3-billion that Henry Markram and 15 postdocs can construct a brain. But if they build it, will it think?... more»
A self-driving car is not just a technological marvel but also a moral problem. If the car hits someone, can we hold an algorithm responsible?... more»
David Birnbaum, jeweler and philosopher, promotes a theory of everything – that no one takes seriously. So why did Bard College hold a conference in his honor?... more»
What is loneliness? It’s not solitude or what Kierkegaard called “shut-upness.” It’s an interior experience. And it can kill you... more»
Crime and punishment. Behind the razor wire and locked doors of the Beaumont Juvenile Correctional Center, a new craze is taking hold: Russian literature... more»
Albert Hirschman preferred doubt to theorizing. He rejected every ism, preferring small ideas and personal observations... more»
What’s the origin of “jazz,” or “shyster,” or “Big Apple”? The answers are in Rolla, Missouri, home of Gerald Leonard Cohen, master etymologist... more»
Ever the scientist, Richard Feynman ran experiments on how best to woo women. His finding: being aloof works better than being a gentleman... more»
“We are as gods and might as well get good at it,” wrote Stewart Brand in the Whole Earth Catalog, which birthed a generation of digital utopians... more»
Postmodern before postmodernism, existentialist before Sartre, ironic before irony was debased: Kierkegaard, rejected in his time, is a man for our time... more»
“Beauty is difficult,” said Ezra Pound. He had in mind Sadakichi Hartmann, poet-king of Greenwich Village, who pursued beauty and found difficulty... more»
My father, the Nazi. Otto von Wächter specialized in the annihilation of Polish intellectuals. But to his son, he was honorable, liberal, idealistic... more»
A difficult genius. Everyone who knows the evolutionary theorist Robert Trivers knows he is gruff, mercurial, moody. But a knife-wielding menace?... more»
Art of translation. After tens of thousands of pages, Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have rendered Tolstoy into English. It matters... more»
Wikipedia and women. Ninety percent of the editors are men. And it shows. There are fewer articles on female poets than on porno actresses... more»
Daniel Dennett has no patience for the metaphysical mumbo jumbo of fellow philosophers. For him reality is quite clear: “I’m a robot, and you’re a robot”... more»
Yelp, Amazon, and the like have upended the idea of critical authority. On those fronts now seesaws the battle for the future of taste and expertise... more»
Diederik Stapel’s psychology experiments produced eye-opening results – all fabricated, it turns out. “It was a quest for beauty instead of the truth”... more»
SXSW is where the ambitious, idealistic, and materialistic gather to launch their brands and save the world, one contrarian, triumphalist idea at a time... more»
Big Data, we’re told, will change everything. So what will remain of intuition and serendipity in our brave new hyperquantified world?... more»
Who is the world’s top thinker? A survey offers this answer: Richard Dawkins. But wait: Do public intellectuals even matter?... more»... more»
“Would it kill you,” Hitchens asked Claire Messud, “to write something people want to read?” Then she did. The aftermath was not pleasant... more»
Are anti-religion polemics out of fashion? The Manichaean arguments of Richard Dawkins and his disciples have given way to a more nuanced atheism... more»
Eric Hobsbawm, never without something to read, was buried with a copy of the London Review. His grave, fittingly, is just to the right of Karl Marx’s... more»
The quintessential Dissentnik. Fifty years ago, Michael Walzer joined the magazine. Now he’s stepping back. “I just can’t keep up”... more»
Those paragons who devote time, money, even their organs to mitigate suffering. Shall we regard them with admiration? Or annoyance and suspicion?... more»
When walking was king. Behold Victorian cruising culture, in which young dandies, eager to affect a regal air, carried intricate and often explicit canes... more»
John le Carré, a spy who came out from shadows to reveal the tradecraft of espionage. The myth stuck. Too bad it wasn’t true... more»
The Voynich Manuscript, a small and strange book, has for a century attracted scholars eager to decipher its contents. All failed. Is the Voynich a hoax?... more»
Literature was near the center of Soviet political life. Writers suffered censorship if not worse. Today, the poets steer clear of Putin... more»
A whiff of the mystical surrounds James Lovelock. But he is foremost a scientist, he insists. And science says the planet is too crowded... more»
A life in translation. How did Howard Goldblatt – a California-born Navy veteran – become the voice of a generation of Chinese writers?... more»
A female war photographer writes a memoir, Shutterbabe. She hates the title. It's a best seller. Welcome to a so-called post-feminist literary career... more»
For 14 years, Alan Smith taught philosophy to prisoners. But no more. “If I never meet another psychopath again, it'll be far too soon”... more»
So you want to write for the New York Review. Some words and phrases to avoid: “framework,” “on the table,” “contextualize,” “in terms of”... more»
Half-geek, half-guru. Michael Sandel’s Socratic dialogues pack Korean stadiums and attract millions in China. Criticizing markets is good business... more»
Technology is always reinventing college. First it was television, then pre-broadband Internet. Both failed. Now it’s MOOCs. This time is different... more»
Are people naturally cooperative or selfish? Neither. People are both nasty and nice. What determines which one you get? The circumstances... more»
Scholars have known that Willa Cather’s letters are revelatory about her writing and secretive personal life. But they couldn’t be quoted. Until now... more»
A teenage Paul Muldoon sought advice from Seamus Heaney. Muldoon sent his poems, and asked what was wrong with them. “Nothing,” Heaney replied... more»
The origins of applause. It’s a custom as old as man himself, with a history of political intrigue and cultural transformation... more»
After atheism. Religion is too important, too interesting, too useful to be left to the religious, says a new crop of nonbelievers... more»
“I never attacked anyone weak,” says Renata Adler. “Only bullies, secure in their fiefdoms. Fear didn’t come into it. Maybe it should have”... more»
Julian Schnabel. The name reeks of 80s hedonism and art-world narcissism. Now he’s returned to painting. Time to forgive him for his sins?... more»
Lew Wallace disgraced himself on the battlefield, put a bounty on Billy the Kid, and wrote one of history's best-selling novels... more»
Young Derrida was expelled from his lycée; adult Derrida was an outcast in French academe. Is exclusion at the heart of deconstruction?... more»
Cai Guo-Qiang wants to open “a dialogue with the universe.” This is not hyperbole. The Chinese artist is courting an audience of extraterrestrials... more»
Professor Nabokov had one rule for students in his Lit 311 course at Cornell University: No one could leave, not even to use the bathroom... more»
Ego and algorithm. Jaron Lanier looks at fellow techies and sees great talent and great smugness. “Hacker superiority complex,” he calls it... more»
Tears, booze, sexual tension, idiosyncratic prose. Academic conference? No, Time magazine in the 60s... more»
The weirdness of the American mind. An attempt to reverse-engineer psychological research gives the lie to universalism. Culture shapes cognition... more»
Writing a book is a fraught, frenzied undertaking. Doubly so for a first book. So what’s it like to have Jacques Barzun as your editor? Better and worse... more»
Philosophers used to have the confidence to question scientists. Today it's a rare trait. Thomas Nagel is the exception, and he’s ostracized for it... more»
A dissident’s life. You’re a prominent intellectual. What do you do all day? Noam Chomsky spends seven hours answering e-mail... more»
“There is no contradiction with my political opinion when I criticize party officials,” says Mo Yan. “I am writing on behalf of the people, not the party”... more»... more»
Our dictionary, ourselves. Digitally redefined, reference works now respond to our own interests. “Dictionaries have found their ideal medium”... more»
John Martin Fischer directs a $5-million study of immortality. But the philosopher wants this known: He isn’t hunting ghosts or attending seances... more»
In the 19th century, locksmithing was England’s pride. Then Alfred Hobbs changed that, prompting a question: How safe can something be?... more»... more»
The cheerful iconoclast. There is no topic--Augustine, Verdi, Nixon--on which Garry Wills has no view, usually one at odds with both left and right... more»
A knack for provocation, taste for grand statements, belief in being contrary: Charles Rosen was among the last of the philosopher pianists... more»
A 68-year-old egomaniacal and absent-minded theoretical physicist meets a bikini model online. Of course, all is not as it seems... more»
Robin Nagle has a fancy title: clinical associate professor of anthropology and urban studies at New York University. But what she talks is trash. Real trash... more»
The pun has been overtaken (killed off, really) by a form both witless and ugly: the adjoinage. “Techpreneur,” anyone?... more»
The economist Harry Dexter White helped solidify U.S. dominance after World War II. He was intelligent, relentless. And a Soviet mole... more»
Dead 36 years, Vladimir Nabokov is, once again, controversial. Indeed, he is everything Putin’s Russia despises: liberal, elitist, emigrant... more»
Kenneth Tynan earned his reputation as a savage wit. But it's not enough to be clever – one must also be right... more»
Anton Chekhov, commitment-phobe. He loved women, women loved him. But sooner or later, they faced the Chekhovian Chill... more»
Heil Heidegger! He embraced Nazism and dumped his Jewish lover, Hannah Arendt. So why did she help rehabilitate his reputation after the war?... more»
Mo Yan isn't a dissident or an apologist. He is an individualist. “A great writer has to be like a whale, breathing steadily alone in the depths of the sea”... more»
The idea that humans are by nature free is persistent, powerful, and, says John Gray, “one of the most harmful fictions that’s ever been promoted”... more»
“What sort of person goes around saying that mass murder has a good side?” asks Ian Morris. “The sort of person who’s been surprised by his research”... more»
Why cursive? Done well, it’s the pinnacle of elegant handwriting, a mark of sophistication. Too bad it’s rarely done well anymore... more»
The American character was forged by barbarism, torture, murder, and massacre. Bernard Bailyn is ankle-deep in the bloody details ... more»
There was a time when college presidents did more than raise funds. They expressed views – resolute, edgy – about contentious issues... more»
Gunther von Hagens, the man behind “Body Worlds,” now finds that his own body is failing him. Dr. Death contemplates his own mortality... more»
Virginia Woolf’s Orlando – all sex changes, cross-dressing, transgressive desire – is the most joyful of her books. It also liberated her prose style... more»
Our future is measured by the books we intend to read. Kierkegaard understood the anxiety. As more becomes possible, he said, less becomes actual... more»
“Let’s be clear.” It’s a promise for our time, indicating that what follows will be neither clear nor even trustworthy...more»
Art and violence. Theater and film have always delighted in depictions of suffering. But how much is too much?...more»
Ronald Dworkin, liberal philosopher, proponent of a rights-based theory of law, is dead at 81...  NY Times...  Guardian... WSJ...  Noah Feldman...  Randy Barnett... Financial Times... Independent... Telegraph... Cass Sunstein... Charles Fried... Eric Posner... spiked...
Napoleon Chagnon, the most maligned anthropologist of his generation. He’s arrogant and impolitic – but a genocidaire?... more»
The Bell Jar was published in England on January 14, 1963. Sylvia Plath killed herself 28 days later. A good career move, Anne Sexton observed... more»
Truman Capote described In Cold Blood as “immaculately factual,” which was in fact not true. He never let reality interfere with a good story... more»
Auden was sloppy but open to editing. Trilling was more difficult but open to suggestions. As for Barzun, no one dared move a comma... more»
The king and the parking lot. He was small in stature, weak in strength, with a curved spine and a face “little and fierce.” The myth of Richard III meets reality...more»
Coffee, wine, God, philosophy, and the audacity of the pope. An unearthed conversation with Christopher Hitchens... more... more... more
The philosopher and the terrorist. In 1974, Sartre met Andreas Baader. They arrived as comrades and departed as something else... more»
The trouble with Ai Weiwei. His art is inane and moronic, no more than political kitsch. And yet the man’s courage is undeniably admirable... more»
Wagner or Verdi, fatalistic Teuton or lyrical Latin? The answer depends on whether you believe that music should, foremost, be intelligent or pleasing...more»
Power of suggestion: The influence of unconscious cues on human behavior is among the most fascinating discoveries of our time – if it’s true... more»
In academe, job-reference inflation runs rampant. “Pound for pound she is the best philosopher in the department.” What can that mean?... more»
Soviet geologists came upon a family of six in remote Siberia. They had lived off the land, undetected, for 42 years. Then civilization had its way with them... more»
Concerto for Orchestra: Elliot Carter’s masterpiece was heard first by a hostile audience, with the conductor serving as traffic cop... more»
After 50 years, NYRB’s editor finds that its critical perspective is due to be brought to bear on the “huge universe of prose” online... more»
We may pay little attention to how we walk. Our gait, however, may eventually identify us as surely as a fingerprint...more»
Women in combat: The first defenders of Stalingrad in 1942 were teenage girls, firing antiaircraft guns to halt German tanks... more»
For brevity of wit, read cheese labels in New York: “This firm Sardinian sheep has the cool unaffected strut of Mick in his prime”... more»
The fetishizing of objectivity: Liberal policy wonks have become number crunchers, putting aside moral appeals. It will be their downfall... more»
Placebos, like drugs, “move a lot of molecules in the patients’ brain.” An ingenious researcher finds the real ingredients of “fake” medicine... more»
What high school, that “giant box of strangers,” is all about: shame, both at the time and in living memory... more»
A professor of writing is stalked online by a former student who perseveres to “ruin” him in public. This is how it feels...more»
Frivolous, debased, entirely too clever: How did punning – one mark of a supple, fertile mind – acquire such a dubious reputation?... more»
Pride and Prejudice was “too light...and sparkling,” Austen worried. Others say it’s cloistered and unworldly. Both claims are nonsense... more»
In 1779, Ned Ludd broke into a house and destroyed knitting machines. It was a ridiculous stand against technology, but not without merit... more»
Innovation stagnation? We wanted flying cars, we got cat gifs. So goes the prevailing sentiment. But there’s cause for optimism... more»
How to make a revolution. Start with an 85-year-old pacifist, an Oxford-trained academic who works out of his home in Boston... more»
In 1947 a shepherd entered a cave, emerged with the Dead Sea Scrolls, and initiated one of the strangest scholarly quarrels in recent memory... more»
What we talk about when we talk about Stephen Hawking. His genius forces us to rethink the distinction between humans and machines... more»
New Age to neuroscience, Daniel Goleman to Malcolm Gladwell, advice books have a new name: “nonfiction with a strong takeaway”... more»
Arthur Schlesinger Jr. depicted JFK as firm but careful during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Here’s a depiction of Schlesinger: deceptive... more»
Forget what you’ve heard: Print is not dead, e-books are not the future, or at least not the only future. Old-fashioned books are back... more»
James Wolcott, quantified. The critic is data-driven, tracking steps and stairs taken, hours slept, calories burned. Autobiography is a long flowchart...more»
Down and out in Italy. Spendthrift and broke, James Joyce turned to journalism, film, tweed, fireworks, and fending off creditors... more»
Nelson Algren lived in brothels, lost everything gambling, and spent weeks in jail. His greatest offense? A refusal to compromise... more»
“Those who can’t write, edit.” That aphorism haunts Hugo Lindgren, whose ideas – for books, TV shows – don’t translate from concept to reality...more»
The struggle for Harold Bloom’s soul. On one side, Emerson, apostle of the self. On the other, Freud, the pessimist. The battle has been long and fruitful...more»
Dave Hickey is a genius, a cantankerous, chain-smoking, art-critic kind of genius who detests collectors, museums, and academe... more»
Our memory, ourselves. We are the sum of all we’ve done and all we hope to do. So is retrograde amnesia the end of our sense of self?... more»
Kerouac carried a copy, Henry Miller venerated it, F. Scott Fitzgerald borrowed its title. But Le Grand Meaulnes today is little read... more»
Self-help is an American genre. Its history is one of gurus and hucksters and an abiding faith that anything can be fixed, especially ourselves... more»
The Mozart cult. His work nears the center of civilization, but ease the pain of childbirth? Stimulate brain cells? He’s a composer, not a deity... more»
A cyber-flâneur gets lunch. Ruthless efficiency isn’t useful only when contemplating the euro. It also helps Tyler Cowen find delicious kidfo...more»
Make clothing patterns, line trunks, wrap food, wipe themselves: People have always done more with books than just read them... more»
The Internet apostate. Jaron Lanier – virtual-reality pioneer, wind-instrument aficionado – helped create the digital world. Now he’s a critic... more»
The adventure gene. The urge to explore, take risks, embrace change is innate. So how does sailing off the map make evolutionary sense?... more»
Camille Paglia has a Christopher Hitchens problem. The late critic, she says, was “committed to no real ideas outside his personal advancement”...more»
Charles Rosen’s world comprised a piano stacked with music, a desk and table laden with papers and books, and long, discursive conversations... more»
In 1864, Herman Melville was asked to contribute to a volume of literary works. He sent in a poem, and regretted it almost immediately... more»
The history of invented languages is one of failure. But that didn’t discourage a former California state employee, or the Slavic utopians who appropriated his language... more»
“I have a happy life,” says Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Tom Bartlett wanted to know more, so he had lunch with Taleb. It didn’t go well... more»
The data vigilante. Social psychology is beset by sloppiness and fraud, says Uri Simonsohn, who is bringing the perpetrators to justice... more»
Pi on the door, pentagonal sinks in the bathrooms, square-wheeled tricycle on the track: Must be the Museum of Mathematics... more»
Do you sneer at things predigital, use words like “disruptive,” tap the wisdom of the crowd? Get a grip: You’ve become a cyberguru... more»
Of course poetry teaches us how to live, lifts the veil from our eyes. But there’s something else: Poetry makes you weird... more»
At 80, V.S. Naipaul insists that he has nothing more to say. But he’s still talking – about the Arab Spring, political correctness, sex, his cat... more»
Howard Goldblatt, premier English translator of Chinese fiction, was a late bloomer. “I was amazingly stupid for the first 30 years of my life”... more»
For the past 700 years, banking and art have shaped our understanding of value, speculation, and profiteering... more»
Serendipity and secondhand bookstores. The future looks bleak for those who enjoy perusing old books on arcane subjects... more»
He’s done 8,700 self-portraits and will soon be featured in a Paris art show. So why is Bryan Saunders living in a drug-ridden hovel... more»
Four percent of Fortune 500 CEO’s are women. Why don’t more women ascend to the top? Maybe they don’t want to... more»

New Books

What do we talk about when we talk about literature? Ourselves, mostly. We miss the qualities that make a novel a novel. Terry Eagleton offers a remedy... more»
Is time an absolute construct or merely a matter of perspective? The theoretical physicist Lee Smolin offers an unsettling answer... more»
What makes Jewish humor Jewish? Irony and self-deprecation. According to Freud, no other people makes so much fun of its own character... more»
Janet Malcolm’s criticism has always been marked by a contrarian pugnacity and a captivating paradox: She is a snob, but a populist snob... more»
In defense of opera. Yes, the plots are often absurd, lyrics unintelligible, stagecraft over-elaborate. Opera is extravagant. But it isn’t in decline... more»
Stink bombs and sneezing powder, that’s how Nazi thugs shut down German cinema in the 1930s. And yet Hollywood remained silent... more»
The most curious thing about the DSM-5, the “psychiatric bible,” is that anyone would view the scientific-seeming manual with reverence... more»
From Chaucer to South Park, obscenity has evolved. Consider that in the 19th century, saying the word “trousers” could get you into trouble... more»
Evgeny Morozov has emerged as the Mencken of the Internet age. His target: the woolly, wide-eyed thinking of the Silicon Valley “booboisie”... more»
Pankaj Mishra encountered Edmund Wilson’s works in a termite-infested Indian library. Epiphany! A story sure to entice New York publishers... more»
The novelist Charles Jackson name-dropped relentlessly and lied about his advances. He was, in short, a literary creature ahead of his time... more»
To Edmund Burke, principles were lessons from everyday life, nothing more. The contradictions of conservatism are everywhere in his thinking... more»
Political philosophers are too utopian, too in thrall to abstractions. It’s high time for the field to engage with reality... more»
A man known as H.M. had the most famous brain in the world. What can we learn from his love of crosswords, his penchant for punning, his amnesia?... more»
The paradoxes of empathy. It’s a force for good, a harbinger of moral progress. It’s also parochial, narrow-minded, and sometimes should be ignored... more»
Modernity and Mary Shelley. How we remember Frankenstein’s monster speaks volumes. Was he a soulless automaton or an affectionate autodidact?... more»
The Oulipo is not a movement or an ism or a school. Rather, it’s an invitation-only Parisian collective devoted to the possibilities of literature... more»
Eric Fischl, alpha male of New York’s cocaine-fueled 80s art scene, emerged with an insight: “Artists are whores. They go where the money is”... more»
Thinking about thinking. Is analogy the essence of cognition, the quick shorthand our minds use to make sense of our experiences?... more»
Anarchism, once the philosophy of terrorists and assassins, has mellowed. It’s now the creed of professors eager to see the state disappear – just not yet... more»
Devoted to skinny dipping, faddish diets, and vigorous exercise, Samuel Johnson was hardly the awkward, depressive man of letters you think... more»
Benoit Mandelbrot saw simplicity where others saw complexity. How? By relying on visual insight. “When I seek, I look, look, look”... more»
Debating the Enlightenment. The philosophers’ positions – Kantians versus Hegelians – remain fixed, with little left to say. Let’s hear from the historians... more»
How should an automated society function? Jaron Lanier sees a way for everyone to profit. Evgeny Morozov sees an example of digital sophistry... more»
George Orwell arrived in Barcelona in 1936, falling in with a poorly trained, barely armed militia. His account is in sharp contrast to war reporting today... more»
For William Gaddis, there was never enough research, never enough time to spend on a single book. I “must get everything in. Everything”... more»
Friend and foe agreed: Edmund Burke was a brilliant man but poor company. Talking with him was like being “grazed by a powerful machine”... more»
Those who knew the novelist Richard Brautigan didn’t invite him to parties. He brought uninvited guests, he was drunk, and he had a .357 Magnum... more»
The Vonnegut letters. He was feckless, drunk, witty, humane, and full of advice for himself: “Do not bubble. Do not spin. Choose words I know”... more»
Oscar Wilde in America. Though little known when he arrived, he was supremely confident. “I have nothing to declare except my genius”... more»
Why priests? The institution is theologically dubious, says Garry Wills. And it has promoted a church culture of exclusivity and stifling hierarchy... more»
What happened to Occupy? The emphasis was on process over politics, indignation over ideas. Let’s hear from the leaders of the leaderless movement... more»
C.S. Lewis, aphrodisiac. Women flocked to his lectures on medieval romance, leaving in a state of excitement. That’s when Paul Johnson swooped in... more»
Criticism has lost its urgency, says Jay Parini. Too few writers can connect language and life. Christian Wiman is a great exception... more»
History is full of divisions – nations, religions, genders – but David Cannadine is hopeful about the future. His optimism is both refreshing and unconvincing... more»
Beyond Moby-Dick. The world of 19th-century American literature is stranger (and more splendid) than we tend to remember... more»
Marx’s philosophy, like his life, was disjointed. For long stretches, practical concerns – meeting deadlines, evading creditors – trumped theory... more»
You couldn’t invent a character like Alfred Jarry, the absinthe-drinking, excrement-smearing playwright and star of Parisian literary life... more»
“Was I a man or a jerk?” The question was posed by Saul Bellow late in his brilliant, callous, selfish life. The evidence points both ways. His son weighs in... more»
Frantz Schmidt was good at his job. Reliable, honest, loyal, he skillfully wielded the tools of his trade: the wagon wheel, the noose, the sword... more»
Poems appeared in 1817. Reviews were vicious. The publisher wrote to the author, John Keats, irate at a book that was “no better than a take in”... more»
Jared Diamond has succeeded in selling books, sparking new areas of research, and making the social sciences slavishly dependent on geography... more»
The question of revolutionary violence was one of the most fateful of the 20th century. Many got it wrong. Camus got it right... more»
There is a pregnant silence at the end of a symphony, a beat before the applause. Good theology, says Karen Armstrong, helps us live in that space... more»
Poor Franz. The irony and complexity of his work have been reduced to one hopelessly inept adjectival cliché: Kafkaesque... more»
Erich Fromm fled the Nazis, dined with presidents, lectured to thousands, sold books in the millions – all the while searching for his authentic self... more»
The Marilyn Monroe of modern literature? Not quite. But narcissistic, charming, in love with language. We still ask: Who is Sylvia Plath?... more»
Science without Darwin. Had the naturalist perished on the HMS Beagle, might evolutionary ideas have been accepted more quickly?... more»
Demonic possession might explain your convulsions, vomiting, or visions. But what explains the popularity of demons, in the 16th century and today?... more»
And now Michael Howard anoints a new Clausewitz. His name: Emile Simpson, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan. Are his ideas the future of military strategy?... more»
When Edward Thomas was killed, in 1917, his reputation rested on his prose: 20 books, 70 articles, 1,900 reviews. He wrote on deadline, but he was no hack... more»
In the pages of Cabinet, insecure academics commiserate with insecure artists. The magazine is idiosyncratic, goofy, and a consistent delight... more»
The genius of Jill Lepore. She’s turned microhistory into an essayistic art. But therein lurk the perils of the quest for perfect readability... more»
The Melville biographer Hershel Parker warns that his craft is under attack from “subversive interlopers” – academic critics with their intellectual fads... more»
“Listening” has pleasant connotations. “Noise,” not so much. But noise is often the sound of progress, irksome as it is... more»
For Adorno, neon represented mass-produced kitsch. For others, the ostentatious yet charismatic glow means something else: possibility... more»
The question of monsters is credulity versus skepticism: Science puts to rest tales of Minotaur and Medusa. And yet we want to believe. Why?... more»
What explains Eric Hobsbawm’s influence? His genius for conceptually framing history? His encyclopedic knowledge? His Marxism?... more»
“Bird in the Baroness’s Boudoir.” For Nica de Koenigswarter, eccentric jazz hound, life got complicated when Charlie Parker died at her house... more»
Before Rodgers ran with Hammerstein, he worked with Lorenz Hart – a generous, ebullient gnome of a man, and a desperate drunk... more»
Neil Gross has gathered the data, and now the results are in. College professor is the most-liberal occupation in America. Surprised, right?... more»
Lina Codina – beautiful, polyglot, soprano – had every reason to expect a bright future. Ah, but then she married Sergei Prokofiev... more»
How do we, or should we, react to Hitler? With cool, calculated reason? Or rage and moral fervor? Yes and yes. Carlin Romano explains... more»
William Styron’s letters are a catalog of phobias and preoccupations. The latter includes money, race relations, and sex. The chief phobia: literary critics... more»
What’s it like to be a good writer who dreams of being a genius? Agony, for Charles Jackson, who chose to end his booze-addled life... more»
What is a magazine now? Innovation and stagnation, paper and pixels, relevant and obsolete: Magazines are enduring an awkward phase... more»
C.S. Lewis was a giant of science fiction and Christian apology. But what of his literary scholarship, or his marriage to an American gold digger?... more»
Historians are dividers, rabble-rousers, us-and-them style thinkers who separate mankind into rival factions. Or so argues David Cannadine... more»
Prosperity though cutlery? From the Thai mortar and pestle to Cardinal Richelieu’s blunted knives, our kitchens reveal ourselves... more»
Is morality evolutionarily advantageous? The way our minds function has more to do with ethics than we might think... more»
Brain food. The Enlightenment connected serious thinking and serious digestion. Voltaire: “One must be a philosopher in mind and in stomach”... more»
Thomas Nagel warns of “Darwinist imperialism.” Here comes a mob of materialists. Leon Wieseltier on scientistic tyranny in intellectual life... more»
Between 1930-1960, Britain’s MI5 kept tabs on prominent intellectuals, such as Auden, Spender, Orwell, Koestler. Cue the comedy of errors... more»
How did a poet and novelist with a transgressive streak, outlandish sexual instincts, and a fascination with death become an Italian icon?... more»
What’s neo about neoliberalism? Coined by British philosophers, the label is a staple of academic prose and left-wing polemics. But what does it mean?... more»
Leszek Kolakowski grew up seeing the devastating effects of a fraudulent ideology. Then he watched his colleagues fall under its sway... more»
Saul Steinberg had many styles, but he belonged to no movement. He was, above all, a humorist. He depicted life as a joke – and delivered the punch line... more»
Michael Oakeshott thought modern rationalism was vacuous, useless, preposterous. Political discourse could benefit from his thinking... more»
Christopher Lasch made his enemies on the left and the right. "Adopt a surly demeanor towards one and all in the hope of offending everybody"... more»
Humanism has a small following. That it could become a global movement is improbable, outlandish, and the thesis of A.C. Grayling's new book... more»
Moscow, 1937. Arrests, executions, 540 magazines, at least three jazz bands, and swank salons, at which Shostakovich and Babel mingled with secret police... more»
Do you fantasize about being a tenured academic? A globe-trotting journalist? A novelist? How our unlived lives shape our lived experience... more»
A fervid new book denounces Christopher Hitchens as a liar and plagiarist. The late polemicist would’ve relished the assault... more»
Two cheers for paternalism. We are too fat, too in debt, and too terrible at planning for the future to avoid rethinking Mill’s harm principle... more»
When did “bureaucracy” become a dirty word? Once it stood for the end of privilege and the rise of merit and rights. What went wrong?... more»
War poets. The literary fate of those who survived World War I was little different from those who died in it. Consider Sassoon and Blunden... more»
For Émile Durkheim, son of a rabbi, religion anchored his life and work. But faith was less about a set of ideas than a force for social cohesion... more»
Hissing, clanking, buzzing. Human history can be studied aurally – assuming, of course, that we don’t lose our hearing in the effort... more»
Ray Kurzweil wants to reverse-engineer the human brain. It’s a fetching idea to some; malevolently far-fetched to others... more»
Anti-Judaism, which has always been at the center of Western civilization, flourishes even without Jews, since its target is not people but an idea... more»
Oliver Stone says his view of American history echoes “the dominant narrative” among academic scholars. Sean Wilentz has some doubts... more»
Doer and dreamer, realist and romantic: Charles de Gaulle was an exceptional – and exceptionally arrogant – character...more»
Hallucinations can be brilliant, bothersome, even frightening. Imagine hearing Bing Crosby sing “White Christmas” for days on end... more»
Gabriele d’Annunzio had discolored teeth, little hair, one eye, and a libido that thousands of lovers couldn’t satiate...more»
Her dresses – strange colors, wondrous sleeves – were a sensation, but her husband, Oscar, wrested the limelight. The life of Constance Wilde... more»
Benjamin Britten, workaholic. Not even a need for heart surgery could pull him away from his desk. “My destiny is to be in a harness and to die in a harness”...more»
Literary criticism has become a way to pursue tenure, complains Joseph Epstein. “Literary culture itself seems to be slowly if decisively shutting down”... more»
One was an upstart clad in pink and purple, the other an acknowledged genius. Florence wasn’t big enough for both Michelangelo and Leonardo... more»
Hugh Trevor-Roper’s erudition was wide-ranging, his curiosity endless, his political outlook Whiggish, his loathing of others bottomless... more»
Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Heisenberg: Scientific progress has always required heroic minds, not necessarily heroic morals. Adam Gopnik elaborates.. more»
The popularity of Tennyson’s work was not unequivocally good news for someone whose métier was founded on the opposite of success... more»
Gérard de Villiers’s best-selling espionage thrillers also serve as intelligence drop boxes for spy agencies around the world... more»
Far from being “plagued by a void of moral purpose,” Yale labors under an excess of the same – that purpose being the pursuit of perfection... more»
What keeps a Wodehouse work imperishable? “Making the thing frankly a fairy story,” he said, “and ignoring real life altogether.” And so he did... more»
The test of an educational practice is its power to enable a human being to realize his own promise in a constructive way. Social studies fails... more»
Sports’ prominence with the apolitical masses makes them an effective medium for political messages. But what’s a fan to do?... more»
Step aside, Stravinsky. Music in the 20th century belonged to urbane, symphonic jazz. More specifically, it belonged to Duke Ellington... more»
W.S. Merwin’s translations of Horace and Apollinaire aren’t as faithful as could be. It’s the sound of the language he’s after, not the sense... more»
A philosopher’s life: When the Prague police planted drugs on Jacques Derrida, his lawyer told him to think of it as a “literary experience”... more»
When he was 26, Frank Ramsey oversaw Wittgenstein’s Ph.D. thesis. The young prodigy led a short but brilliant life...more»
Given that neoliberals used to be viewed as crackpots, their story is rather heroic. But heroes are rarely as influential as they seem... more»
From ballads to broadsheets, suicide fascinated 18th-century England. An aristocratic temperament was called for...more»
Maybe Darwin was wrong, says Thomas Nagel, and biology is teleology: The universe is aimed at certain goals as it unfolds through time... more»
Oscar Wilde in America. One year, 15,000 miles, 140 stops. Henry James was not impressed: “a fatuous fool, a tenth-rate cad, and an unclean beast”... more»
Ruthless power struggles, show trials, forced confessions: The Church of Scientology or the Communist Party in its heyday? Take your pick... more»
The Internet has prompted an age of self-examination, or at least self-exposure.Navel-gazing is our passion. Psychoanalysis is not. Why?... more»
Sam Harris claims that free will is an illusion. But he proves nothing more than his knack for bait-and-switch arguments. Alvin Plantinga elaborates...more»
William Styron saw the irony: “Curious to think that a slender volume about lunacymay provide a meal ticket for my superannuated years”... more»
For love of women and art. Was Raphael a chaste saint who sublimated his passion into his work? Or was he a womanizer who died in the arms of his mistress?... more»
What is it about Jared Diamond that drives anthropologists crazy? The shallowness of his arguments? The breadth of his claims? His success?...more»
The color revolution. Out went neutral tints, in came indigo, crimson, lime green. The transformation was total, and all to sell things... more»
St. Francis of Assisi was humble, disciplined, genial, and wary of book learning. He called himself “illiteratus,” and he did so with pride... more»
The music libel. Listen closely and you will hear how Western music developed in relation to ideas about Jews and their music... more»
E.M. Forster’s diaries chronicle the mundane and the semi-obscure – sexual partners, golf, a great aunt. The minutiae capture the man perfectly... more»
The controversies of Ryszard Kapuscinski are those of journalism, the writing life, and Poland during the Communist years... more»
Making Bach modern. No repeats, no pedal, no precedent: Glenn Gould’s “Goldberg Variations” is an argument for the superiority of recorded music... more»
You like the formality of Garamond Premier? The swagger of Baskerville Original? The uniformity of Helvetica?You might be a font fanatic... more»
The Alain de Botton formula: Make high-culture allusions and quote promiscuously. Season liberally with a tone of wry knowingness... more»
Buying and selling in Rome. Well-to-do ancients window-shopped, haggled, stopped for a quick bite, bantered about dildos. Or so we think... more»
Ever feel that Wodehouse’s books are all the same? You’re on to something: “I have only one plot and produce it once a year with variations” ... more»
How to explain the history of the world to a 10-year-old? It’s well nigh impossible. Enter Ernst Gombrich, his strange book, and its marvels of clarity... more»
Shakespeare endured syphilis, Jack London ulcers, the Brontës and Orwell tuberculosis. Only the cures were worse than the diseases... more»
Capitalism and the good life. There is a limit beyond which material goods don’t make us happier. We believe that. We also believe we are under that limit...more»
Invented in France, perfected in England,the essay flourishes in America. There is talk of its demise, but the essay is too protean to die... more»
From risqué to femme fatale, the language of love is French. The explanation is simple: Those French insist on eroticizing everything... more»
“Don’t be upset if my letters are full of impatience,” said Joseph Roth. “I live and write in a continual state of confusion.” The drinking didn’t help... more»
Alan Turing was a courageous, patriotic, but sad, unconventional man. He was also gay. Can homosexuality help explain his genius?... more»
Much of the work of an editor consists of breaking bad news: “Your manuscript is not quite right, but do stay in touch.” T.S. Eliot was an expert at this... more»
“The films of a nation reflect its mentality.” That’s the social scientist Siegfried Kracauer, whose theory of filmpermeates contemporary criticism... more»
“For” and “four”; “stake” and “steak”; “peak,” “peek,” and “pique”: Why isEnglish spelling so complicated? The trouble started in the sixth century...more»
It’s been said that Cézanne altered our conception of the world. Maybe. But comparing him to Marx and Freud? Julian Barnes isn’t having it... more»
Saul Steinberg was deep without being difficult, an intellectual who put on no airs, a genius, a prankster, a bad husband. And a grim, self-loathing old man...more»
We don’t know much about Titian. The artist was a family man, though he gallivanted with Venetian nobleman and high-class pornographers... more»
Philip Larkin didn’t much like the poor, or black people, or other writers, or himself. But he was fond of Kingsley Amis, at least some of the time... more»
No institutions, no expectations, no regard for the audience: Geoff Dyer does as he pleases. His capacity for change is impressive... more»
Jackson Lears has been thinking about the relationship between intellectual celebrity and conventional wisdom. He’s been thinking about Jared Diamond...more»
Before Hobbes, political thought was historical thought, much of it wacky. Since Hobbes, political thought is about ideas, many of them preposterous... more»
Imagine a world in which everything is operatic: People don’t talk, they sing; women dress as men posing as women; everything is ludicrous... more»
Beethoven’s Fifth is synonymous with artistic genius. Those severe, brooding, portentous first four notes are a masterstroke of misdirection... more»
Cézanne was brilliant. But a shaper of the modern world, a colonizer of our collective conscious? It’s an audacious claim, and a foolish one... more»
As Martin Amis’s literary powers decline, and his moral pretensions and celebrity grow, insulting him has become a literary pastime... more»
Reading Freud in Tehran. Oedipus complexes and incestuous dreams: neurosis knows no boundaries. The talking cure catches on in Iran... more»
On epigraphs. They’re more than quotations, more than showoffy mottos. They’re a reminder that creating literature is a social act... more»
The science of jokes. Empirical investigations and cognitive theses help explain the cerebral side of humor. But fart jokes remain a mystery... more»

Essays and Opinion

Our glittering age of technologism and scientism. Leon Wieseltier has heard the news – Jane Austen was a game theorist, Proust a neuroscientist – and he’s not impressed... more»
Long a landlubbers’ province, the arts and social sciences can learn much from the planet’s watery wilderness, writes John Gillis... more»
Though collaboration can ease intellectual isolation, the humanities has never been kind to those who take up with co-authors... more»
As physics spins out into ever-more abstract realms, the field drifts toward incoherence. Raymond Tallis’s cure? More philosophy... more»
Modern misinterpretation has garbled the obscene but unpornographic thoughts of the Marquis de Sade. Still, echoes of his boudoir philosophy abound... more»
Against the classics, is resistance futile? “Hating The Great Gatsby is like spitting into the Grand Canyon,” says Joyce Carol Oates. “It will not be going away anytime soon, but you will”... more»
We’ve never been subjected to so much distraction. The remedy? For Sven Birkerts, a rhythmic trance aboard a stationary bike transports ideas to clarity... more»
What is charm? Some mysterious cocktail of wit, wisdom, worldliness, civility. But this much we know: Charm is a virtue in decline... more»
Look at the odd relationship between Nabokov and his novels, and several questions are raised. Not least: Is Humbert Humbert Jewish?... more»
Among the arts of conversation, small talk – “Beautiful day out” – gets too little respect. Yes, it tends toward the trivial. But there is no greater democratizer... more»
Leprechaun fetish? You’re not alone. Indeed, kink has gone mainstream. But don’t ask theory-addled scholars of gender for insight, says Camille Paglia... more»
Syphilis and creativity. Nietzsche’s grandiosity, Van Gogh’s death obsession, Schubert, Flaubert, Wilde, Joyce: Did the disease shape their work?... more»
Fighting and fieldwork. Anthropology, driven by governments and geneticists, has become a battle royal. At the center is Napoleon Chagnon... more»
The humanist funeral. Hard-line rationalists are matter-of-fact about death: no fuss, no tears, not a whiff of religion. In the event, though, it isn’t so simple... more»
Wedding-poem problem. Like wildflowers and little white lights, poetry is ubiquitous at weddings. But it can’t be too abstract, long, or sexual. What’s left? clichés... more»
Übermensch and open markets. Hayek and the Austrian School may have been subtly, profoundly influenced by Nietzschean economics... more»
To the world, Jacques Barzun was a famous historian. To his grandson, he was a confidant, a guide to grooming, career, and the “enigmas of love”... more»
Alain de Botton, purveyor of philosophy-flecked self-help, is much derided. But give him this: He has written the least sexy book about sex ever published... more»
Higher education is a public resource, not a private privilege, says Michael Sandel. So his Harvard course is free online. Is he putting other scholars out of work?... more»... more»
Critical theory has long been in eclipse, Freud and Marx in rigor mortis. The humanities are adrift, without a unifying intellectual movement. Here comes neuroscience... more»
Sex and economics. John Maynard Keynes – all mustache and bedroom eyes – had many lovers. Is there any connection between the people he slept with and the ideas he espoused?... more»
Intellectuals have become too professionalized, too careerist, too timid, says Pankaj Mishra. The result: Our echo chamber of conventional wisdom... more»
Against Gatsby. Fitzgerald’s classic is not elegant, bold, or morally acute. It is condescending, self-serious, and among the most overrated books around... more»
Nikolai Gogol was a connoisseur of the bizarre, the madcap. His masterpiece, Dead Souls, is a book that is better for being unfinished... more»
We’re awash in techno-utopian visions of endless progress. It’s long been thus. The problem isn’t optimism, says David Rieff. The problem is foolish optimism... more»
Ira B. Arnstein explained his failure as a songwriter like this: Cole Porter and Irving Berlin were plagiarizing him. So Arnstein sued, again and again. He lost – his cases and his sanity... more»
Fraud, failure to replicate, a field in crisis: Social psychology is having a bad year. Deep breaths. The culture of science is actually changing for the better... more»
Here’s the thing about being a persecuted artist: Everyone wants to talk about everything but your art. Salman Rushdie explains... more»
Are criminals made or born? Consider Donta Page and his history of robbery, rape, and murder. Can neuroscience explain his penchant for violence?... more»
Hemingway had bullfighting, E.M. Forster had music, Colm Tóibín has opera: The anxiety-free inspiration of nonliterary art forms... more»
In 1950, Muriel Spark was an unknown poet with a single passion: rescuing Mary Shelley from the condescension of the literati ... more»
The denizens of cultural studies have embraced Marxism, building on the work of the great critic of capitalism–and distorting it beyond recognition... more»
Thomas Szasz thought it dangerous to be wrong, but fatal to be right when everyone says you’re wrong. His belief was both self-flattery and hard-earned insight... more»
Inside the William Gaddis archive. The relics of the novelist’s reclusive and complex life include a zebra skin, a player-piano roll, and a drab pair of women’s shoes... more»
The celebrity poet. Carl Sandburg did the Ed Sullivan Show, See It Now, the Today Show. His words were set to music, and Gene Kelly danced... more»
From glasnost and perestroika to Pussy Riot: Today’s Russia can be glimpsed in the work of an intellectual pugilist from an earlier era’s agitation... more»
After World War II, Zosa Szajkowski collected a trove of French Judaica, depositing it in American archives. Heroic rescue or greedy theft?... more»
Galileo was impatient, irritable, but never afraid to admit error. Such qualities remain the essence of science. Adam Gopnik explains... more»
The real Wagner: women’s clothing, theatrical somersaults, funny faces, French fashion magazines, a loose grip on reality... more»
Vision. Truth. Taxidermy. Carl Akeley, who mastered the art of stuffing animals, could have flourished only in America, a country obsessed with realism... more»
Jan Assmann wants to solve the riddle of anti-Semitism. But the celebrated Egyptologist’s effort to understand the problem has succeeded only in exacerbating it... more»
Can a building have an ideology? Can a facade be fascist? Can a great architect be a war criminal? Consider Albert Speer... more»
First novels are often unadventurous and formulaic. Flaubert's and Nabokov's debuts, however, were Icarian. Their books flew too close to the sun... more»
In 1862, Dostoevsky dropped in on Dickens, who spoke revealingly about himself. One problem: The meeting never happened. Inside a dizzying literary hoax... more»
Angst is on the rise, says Elaine Showalter. The distress is real, but so is the way an obsessive focus on it has created a self-fulfilling prophecy... more»
Oh, the injustice! The moral quagmire of just deserts divides us into retributionists and moderates. Should the wicked suffer for their wickedness?... more»
From Bourdieu to Bezos. When the CEO of Amazon adopts the language of sociological analysis, it’s clear something is up. The triumph of sociological thinking... more»
Call it the Full Fukuyama. Since he declared the end of history, big thinkers can’t get enough: Now we’ve reached the end of power, men, sex, nature, truth, marriage, faith, reason... more»
Rich and poor, rectitude and laxity, sacred and profane: Moscow has always abounded in contrasts. Flowing through the city’s dichotomous terrain: vodka... more»
Part Jesuit, part scholar, part P.T. Barnum: Athanasius Kircher knew so much about so many things, and much of what he knew was wrong... more»
Prizes, fellowships, and an emphasis on collegiality have tamed the poetic impulse. What does poetry need? More spleen, more satire, more venom... more»
The religion of information. Prophets of big data insist that the human experience can be quantified. But we are ambiguous beings... more»
Beware the siren song of Silicon Valley, where meme-engineers spin alluring concepts that cloak more than they clarify. The problem has a name: Tim O'Reilly... more»
Abysses are monstrous, terrifying, and, in literature, ubiquitous. Here they are in Baudelaire, there in Nietzsche, everywhere in Kafka... more»
The first flâneur. Opium was Thomas De Quincy’s nemesis. It prevented him from writing. Then he made addiction his subject... more»
Refined readers of Arts & Letters Daily, when wronged, seek justice, not revenge, that impulse of the uncivilized. But what's so bad about getting even?... more»
Fainting, crying, loss of self-control, moral atrophy: All have been described as effects of Wagner’s work. It’s worth asking: Is he bad for us?... more»
The mystery of mastery. How an 18th-century automaton teaches us about innate genius, rigorous practice, and sheer artifice... more»
Free time, time not dedicated to work, is dangerous because it forces us to decide what to do with it. When leisure is robot-enabled, the danger is double... more»
Within a few hundred years of Jesus’ death, the language of anti-Judaism was pervasive among Christian intellectuals. We are still absorbing the implications... more»
Animals, said Descartes, “eat without pleasure, cry without pain, grow without knowing it; they desire nothing, fear nothing, know nothing.” A century of science says otherwise... more»
The business of literature is chaotic. Always been that way. Technology evolves, but the question remains: What is the value of a book?... more»
Inventing a language is arduous, even preposterous. Yet invented languages are ubiquitous. What's the motivation? Ego, sure, but mostly dissatisfaction... more»
Howard Zinn had a flair for the theatrical and a knack for engaging audiences. As a thinker, however, he was lazy, conventional, and sloppy... more»
Nick Cohen has a warning for lefties: Beware of Verso. The company may offer to publish you. But good luck getting royalties, or escaping with your reputation intact... more»
At 14, Friedrich Schiller was sent to a military academy. The atmosphere was oppressive. Rape, betrayal, imprisonment. They became themes in his work... more»
Philosophers, like politicians, get flak for changing their minds. So what? says Hilary Putnam. His only commitment is to noncommitment... more»
Louis Agassiz was a charismatic lecturer, craven racist, staunch anti-Darwinist. He was also brilliant. Harvard didn’t give him a job; it built him a school... more»
How to make boredom interesting? What did Auden mean when he said to become “the whole of boredom”? Those questions preoccupied David Foster Wallace... more»
Julian Jaynes, Princeton psychologist, took a dim view of his field – “bad poetry disguised as science.” He had his own theory of how mankind learned to think... more»
Evolutionary biology can explain the halibut and the hickory tree. As for black-turtleneck-wearing, angst-ridden existentialists, who can say?... more»
The argument that some parts of the world are not ready for democracy is durable, deep-rooted, and influential. It’s also completely wrong... more»
Ray Kurzweil is not a philosopher, psychologist, or neuroscientist, but he knows “the secret of human thought.” There is danger in such loose talk... more»
Ours is an authenticity-obsessed age. Politicians, coffee shops, food, art are scrutinized for evidence of inauthenticity. But some things are too real to be true... more»
When Julian Baggini was a child, the Encyclopaedia Britannica stood for the dream of a better life. So why has he set fire to all 32 volumes?... more»
Novel, parodies, movies, Broadway show, bombastic soundtrack: “Les Misérables is many things,” says Paul Berman, “but never has it been dead. It respires. It procreates”... more»
Here’s where Thoreau drew the line: city life on one side, nature on the other. You can’t have it both ways. But does modern life really permit a choice?... more»
When it comes to obscenity, we discourage it rather than denounce it. Hell, we can't even define it. Why? Because keeping it vague suits everybody... more»
What's in a name? The literary landscape once was littered with Johns and Jonathans. Now we are entering the age of the unconventionally named author... more»
John Milton was a misogynistic, heretical crank. It's hard to like a man who dismissed colleagues as buffoons and bawds. But he was more than a turgid little prig... more»
God and booze. Ancient Egyptians drank beer; the Greeks praised Dionysus. Buddhists, Muslims, and Mormons take a dimmer view of intoxicants. Christians can't decide... more»
Secretions, symptoms, signs. Tears can mean almost anything – grief, joy, proximity to chopped onions. They are a physical and metaphysical mystery... more»
Welcome to the problem-free future. “Smart” trash cans monitor your recycling, forks regulate your diet. It’s social engineering, disguised as product engineering... more»
Progress and poverty. The ideal of having enough – being comfortable – used to hold sway, along with a belief that wealth increased poverty. No more... more»...more»...
Hair-bobbing, heart-breaking Edna St. Vincent Millay conquered Greenwich Village with her looks and lyrics. The greatest female poet since Sappho?... more»
Dexedrine, champagne, Antigone. Few actresses seemed to have less need for serious reading, yet Marilyn Monroe was all for the intellectual life... more»
Gone is the rigor of Montaigne. Today’s essayists are yarn-spinners, tall-tale tellers, humorists parading as autobiographers... more»
The guerrilla paradox. Irregular fighters often humble richer and more-advanced foes. Then they tend to do something silly: adopt conventional tactics... more»
Modern life, we’re told, is out of sync with human evolution. Thus the paleo diet and other fads – all belying the way evolution actually works... more»
In search of timeless art. Hear a song over and over again: the magic fades, the melody grates. What if you discovered an immortal song, painting, poem, novel?...more»
From time to time, the god of fiction deserts Ian McEwan. His disbelief won’t – can’t! – be suspended. Then a detail, a phrase, a story returns him to the fold...more»
In his fiction, James Lasdun specializes in creepy narrators. In his life, has been slandered by a creepy stalker. “The nature of a smear is that it survives formal cleansing”... more»
Paris, May 29, 1913. The curtain opened on “knock-kneed and long-braided Lolitas,” Stravinsky recalled. And then “the storm broke”... more»
Stanley Cavell dropped out of Juilliard and joined a philosophy department, but its language was too abstract. He was determined to reclaim fleshy, everyday words... more»
The idea that life has a purpose, a destination, has for 400 years been denounced as antirational nonsense. Yet it endures. Why?.. more»
The Classical Tradition is an impressive work of great ambition. The trouble can be summed up in three words: “The,” “Classical,” and “Tradition”... more»
Moral intensity, bizarre charisma, lack of political imagination: Elaine Scarry is a representative thinker of our time... more»
The English Everyman edition of Wodehouse now numbers 84 volumes. A half-dozen biographies are in print, too. Is there anything more to say? Well, yes...more»
“Girl-woman earthiness,” “sassy kitten,” “a sexual prop used to sell movies and jeans.” Oh, the trouble that comes from men writing about women... more»
When it comes to comfort reading, Will Self doesn’t want to inhabit the world of a spy novel. No, he wants to imagine slipping into a !Kung hunter’s penis sheath and hoisting a hunting spear... more»
Relationships between writers and publishers are fraught, marked by mutual admiration and mutual suspicion. Consider Thomas Bernhard and Siegfried Unseld... more»
Self-plagiarism, false memories, literary kleptomania. What happens, Oliver Sacks wonders, when our most vivid thoughts are not our own?... more»
Fear and loathing, plus self-protection. In Brooklyn in the 1980s, a $65 revolver seemed like a good idea. Butlife with a gun was more stressful than without... more»
Physicists are drawn to elegant theories – “symmetrical,” they’re called – some of which turn out to be true. But their beauty can be blinding... more»
New works on women lack the fire of Betty Friedan. They don’t rage, they fizzle. And Rachel Shteir has had quite enough of them... more»
Michael Dirda is giving up blogging. The furrows of the brain occasionally need to lie fallow. Besides, his book-buying budget calls for the big bucks now... more»
Vocabulary = cognitive ability = economic success, writes E.D. Hirsch. To reduce inequality in America, a good place to start is the language-arts classroom...more»
Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained leans on tropes of the bad black man that have long been part of the African-American memory of slavery and its aftermath...more»
Do animals make music? Consider the hermit thrush: nondescript, flitting about the underbrush, where it feeds on insects and berries. But, oh, its song... more»
Is it pretentious to say “status quo” or “cul de sac”? George Orwell thought so. No surprise, then, that his advice on language sometimes curdled into the absurd...more»
A jury of art students in 1913 convicted Matisse of “artistic murder.” They disagreed, it seems, about what makes a canvas a painting... more»
Performance-enhancing drugs are a way of cheating that does not merely falsify wins and losses or individual records, but mocks the very character of the athlete...more»
Whether wood or glass, graffiti-covered or secretion-sticky, the phone booth is a final relic of a time when privacy was sought and respected... more»
Big Crit and its discontents. An algorithm can tell you what Animal Farm says about animals, but it can't tell you what it says about Stalinism... more»
A critic’s life. Daniel Mendelsohn on the gay sensibility, genre, Susan Sontag and Edmund White, and the shrinking relevance of literary scholars... more»
J.M. Coetzee has spawned an army of apologists, explicators, imitators. He leads them on like a Pied Piper, dropping theory-laden crumbs in his path... more»
Disgust and delight. What excites our desire – a naked body, a boiled lobster, a cigarette – is simultaneously what threatens to trigger our revulsion... more»
John Brockman’s Edge question for 2013 asks more than 150 intellectuals, “What should we be worried about?”... more»
What is a poet’s biography for? A New Life, declares the subtitle of a book on John Keats. But the arguments are old, even if some details are not... more»
So you think the brain is a well-ordered machine? It’s not. In fact, it’s anarchy. The well-tempered mind, saysDaniel Dennett, is an achievement, not the norm...more»
Friendship is protean – and vital. It’s the nectar of life. Who else is going to listen to you prattle on about your interminable divorce?... more»
Automation and its discontents. There are few areas of life in which machines have not taken over. Benefits abound, but Julian Baggini draws the line at coffee...more»
Taken, made, jotted, foot, or head: Notes are necessary interventions between the things we read and the things we write. Geoff Nunberg explains... more»
The biggest problem with the self-help movement isn’t charlatanism, shoddy science, or New Age gimmicks. It is a woefully inadequate view of the self itself... more»
The left has long viewed sport with suspicion. Orwell called it “war minus the shooting.” His disdain smacks of smug elitism. Competition is brutal, ruthless, and full of joy... more»
The post-scarcity society. Keynes predicted that it would be here by now, that leisure would replace work. Suppose such a utopia were feasible; would we want it?... more»
The question of American decline is the question of Western decline. And that leads to Oswald Spenglerand the very idea of progress... more»
The Pushkin industry. The Russian poet has been used to sell cigarettes, candy, pens, stationery, shoes, perfumes, communism. Myth has long since obscured the man... more»
Network of networks, more significant than telephone, television, or computer: The Internet, revolution of revolutions, is an under-recognized cultural transformation... more»
Thinking about a graduate degree in literature? Ron Rosenbaum has urgent advice: Stop! That’s no way to waste your life... more»
In our culture of proliferation, every taste is given a niche and every niche is catered to. Is this the end of big works of literary synthesis? Sven Birkerts has some thoughts... more»
Carl Jung’s unfinished book features a winged magician, a heretical Christian Libyan anchorite, and an ax-wielding god. No wonder he kept it secret.. more»
With his gold-rimmed spectacles, passion for all things discursive, biting wit: A.C. Grayling personifies the philosopher as gadfly... more»
Bram Stoker was prone to hero worship. And no hero more worshipfully than Walt Whitman, a man with long white hair and a heavy mustache, much like Count Dracula... more»
Relativist, prophet of postmodernism, enemy of truth, or elitist defender of the authority of science: Thomas Kuhn was all things to all people. Mostly he was misunderstood... more»
Digital maps are the enemies of wonder. All-seeing satellites dampen our urge to explore, making the world a less exciting place... more»
Wine and wit. From Falstaff’s tavern underworld to drunken delusions in The Tempest to Cassio’s intoxication in Othello, alcohol aids drama – Shakespeare’s, at least... more»
“When the guns talk,” goes a proverb, “the muses fall silent.” Nonsense. War stimulates creativity and a desire for cultural reassurance. The Great War was the great exception... more»
High culture was concerned with truth. Now it propagates nonsense. Fake ideas have replaced real ones; fake intellectuals have supplanted genuine scholars... more»
There are certain words that pry open our imaginations and make us think about things otherwise ignored. For Robert Fulford, “palimpsest” is one such word... more»
Pleasure is the beach, a new sweater, a pineapple Popsicle. Joy is dropping Ecstasy, falling in love, having children. Zadie Smith parses the distinction... more»
Culture once meant intellectual heights and aesthetic ideals. Now it means petty entertainment. Mario Vargas Llosa and Gilles Lipovetsky explain... more»
Scientists once mocked the pretentious, omniscient claims of philosophical positivists. Now scientism is guilty of the same folly... more»
Hunter-gatherers, esoteric cults, revolutionary brigades: We’ve always had a capacity for in-group imitation. And we are as ritualistic today as we've ever been... more»
Marcel Duchamp was ambivalent, even embarrassed, about producing art. He was in search of a medium untainted by aesthetics. He was, in short, a Romantic... more»
Justin Smith loves kids, he really does. But please stop telling him that a philosopher cannot realize his potential unless he becomes a parent... more»
Elegies for ink and paper abound, but are physical books going away? Not necessarily. Handwriting, on the other hand, is toast... more»
Homework has few champions: Children loathe it, parents suffer through it, teachers can’t get out from under it. Now the president of France wants to ban it... more»
Teenage boys are impressionable. Some fall under the sway of Ayn Rand, others of Tolkien. For Paul Krugman it was Isaac Asimov... more»
Amy Leal used to dream about becoming a renowned literary scholar. Now she dreams about her son – that he remains alive and able to eat and walk... more»
One hundred years ago, the leading lights of modernism broke ranks with the arbiters of culture. “No single event, before or since, has had such an influence on American art”... more»
How did the art world become a hellhole of money-crazed pretension and 70s-era punk-rock-shock tactics? Simon Doonan has some thoughts... more»