Ruth Prawer Jhabvala and the Art of Ambivalence The writer cast her satiric gaze widely, scrutinizing everyone from Indian élites to New York émigrés. December 31, 2018 The Contested Legacy of Atticus Finch Harper Lee’s beloved father figure became a talking point during the Kavanaugh hearings and is now coming to Broadway. Is he still a hero? December 10, 2018 Literary Hoaxes and the Ethics of Authorship What happens when we find out writers aren’t who they said they were. December 3, 2018 When Michelangelo Went to Constantinople The novelist Mathias Énard reimagines the Renaissance. November 19, 2018 Why Do Filmmakers Love van Gogh? Julian Schnabel’s “At Eternity’s Gate,” starring Willem Dafoe, stands in a lineage of movies that use the painter’s tortured life to probe the nature of art. November 12, 2018 The Velvet Revolution of Claude Debussy How a reclusive Frenchman created some of the most radical, beautiful music of the modern era. October 22, 2018 The Prophetic Pragmatism of Frederick Douglass He escaped from slavery, and helped rescue America. October 8, 2018 Tracy K. Smith’s Poetry of Desire Smith is a storyteller who loves to explore how the body can respond to a lover, to family, and to history. September 24, 2018 Is Education a Fundamental Right? The history of an obscure Supreme Court ruling sheds light on the ongoing debate over schooling and immigration. September 3, 2018 Can Economists and Humanists Ever Be Friends? One discipline reduces behavior to elegantly simple rules; the other wallows in our full, complex particularity. What can they learn from each other? July 16, 2018