Top Articles of 2023
As 2023 comes to a close, we’re proud to present our most-read web pieces of the year, listed below in reverse order. If you enjoy…
Issue 31
The annotated table of contents below offers a sneak peek at what’s in issue 31. To get the issue delivered straight to your door, subscribe…
Note on Humility and Power
In 1956, announcing her opposition to Oxford’s decision to award Harry Truman an honorary degree, the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe noted that “protests by people who…
On the Aesthetic Turn
The critical tide is turning, once again. The professional critics—and not just the old, curmudgeonly ones—are fed up with moralizing, and they are willing to…
On Mobs
We must instead learn how to play a different game: the game of mutual humanization. But how do we know when we are playing that…
A Form of Refuge
This is the first installment of “Preserving Gaza,” a series of interviews with Palestinian writers and scholars about particular aspects of Gaza’s history, heritage and…
How the Story Turns Out
Since 1999, Edwin Frank and a handful of colleagues have published more than five hundred titles noteworthy for their excellence, latitude and cosmopolitanism.
After October 7th
The following is a transcript of a panel discussion of activists in Israel/Palestine about the war in Gaza organized by Charles Lenchner for ACT.TV and…
When Meghan Married Harry
This essay is a preview of our forthcoming print issue, which features the symposium “What is college for?”
Limited Time
INTRODUCTION The subtitle of Martin Hägglund’s new book, This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom, indicates its ambition. In the first half of This Life,…
The Beauty Industry
What does it mean to face the question of beauty every day, not just personally but professionally? This spring we surveyed models, cosmetic physicians, influencers…
Working in Tech
What is it like to work in tech every day? This winter we surveyed people who work in tech about their jobs, common misconceptions about…
Military Life
We sent around a questionnaire asking veterans to reflect on their time in the military: what it meant to them, how it changed them and…
Intellectuals in Crisis
Intellectual Ex-Radicals and World Reaction: The Crisis of the Disillusioned Fellow-Travelers of Bolshevism Is Not the Same as a “Crisis of Marxism” (Trotsky 1939) The Intellectual:…
Muellerisms
The following is a collection of statements published in the New York Times about Robert S. Mueller, from 2001 to today.
Comedy Studies
The following are actual titles of papers published in peer-reviewed academic journals.
The Crisis of Language Project
alt right: i) right-wing racists who use leftist rhetoric. ii) establishment.
The (Updated) Dictionary of Received Ideas
Classics, the: force of oppression. Know enough to despise ~: “Plato was an authoritarian.” “Aristotle condoned slavery.”
Another World
What was really at stake in this election was something closer to the existential: whether this utopian experiment would live on, or needed to be…
Ruins upon Ruins
The battles of late medieval times have had a long, poisonous afterlife in this part of the world, and there is something ominous about Vijayanagara’s…
Darkness over Donbas
War has settled into my imagination and doesn’t want to leave. Maybe it has always been there.
Every Weirdo in the World Is on My Wavelength
A writer is a creature of solitude: Has there ever been a bigger lie?
Parnassus
I was going to keep my mouth shut, but given all the commotion, what else can I do? Let someone else spill the tea, making me…
The Life of the Mind
By some indicators we are entering a new Dark Age: anti-intellectual fervor is raging, suspicion of experts is at an all-time high and appeals to…
Democracy in America
Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America arrives at an auspicious time. The French sociologist came initially to America to prepare a report on criminal justice,…
Back to Real Life
This is the first column in the fourth round of Reading Room, a collective column on reading and life. In each round, the contributors respond…
Restless Minds
This is the third column in the third round of Reading Room, a collective column on reading and life. In each round, the contributors respond to a prompt…
Guilt Lit
This is the second column in the third round of Reading Room, a collective column on reading and life. In each round, the contributors respond to…
Seductive Delusions
This is the fifth installment of Higher Gossip, an advice column on sex and love. Read previous installments here. ● Q: During the pandemic, I…