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General

 

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…

 

Issue 30

The annotated table of contents below offers a sneak peek at what’s in issue 30.

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Letter

 

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…

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Dialogue

 

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…

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Remarks

 

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,…

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Survey

 

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…

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Further Materials

 

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.

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Dictionary

 

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.”

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Correspondence

 

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.

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Literature

 

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…

 

Shame

I am not seeking to establish any kind of order—I know full well there isn’t any.

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Slush Pile

 

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…

 

Endgame

Finally, in Samuel Beckett, we have our poet-laureate of climate change.

 

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,…

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Reading Room

 

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…

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Advice

 

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…

 

Grand Gestures

This is the fourth installment of Higher Gossip, an advice column on sex and love.

 

The Holy Evil

This is the third installment of Higher Gossip, an advice column on sex and love.

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