The Latest
A Kurdish Problem
Kurds—the largest stateless ethnic group in the world—can be found on all sides of an increasingly complex conflict that stretches across Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and Iran.
Poet’s Sampler: Analicia Sotelo
Exploring the complexity of being a Latinx woman in contemporary America.
Slaves of the State: Prison Uprisings and the Legacy of Attica
A historian uncovered an archive of massacre at Attica—only to have the records disappear.
“Lower the Pitch of Your Suffering”
. . . Free is not a negro doused
in white, blanched,
bleached, and sent down
the path. Free
almost never means alive, so
please try—
I’m asking for help.
Voter Discrimination Starts Well Before Election Day
Voter ID laws burden minorities, but discrimination starts well before they reach the voting booth.
Hillary Clinton and the Unqualified Right to Abortion
She is the first major politician to support abortion without qualification. And she has never polled better with millennials.
How Not to Argue for Basic Income
When proponents deploy the logic of market competition, they undermine democracy and social equality.
A Backward Song
Stephen Burt talks with Monica Youn about her book Blackacre, longlisted for the National Book Award
Global Dystopias, Critical Dystopias: A Podcast with Junot Díaz
Our critique of the present is essential to producing a future.
Real Citizens
Trump shows us that populism is not the same as legitimate protest—or democracy.
From “Sagas of the Accidental Saint”
March 3, 2014, Iberia Parish, LA—
Police say that Victor White III, 22,
shot himself while handcuffed
in the back of a police cruiser.
The Dragons Were Blue Too Soon
Max Ritvo and Elizabeth Metzger discuss music, meaning, and revision
WATCH: Junot Díaz on Trump’s Shamelessness
Junot Díaz dissects Donald Trump's misogynist rhetoric and the larger societal forces that make it possible.
Trump’s Call For Dystopian Policing
Stop-and-frisk and broken-windows policing have ravaged black communities, while failing to make cities any safer.
Lost in Translation
Schools in Nepal increasingly use English as the language of instruction. But in the name of preparing them for a globalized world, non-mother-tongue education often fails the students it aims to help.
The End of Interventionism
Two British reports deliver a damning and decisive verdict on the politics of interventionism.
Three Poems
As men
shuck oysters
in the open kitchen
I imagine your body
opening
to be eaten
alive. You will die . . .
Get our newsletter
Vital reading on politics, ideas, and culture to your inbox
A political and literary forum, independent and nonprofit since 1975
Registered 501(c)(3) organization
Help Us Stay Paywall-Free
Become a Member