Books & Ideas
The Wrong Way to Criticize the Humanities
A recent report, commissioned by the chancellors of Vanderbilt and Washington University, invites further intrusions on scholarly self-governance.
That’s How Change Happens
Dave Zirin on writing the life of Howard Zinn–and why his legacy points the way forward at the country’s semiquincentennial.
The Machines Get in the Way
The work of art—and the work of making art—in an age increasingly hostile to it.
Antisemitism’s Afterlives
Even as the concept is weaponized against Palestinians and critics of Israel, the far right has a growing antisemitic base.
The Making of the Deportation Machine
The pillars aren’t new. They were built over decades, with bipartisan consensus.
Renee Good’s Murder and Other Acts of Terror
An interview with Robin D. G. Kelley on how to think about ICE—and the broader history of police violence.
The Claims of Close Reading
Literary studies have been starved by austerity, but their core methodology remains radical.
The Care Factory
In the decades since the Wages for Housework movement, care work has become a site of profit in ways its leaders could never have predicted.
What We Call Progress
Can we still imagine change for the better? Critical theorist Rahel Jaeggi tries in her new book.
Plato and the Poets
The centuries-old debate should be settled: an intellectual world bereft of poetry is a damaged one.
The Inventor of the Future
The autobiography of anticolonial luminary Andrée Blouin captures her era’s euphoric highs as well as its tragic denouement.
Democracy v. the Constitution
An interview with Osita Nwanevu about his new book, The Right of the People, and why defeating authoritarianism requires going back to democratic basics.
Could Ditching Elections Save Democracy?
A new book makes the case for replacing them with a system of government based on random selection.
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