Arts in Society

Boston Review’s Arts in Society section publishes poetry, fiction, creative nonfiction, and criticism. It focuses on how the arts loosen the hold of convention, bear witness to injustice, provoke new ways of seeing the world, and speak to the most pressing political and civic concerns of our time.

Browse by Genre

Criticism, Poem, Memoir, Short Story

Browse Criticism by Topic

Fiction, Film and TV, Literature, Music, Poetry, Visual Art

Archipelagos of Experience

Translating Southeaster by Haroldo Conti.

  • Jessica Sequeira

The Problem with David Brooks

In true American style, Brooks understands our lives to be the products of individual will alone.

  • Claude S. Fischer

Two Poems

  • Susan Mitchell

Poet’s Sampler: Meg Freitag

  • Meg Freitag
  • Lisa Olstein

Morning Lasso

  • Rebecca Lehmann

Devouring Each Other

  • Christopher Kondrich

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Work This Thing

Two new books by Fred Moten

  • Elizabeth Willis

Your Own Worst Enemy

Every day we transgress against our own longing to act well.

  • Vivian Gornick

Everyday Apocalypse

Ansel Elkins's Blue Yodel

  • Olivia Schwob

The Carbon Cycle

Kathleen Ossip's The Do-Over

  • Martha Silano

My Word

  • Robyn Schiff

Dole Girl

2015 Aura Estrada Contest Winner

  • Barbara Hamby

erasing love

  • Kimiko Hahn

Translation: The Mangled Braid

Translation is always other than its original: even if it is unimpeachably faithful, a translated story will feel and act differently in a new language.

  • Nick Admussen

Can She Act?

Olivier Assayas's Clouds of Sils Maria

  • Alan A. Stone

Microreview: Samantha Giles, Deadfalls and Snares

  • Anna Moschovakis

Undiscovered Genius of the Mississippi Delta

  • Rickey Laurentiis

First Light: Elliot Park

  • Lisa Fink

Preserving the Self

The Political Economy of Attention

  • George Scialabba

Racism: Dumb and Personal / Smart and Structural

Opponents often associate racism with ignorance. But intelligent people promote oppression through colorblindness.

  • Simon Waxman

Bad Enough With Genghis Khan

  • Sarah Layden

Microreview: Joanna Penn Cooper, What Is a Domicile

  • Carlo Matos

Natural Intelligence

  • Ben Purkert

Lav Diaz’s Quiet Storm

Lav Diaz’s singular approach to history is liberated from the shackles of business-oriented film.

  • Adam Katzman
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