Art and Culture

Embracing the Passion and Perfection of Chess

While claims of skill transfer may be overblown, there is still benefit to be had in the tiny, claustrophobic world of the game.

Iona Italia 20 May 2023 · 12 min read

John Cabot’s New Found Land

In the fourth instalment of an ongoing Quillette series, historian Greg Koabel describes how the quest for cod and a possible passage to China sparked England’s first transatlantic ventures

Greg Koabel 19 May 2023 · 33 min read

Bastardizing Beethoven

From Fidelio to The Soldier’s Tale, some of history’s greatest compositions are being co-opted as social-justice propaganda

Heather Mac Donald 17 May 2023 · 10 min read

The Girl of the Endless Summer

How ‘Gidget’ helped to put surfing on the map.

Kevin Mims 12 May 2023 · 20 min read

Contemporary feminist thought is correct to identify the male gaze as the default way of seeing, but has largely overlooked the fact that the gaze places power squarely in the hands of women, not men.

Marilyn Simon 12 May 2023 · 12 min read

Art’s Gender Hustle

Any critic unable to tell great from good, passable from poor, is incompetent. The critic who refuses to do so for ideological reasons is compromised.

Aidan Harte 9 May 2023 · 10 min read

Samantha Geimer and Emmanuelle Seigner in Conversation

The two women most directly affected by the 1977 Polanski scandal discuss guilt, shame, feminism, #MeToo, the media, and the search for truth and understanding.

Peggy Sastre 6 May 2023 · 29 min read

The World of the Iroquois

In the third instalment of an ongoing Quillette series, historian Greg Koabel describes the revolution in agriculture, politics, and war that would transform many Indigenous societies before the arrival of French explorers.

Greg Koabel 4 May 2023 · 28 min read

Disquiet on the Western Front

Edward Berger’s award-winning film is a deeply flawed adaptation that replaces the book’s complexity and humanity with hyperbolic surrealism and misanthropy.

Alan S. Rome 4 May 2023 · 14 min read