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Art and Culture

A collection of 841 posts

Female speaker with braided hair addresses a crowd from a podium at a Washington DC rally, raising one hand and speaking into a microphone.

The Women of January 6th

A new book details the conspiratorial thinking and dark histories of two Capitol rioters.

Claire Lehmann 16 Jan 2026 · 7 min read

Crowd of protesters waving Trump 2020 flags amid police lines and smoke during unrest outside the US Capitol.

Stormclouds Over the Capitol

Mary Clare Jalonick’s oral history of the 6 January riot is an important corrective to the second Trump administration’s vandalism of the historical record.

Ron Capshaw 16 Jan 2026 · 7 min read

Shield of the FBI

Precipice of Collapse

Two new books about America’s justice system paint a bleak picture of a deeply divided country.

Ron Capshaw 2 Jan 2026 · 8 min read

Margaret Mead, a white woman with short hair and glasses, speaks to a dark-skinned mother and child.

The Sexual Paradise That Never Was

How Margaret Mead’s romanticised account of Samoan life became the founding myth of cultural determinism—and why it endures despite having been thoroughly debunked.

Patrick Whittle 30 Dec 2025 · 19 min read

Red and blue mirrored figures of The Thinker seated in identical contemplative poses.

Can Art Convey Truth?

Ways of feeling are not ways of knowing.

Jerry A. Coyne 26 Dec 2025 · 8 min read

Black-and-white film still showing a robed man walking ahead of a group of men in loose garments in the desert

The Gospel According to Pasolini

Pasolini's 1964 film reimagines the gospels as fundamentally Jewish stories.

Robert Huddleston 23 Dec 2025 · 8 min read

Black-and-white close-up portrait of a young man with short dark hair, wearing a jacket and shirt, facing the camera with a slight smile.

Alfred Hitchcock’s Christmas Movie

‘Psycho’ deserves recognition as a classic film for the festive season.

Christian Kriticos 22 Dec 2025 · 9 min read

John Illsley (far right) with Dire Straits in 1984 (left to right): Terry Williams, Allan Clarke, Mark Knopfler, and Hal Lindes. Band members are white men in their twenties.

“These Songs Are Timeless”

Forty Years on, Dire Straits’ bassist John Illsley talks to Quillette about the band’s 1985 masterpiece, ‘Brothers in Arms.’

Hannah Gal 17 Dec 2025 · 9 min read

Split black and white photograph showing Jean-Paul Belmondo as Michel Poiccard and Aubry Dullin as Jean-Paul Belmondo, smoking.

Cynicism and Cigarettes

Richard Linklater’s film about the making of Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘À Bout de Souffle’ is a delight.

Charlotte Allen 17 Dec 2025 · 17 min read

Two men in black-and-white portraits against a dark background, each facing forward with short hair and collared jackets.

Defaming the Dead

Is telling lies about someone after they die okay if that someone was a very bad person?

Holly Lawford-Smith 14 Dec 2025 · 6 min read

Young blonde woman speaking into a microphone against a dark background.

All the Nuzzi That’s Fit to Print

Love means never having to say you’re sorry.

Valerie Pavilonis 8 Dec 2025 · 10 min read

Helen Andrews is a middle-aged woman with short hair and glasses, wearing a floral shirt. She is at a podium.

Is the Great Feminisation Inevitable?

We must act quickly to reverse illiberal trends among young men and women alike.

Gideon Scopes 8 Dec 2025 · 10 min read

David Mamet is a white man in late middle age. He is talking and gesticulating. He wears glasses, a T-shirt, and a jacket.

The Conned Artist

David Mamet’s new polemic is filled with muddled prose and muddled thought.

Graham Daseler 4 Dec 2025 · 11 min read

Too Much Gilbert

Too Much Gilbert

The author of ‘Eat Pray Love’ has returned with a new memoir, which features all the usual problems with her writing writ large.

Charlotte Allen 30 Nov 2025 · 22 min read

The Jewel in the Crown

The Jewel in the Crown

‘The Man Who Would Be King’ turns fifty.

Graham Daseler 25 Nov 2025 · 21 min read