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literature

A collection of 30 posts

Robots, Rats and Hoverchairs: Three Dystopian AI Fantasies

Robots, Rats and Hoverchairs: Three Dystopian AI Fantasies

Human beings need meaning, and a life in which all one’s needs were met by external agents would fail to provide it.

Stewart Slater

5 Dec 2023 · 8 min read

‘Augie March’ Turns 70

‘Augie March’ Turns 70

An Interview with Saul Bellow’s biographer Zachary Leader.

Riley Moore

22 Sep 2023 · 12 min read

Our Lost Classical Learning

Our Lost Classical Learning

The Western canon was not an unchanging set of texts, but an ongoing conversation that lasted thousands of years—enabling each generation to build on the intellectual heritage of the past.

Brian Kaller

5 Sep 2023 · 6 min read

Milan Kundera: The Nobel Prize for Literature Winner We Never Had

Milan Kundera: The Nobel Prize for Literature Winner We Never Had

Few writers in our time were more committed to the novel or had more idealism about the heights the form could scale.

Robin Ashenden

11 Jul 2023 · 12 min read

Chaucer’s Bawdy Broad

Chaucer’s Bawdy Broad

More than six centuries after The Canterbury Tales first appeared, the Wife of Bath still has lessons to teach about love, sex, marriage, and—yes—feminism

Charlotte Allen

20 Jun 2023 · 24 min read

Kazuo Ishiguro and the Uncanny Cascade

Kazuo Ishiguro and the Uncanny Cascade

We live in a transitional period, when the possibility of being duped by incomprehensible intelligences—and thereby duping ourselves—has grown exponentially.

Anthony Eagan

7 Apr 2023 · 16 min read

The Real Reasons Why the English Department Died

The Real Reasons Why the English Department Died

Most professors would rather watch it die than reform.

Adam Ellwanger

5 Apr 2023 · 9 min read

Game, Set, Match

Game, Set, Match

Routinely reviled by contemporary critics as a celebration of misogyny, ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ is among Shakespeare’s most misunderstood plays.

Marilyn Simon

24 Mar 2023 · 11 min read

Thoughtful Aesthete or Cheerful Philistine?

Thoughtful Aesthete or Cheerful Philistine?

On art, artists, and the divided soul of comedian Russell Kane.

Robin Ashenden

10 Mar 2023 · 8 min read

Do We Still Need a Women’s Prize for Fiction?

Do We Still Need a Women’s Prize for Fiction?

It is time to consider retiring awards segregated by the sex of the author.

Josh Allan

10 Mar 2023 · 6 min read

Words Are the Only Victors

Words Are the Only Victors

Salman Rushdie’s new novel is a powerful reminder of his vital role in the endless battle for free speech.

Christian Kriticos

28 Feb 2023 · 11 min read

Roald Dahl and the Ethics of Art

Roald Dahl and the Ethics of Art

The urge to censor is based on a misunderstanding of what makes literature valuable.

Iona Italia

21 Feb 2023 · 11 min read

Ken Kesey and the Rush to Deinstitutionalization

Ken Kesey and the Rush to Deinstitutionalization

Whatever the literary strengths of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the book has done much to harm both the mentally ill and their communities.

Stephen Eide

14 Nov 2022 · 11 min read

Two Hundred Years of Stendhal

Two Hundred Years of Stendhal

2022 marks the bicentennial of the pseudonym’s transformation from literary dabbler into one of the greatest novelists of the modern age.

Robert Zaretsky

5 Oct 2022 · 10 min read

Why I Left Academia (Since You're Wondering)

Why I Left Academia (Since You're Wondering)

I didn’t have a choice. Thousands of people are driven out of the profession each year.

William Deresiewicz

17 Aug 2022 · 15 min read