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 An Interview with Saul Bellow’s biographer Zachary Leader. Riley Moore 22 Sep 2023 · 12 min read
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 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 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 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 Most professors would rather watch it die than reform. Adam Ellwanger 5 Apr 2023 · 9 min read
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? 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? 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 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 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 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 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) 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