A Dense Thicket of Contending Visions
In his latest novel, Tom Piazza imagines the finest meeting of American minds never to have happened.
Matt Hanson
· 6 min read
literature
A collection of 56 posts
The Genocidal Imagination
Philosophies of human cruelty, from Sade to October 7th.
Pascal Bruckner
· 21 min read
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
· 9 min read
‘Augie March’ Turns 70
An Interview with Saul Bellow’s biographer Zachary Leader.
Riley Moore
· 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
· 7 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
· 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
· 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
· 17 min read
The Real Reasons Why the English Department Died
Most professors would rather watch it die than reform.
Adam Ellwanger
· 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
· 12 min read
Thoughtful Aesthete or Cheerful Philistine?
On art, artists, and the divided soul of comedian Russell Kane.
Robin Ashenden
· 9 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
· 7 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
· 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
· 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
· 11 min read