Tolkien—A Review
The real-life Tolkien, who loathed trite allegory, would have cringed.
Charlotte Allen
· 7 min read
literature
A collection of 56 posts
The Case for Nabokov
An even moderately careful reading of Lolita should make it quite clear that it’s anything but a “celebration” of child rape.
Cathy Young
· 13 min read
The Narcissistic Fracturing of LGBT Literature
The world of the left generally, and of LGBT identity politics specifically, wasn’t always focused on infinite fragmentation within sects.
Nick Comilla
· 10 min read
Why Do People Tell Me I’m Not Allowed to Write?
The issue was that when a white playwright’s work was produced, casting directors were assuming that they should cast white actors. We were all aghast.
Libby Emmons
· 10 min read
Are the Classics Complicit in White Supremacy?
No reason to believe that classics as a field has had any particular tendency towards white supremacism either in the present or in the past.
James Kierstead
· 9 min read
Is Western Civilization Uniquely Bad?
If we are looking for a civilization that never engaged in mass violence or destruction, we’re unlikely to find one.
James Kierstead
· 8 min read
Enlightenment Wars: Some Reflections on 'Enlightenment Now,' One Year Later
As Thomas Paine wrote, “To argue with someone who has renounced the use of reason is like administering medicine to the dead.”
Steven Pinker
· 52 min read
Correcting ‘Youth’s Eternal Temptation to Arrogance’—One Bedtime Story at a Time
Children get a wider perspective when they’re tugged out of the here and now for a little while each day. In an enchanted hour, we can read them stories of the real and imagined past.
Meghan Cox Gurdon
· 9 min read
Is Western Civilization a Thing?
Appiah is wrong to pretend that distinct civilizations were never a thing.
James Kierstead
· 9 min read
The Posthumous #MeToo-ing of J. D. Salinger
Salinger has been posthumously relegated to the limbo of #MeToo-tainted, “problematic” cultural figures, which probably accounts for the awkward half-silence around his centenary.
Cathy Young
· 12 min read
The Novel Isn’t Dead—Please Stop Writing Eulogies
I refuse to be discouraged by the sort of novel-gone-to-the-dogs pessimism that has been around for generations.
Gabriel Scorgie
· 9 min read