Review

Always On

By Kyle Paoletta December 18, 2018

A. S. Hamrah's film criticism is a welcome corrective in an outmoded field.

Arts & Culture

Review

Carrie Mae Weems on a Century of American Violence

By Laura Feinstein December 3, 2018

The artist and multimedia storyteller has created a haunting installation for the Cornell Council of the Arts’ 2018 Biennale.

Arts & Culture

Interview

A.J. Jacobs: Gratitude and the Global Supply Chain

By Phineas Lambert November 20, 2018

A writer's quest to thank everyone involved in the production of his morning coffee took him on a journey through the benefits of mental positivity and the complexities of global commerce.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Listening for Ghost-Voices

By Anita Roy November 9, 2018

A novel borne out of an earthquake, a departed friend, and a translation from which lost voices rise.

Arts & CultureGenderSex

Interview

Idra Novey: Silence Is Complicity

By Mickie Meinhardt November 7, 2018

The novelist, poet, and translator on the responsibilities we hold, the consequences of silence, and writing cross-genre.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Heather Havrilesky: Digging for Something Real

By Mickie Meinhardt November 1, 2018

The author of “What If This Were Enough?” on honest writing, raising kids with social media, and the growing pains of a constantly-wired culture.

Arts & Culture

Commentary

(How to) Suffer Well: Depression Sitting Still

By Sihan Tan October 24, 2018

Is the act of enduring hardship a virtue, or just an exercise in malaise?

Arts & CultureAsia & Oceania

Fiction

Destroy All Monsters

Fiction by Jeff Jackson October 8, 2018

She likes how he listens, likes the easy cadence of their conversation. Despite herself, she moves a little closer, intrigued by his faint aroma of spicy cologne and sour sweat. It’s not a bad smell.

Arts & Culture

Review

A Deliberately Wonky Sense of Morality

By Michele Moses October 5, 2018

On Andrew Martin’s debut novel, Early Work.

Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Olivia Laing: “It turned out to be an exercise in structure, in how to assemble objects in empty space.”

By Mary Wang October 4, 2018

In the first installment of our multimedia interview series, Olivia Laing uses screenshots to explain how the secretarial parts of writing can be both pleasurable and productive.

Miscellaneous Files Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Saadia Faruqi: Writing a Muslim Protagonist for Young Readers

By Ilana Masad September 27, 2018

The Pakistani-American author and activist on the burden of representation, the hunger for perfection, and the most important things about writing for kids.

Arts & Culture

Essay

The Franz Kafka Marriage Manual for Young Ladies

By Rebecca Schuman September 25, 2018

What to do with the art of a man more monstrous than the monster he created?

Arts & CultureLit World

Report

Chengdu Cool: The Rise of Sichuan’s Homegrown Hip Hop

By Yi-Ling Liu August 29, 2018

The city of Chengdu is raising China’s new generation of rappers. They are playful, provocative, and boldly assert a distinct regional sound that the public has not heard before. But under the tightening grip of the government censor, can Chengdu’s hip-hop artists keep their cool?

Arts & CultureAsia & Oceania

Interview

Ada Limón: Connected to the Universe

By Diana Delgado July 24, 2018

The critically acclaimed poet on taking risks, accepting grace, and holding the world’s pain.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Brian Turner: A Music That Suits Our Time on the Planet

By Rick Moody July 17, 2018

The poet on his debut album—a tribute to and collaboration with his late wife, by The Interplanetary Acoustic Team—and the role of music in literary practice.

Arts & CultureLit World

Review

Seeing Art in Medical Archives

By Roslyn Bernstein June 27, 2018

On both sides of the Atlantic, art and medicine mingle.

Arts & Culture

Essay

White Girls at the Table

By Lynn Steger Strong May 8, 2018

On the privilege of disappearing.

Arts & CultureRace

Interview

Lotte Geeven: Crowdsourcing the Songs of Sand

By Jennifer Gersten May 7, 2018

The Dutch artist has enlisted helpers from around the globe to help her reproduce the unique sounds of the world’s singing deserts.

Deserts Arts & Culture

Back DraftInterview

Back Draft: Carl Phillips

By Carl Phillips and Ben Purkert May 3, 2018

The inaugural installment of a new series about the revision process in poetry. First up: Carl Phillips.

Arts & CultureLit World

Essay

Looking for Katalin Street

By Rebecca Chace March 26, 2018

A real-life exploration of Magda Szabo's novel.

Arts & CultureLit World

Review

The Slave Theater Lives On Through Crystal Z. Campbell

By Kathleen Massara February 23, 2018

A short, fragmented film is a reminder of what was lost.

Arts & CultureRace

Interview

Carmen Maria Machado’s Beautiful Bad Dreams

By Emma Copley Eisenberg February 19, 2018

The author of Her Body and Other Parties talks about queerness, writing good sex scenes, and what scares her the most.

Arts & CultureBodies & Nature

Essay

Shawn Walker, Cultural Anthropologist

By Roslyn Bernstein February 7, 2018

A visit with the photographer and activist, whose first solo retrospective is now on exhibit at Steven Kasher Gallery.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Theater for a Now Audience: A Roundtable

By Carla Stockton January 17, 2018

Today's playwrights and directors weigh in on politics in theater and the state of the stage in a time of upheaval.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Underneath the Pavement, A Swelling of Grief

By John Vincler January 9, 2018

Seeing Dubuffet in St. Louis, then Kahlil Robert Irving in New York.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Eli Valley: Let the Horror Speak for Itself

By Matthew Miles Goodrich January 4, 2018

The cartoonist on taking back Judaism and the role of satire in America today.

Arts & CulturePolitics

Interview

Jonas Bendiksen: Among the Messiahs

By Brook Wilensky-Lanford December 29, 2017

Around the world, men claim to be the Second Coming of Christ. The photographer recounts the years he spent documenting—and befriending—six of them.

Arts & CultureReligion

Commentary

The Family Dolls, Featuring Charlie, Leslie, & More

By John Reed December 20, 2017

Why it's okay to play with Manson family paper dolls: The first six installments of John Reed's Manson Family Paper Doll book. Print & Color Yourself!

Arts & CultureHistoryUSA

EssayPhotography

The Incendiary Photography of Jill Freedman

By Roslyn Bernstein December 6, 2017

Irreverent and incisive photographs of a 1968 camp on the National Mall evoke the power of protest.

Arts & Culture

Fiction

Those Years in Montreal

Fiction by Alex Pruteanu November 22, 2017

You would not believe what the secret police is interested in. Fetishes, preferences, noises made in bed, how you brush your teeth.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Surrealist Refugees in the Tropics

By Terese Svoboda November 17, 2017

Jacqueline Lamba, the scandalously beautiful artist and aquatic burlesque performer who enchanted Frida Kahlo, meets Suzanne Cesaire, known as the Black Panther of Négritude.

Arts & CultureLit World

Commentary

Armistice Day in the Virtual Trenches

By Ed Winstead November 11, 2017

The First World War ended a century ago, but its violence persists.

Arts & CultureConflictHistoryLit World

Lives

Primed for Mysticism and Scared to Death

By Arielle Angel October 23, 2017

A writer reckons with Judaism, the writing life, and the allure of fundamentalism.

Arts & CultureReligion

Review

An Inspired Time for American Poetry

By Ben Purkert October 19, 2017

Fifteen debut poetry collections that define the cultural moment.

Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Chris Kraus: After Kathy Acker

By Nicole Miller October 16, 2017

The novelist, critic, and biographer on radical localism, the art of compensation, and the editor as auteur.

Arts & CultureSex

Interview

Holly Fitzgerald: Lost in the Jungle Again

By Sadia Shepard October 5, 2017

Holly Fitzgerald discusses her memoir of a desperate month in the Peruvian wilderness.

Arts & CultureTravel & Adventure

Commentary

The Many Ivans

By Rowan Hisayo Buchanan September 14, 2017

Weiqing Yuan on being a Chinese street artist in Times Square

Arts & CultureWork & Money

Essay

Aughts

By Jasmine Dreame Wagner September 11, 2017

Recalling art, sex, and personal politics in the twenty-first century.

Arts & CultureUSA

Interview

Jeff VanderMeer: Life Apocalyptic

By Puloma Mukherjee August 7, 2017

The writer dubbed the “Weird Thoreau” on ecological fiction and the cult of climate-change denial.

Arts & CultureClimate & Environment

Review

When Loving New York Means Crying Over a Lunch Counter

By Eryn Loeb August 3, 2017

Jeremiah Moss's blog-turned-book stands as an impassioned work of advocacy on behalf of a city that’s slipping away.

AmericasArts & Culture

Report

Eating with the Enemy

By Lilly Lampe July 31, 2017

“Every American has a relationship with Iraq,” says artist Michael Rakowitz, the creator of Enemy Kitchen, “whether they like it or not.”

Arts & CultureConflict

Review

The Tangled World of Bodies

By Jenessa Abrams July 26, 2017

Danya Kukafka’s debut novel brings new depth to the tropes of the thriller

Arts & Culture

Interview

Mithkal Alzghair: Dancing Displacement

By Sara Elkamel July 25, 2017

The Syrian choreographer on his latest performance.

Arts & CultureMENAPolitics

Interview

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

By Dan Sheehan and Téa Obreht July 20, 2017

Téa Obreht and Dan Sheehan consider the finest on-camera smooches.

The Kiss Arts & CultureSex

Interview

William E. Jones: Urgency and Impermanence

By Jordan A. Rothacker July 19, 2017

Filmmaker, artist, and writer William E. Jones discusses his new film.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Video ad Absurdum

By John Washington July 5, 2017

How a collection of fifteen thousand Jerry Maguire VHS tapes reveals the ugly underbelly of the media-entertainment industry.

Arts & CultureUSA

Interview

Victoria Redel: The Lifelong Power of Female Friendships

By Annie DeWitt June 27, 2017

The writer on making hard choices, being raised by feminists, and her latest novel's newfound wisdom.

Arts & CultureFamily & RelationshipsGender

Commentary

The Greater (Grater) Divide

By Roslyn Bernstein June 19, 2017

Considering recent contemporary art in Israel.

Arts & CultureMENA

Essay

Nina Simone in Liberia

By Katherina Grace Thomas June 19, 2017

The singer went to Africa, she said, in search of peace, or a husband, or maybe the feeling of home.

AfricaArts & Culture

Essay

The Seedcake Kiss

By Gabe Habash June 16, 2017

On Bloomsday, reflecting on the famous kiss.

The Kiss Arts & Culture

Commentary

August Sander: The Intimacy of Time

By Alex Zafiris June 15, 2017

The singular power of portraiture's 20th century master.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Tine Thing Helseth: Listening to the Heart and Mind of a Musical Genius

By Emily Fragos June 15, 2017

Norway’s foremost trumpet soloist plays without a safety net.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Amy Benson: Like a Cloud You Walk Into and Then Out of Again

By Julia Bosson June 11, 2017

The essayist on the first person and the end of humanity.

Arts & CultureClimate & Environment

Interview

Osama Alomar: The Whole World Is Fighting

By Nissa Rhee June 9, 2017

The novelist on Syria, censorship, and the safety—and power—of metaphor.

Arts & CultureMENA

Interview

Julia Fierro: Only People Can Let Us Down

By Jane Ratcliffe June 7, 2017

The novelist on her struggle with mental health, the limits of empathy, and the necessity of suffering.

Arts & CultureClassRace

Commentary

The Afterlife of the Party

By Chloe Lizotte June 5, 2017

What the late Glenn O'Brien can teach us about grieving online.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Mother Tongue

By Yoojin Grace Wuertz June 5, 2017

For a bilingual new mother, parenting becomes an experiment in identity—both her child's and her own.

Arts & CultureFamily & Relationships

Interview

Aurora De Armendi: Where Is the Center of the Ocean?

By Meaghan Winter June 5, 2017

The Cuban American artist on migration, detention, and what it means to ask open-ended questions.

Arts & CultureConflict

Review

A Cross-generational Curse

By Kyle Paoletta May 30, 2017

Exploring the Ugandan imagination in Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi’s debut novel.

AfricaArts & CultureRace

Fiction

Isadora

By Amelia Gray May 15, 2017

She left the tobacco tin on his desk but brought the book to him, holding it pinched at the base of its spine like a rat she intended to thrash against a wall.

Arts & CultureEurope

Interview

Sara Erenthal: Salvage Sketching

By Lauren LeBlanc May 11, 2017

The artist on her public works, relationship with her faith, and art as an escape.

Arts & Culture

Review

Tense Because We Lived

By Tracy O’Neill May 9, 2017

On Robert Lopez's latest novel.

Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Thana Faroq: The Streets Are Not Empty

By Joanna Naples-Mitchell May 6, 2017

The photographer and visual storyteller on daily life during conflict in Yemen, the necessity of conversation, and why she’s not a war photographer.

Arts & CultureConflictMENA

Review

Book of Revelations: On Patricia Lockwood’s Memoir Priestdaddy

By Eryn Loeb May 2, 2017

What does it do to a person to have a priest for a father?

Arts & CultureReligion

Interview

Piotr Florczyk: Gateways To Sentience

By Susan Kay Anderson, David Axelrod, and James Benton April 25, 2017

The poet, translator, and essayist on his latest collection of poems.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Marc Ribot: Barriers to Participation

By Farhad Mirza and Anna Calori April 3, 2017

The musician and activist on the creative life of cities, the fight for economic justice in the digital era, and his quest to rescue public spaces from corporate gangsters and antipluralist militants.

Arts & CultureClassJustice

Interview

Siri Hustvedt: Both Sides of the Chasm

By Meara Sharma April 3, 2017

The novelist and science writer on gender in publishing, the pleasures of neuroscience, and the necessity of rage.

Arts & CultureHealth

Interview

Robert Capa and Gerda Taro: Partners in Love and Photography

By Jennifer Gersten March 29, 2017

A new book by Marina Budhos and Marc Aronson sheds light on an unsung collaboration.

Arts & CultureEurope

Review

Bad Memory

By Emily Mitchell March 23, 2017

A review of Dan Chaon's third novel Ill WIll.

Arts & Culture

Essay

Nothing to See Here

By Yxta Maya Murray March 20, 2017

On Robert Barry's "Untitled."

Arts & CultureRace

Commentary

Balam Ajpu: Mayan Hip-Hop’s Political Agenda

By José García Escobar March 20, 2017

"When people feel our passion, they offer theirs.”

AmericasArts & Culture

Commentary

Mexico’s Drive-Out Cinemas

By Kurt Hollander March 17, 2017

In Mexico, watching cinema on wheels.

AmericasArts & CultureTechnology & the Future

Interview

Jami Attenberg: Listening to Write

By Sarah Hoenicke March 17, 2017

“No one was entitled to anything in this life; not the least of all, love.” – The Middlesteins

Arts & CultureFamily & Relationships

Interview

Kameelah Rasheed: Who Will Survive in America?

By Imani Roach March 6, 2017

The visual artist on “the stutter” in history, strategic opacity, and Black Women Artists for Black Lives Matter.

Arts & CulturePoliticsRace

Commentary

In The Salesman, the Dark Drama of Everyday Life

By Sholeh Wolpé February 27, 2017

The Iranian Oscar winner for best foreign film is a suspenseful meditation on the nature of truth.

Oscars 2017 Arts & Culture

Fiction

Foster Homeland

By Shastri Akella February 27, 2017

Amid the ruins, against the overcast sky, the book spines rose like a bouquet of roses.

Arts & CultureConflictFamily & Relationships

Profile

I, Cyborg

By Jennifer Gersten February 27, 2017

The leaders of the cyborg movement invite humanity to design itself. What happens if we accept?

The Future of the Body Arts & CultureBodies & NatureTechnology & the Future

Essay

Roger Ebert, Wikipedia Editor

By Quenton Miller February 23, 2017

Why would the most influential critic of his generation post opinions anonymously in a distant corner of the Internet?

Arts & Culture

Review

Against La La Land

By Jess Goldschmidt February 23, 2017

Damien Chazelle’s so-called homage to movie musicals carelessly pillages a fraught form, reifying the tradition’s latent racism, classism, and sexism.

Oscars 2017 Arts & CultureHistoryRaceUSA

Comics

Artists Meeting for Cultural Change

By Joey Perr February 21, 2017

On artists fighting back.

Arts & CulturePolitics

Commentary

The Transcendental Face of Art

By Joshua Sperling February 15, 2017

On John Berger, a writer of our time.

Arts & Culture

Review

Cranky, Creative, and Controversial

By Roslyn Bernstein February 9, 2017

Recalling artists' collectives of the late ’50s and early ’60s.

Arts & CultureHistoryUSA

Essay

Journeying with James Baldwin

By Raoul Peck February 1, 2017

A Personal Note From the Director of I Am Not Your Negro.

AmericasArts & CultureLit World

Interview

Dana Tai Soon Burgess: American Tapestry

By Marisa Nakasone January 30, 2017

The choreographer on making dance accessible and foregrounding Asian American stories

Arts & CultureAsia & OceaniaUSA

Interview

Vivek Shraya: Beyond Margins

By RL Goldberg January 9, 2017

The artist, writer, filmmaker, and singer on transcending binaries to create works of empathy and protest.

Arts & CultureGenderRace

Interview

G Douglas Barrett: Beyond Sound

By Melody Nixon December 26, 2016

The artist and theorist on the possibilities for music after sound.

Arts & CultureGenderTechnology & the Future

Commentary

Paul Bowles & the Music of Morocco

By Henry Peck December 23, 2016

The writer’s archive of traditional Moroccan music finds a new outlet.

Arts & CultureHistoryMENA

Photography

The Other Colombia

By Nadège Mazars December 19, 2016

A photographic portrait of war, peace, and life in the countryside.

AmericasArts & CultureConflictGender

Interview

Clive Oppenheimer: Werner Herzog’s True Virgil

By Rebecca Bates December 16, 2016

The volcanologist on "red water," white whales, and the center of the earth.

Arts & CultureClimate & Environment

Interview

Kate Harris: Beyond Borders

By Sarah Tory December 13, 2016

The Canadian writer on the allure of remote landscapes and what we learn when man-made boundaries fail.

Arts & CultureClimate & Environment

Interview

Krys Lee: Artificial Divides

By R.O. Kwon December 12, 2016

The author on North Korean border towns and writing fiction that seeks the unknown.

Arts & CultureAsia & OceaniaFamily & Relationships

Review

Charlotte Moorman Exposed

By Roslyn Bernstein November 15, 2016

A gallery pays tribute to the avant-garde cellist and artist.

Arts & Culture

Commentary

Night Train to Split

By Peter Orner November 8, 2016

The books that haunt us.

Arts & CultureFamily & RelationshipsLit World

Interview

Alexandra Kleeman: Anatomy of the Bizarre

By Puloma Mukherjee November 3, 2016

The author on absurdity, empathy, and vegetarianism.

Arts & Culture

Interview

When Ann Patchett Is Emperor

By Erica Wright November 3, 2016

The writer on America’s fear culture, bookstores as community builders, and why writers should care about their character more than their characters.

Arts & Culture

Commentary

Art & History

By John Reed November 1, 2016

And why it's ok to play with Manson Family Paper Dolls.

Arts & Culture

Interview

Paul Beatty: I See You

By Chris Paul Wolfe October 27, 2016

The winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize for Fiction on truth and contradiction, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and the elusive gauge of progress in America.

Arts & CultureLit WorldRace

Interview

The Revolutionaries Try Again

By Charlotte Whittle October 25, 2016

The writer on the lives of cosmopolitan migrants, Latin American fiction, and the therapeutic limitations of testimony.

AmericasArts & CultureLit World

Interview

Chloe Caldwell: My Favorite Songs Are Like Personal Essays

By Andrew Bombeck October 20, 2016

On Music: The author on her latest essay collection and its musical influences.

Arts & CultureLit World

Interview

Girl on Girl Collective: Drawing Attention

By Lauren LeBlanc October 18, 2016

The Girl on Girl art collective’s pink feminist newsstand.

Arts & CultureGenderLit WorldWork & Money