Essay

The Portrait Gallery

By Ann Patchett,

What the American Academy of Arts and Letters taught me about death

The Third Force

By Garret Keizer,

On stupidity and transcendence

Men in Dark Times

By Rebecca Panovka,

How Hannah Arendt’s fans misread the post-truth presidency

History As End

By Matthew Karp,

1619, 1776, and the politics of the past

A Complicating Energy

By Elisa Gabbert,

Notes on a year without strangers

When Children Die

By Perri Klass,

Tragedies in the margins of history

Prayer for a Just War

By Greg Jackson,

Finding meaning in the climate fight

Devils in the Deep

By Jill Bialosky,

On suicide and Moby-Dick

Il Maestro

By Martin Scorsese,

Federico Fellini and the lost magic of cinema

The Silenced Majority

By Rana Dasgupta,

Can America still afford democracy?

Is America Ungovernable?

By David Bromwich,

The difference between protest and reform

Making Meaning

By Garth Greenwell,

Against “relevance” in art

Nonconforming

By Laurent Dubreuil,

Against the erosion of academic freedom by identity politics

All My Pronouns

By Anne Fadiman,

How I learned to live with the singular they

The Lives of Others

By Richard Russo,

When does imagination become appropriation?

The Pessimistic Style in American Politics

By Thomas Frank,

And its eternal war on reform

Bright Stars

By Laila Lalami,

The unfulfilled promise of American citizenship

The Old Normal

By Andrew J. Bacevich,

Why we can’t beat our addiction to war

Trumpism After Trump

By Thomas Meaneeey,

Will the movement outlive the man?

Vicious Cycles

By Greg Jackson,

Theses on a philosophy of news

Body Language

By Alex Marzano-Lesnevich,

How to tell a genderqueer story

To Serve Is to Rule

By Doug Henwood,

Why we miss the WASPs

Is Poverty Necessary?

By Marilynne Robinson,

An idea that won’t go away

Where Our New World Begins

By Kevin Baker,

Politics, power, and the Green New Deal

Works of Mercy

By John Crowley,

The power of pastoral care

Whisperings

By David Means,

A writer alone with the work

The Story of Storytelling

By Ferris Jabr,

What the hidden relationships of ancient folktales reveal about their evolution—and our own

Machine Politics

By Fred Turner,

The rise of the internet and a new age of authoritarianism

The Gatekeepers

By Mychal Denzel Smith,

On the burden of the black public intellectual

Rebirth of a Nation

By Jonathan Taplin,

Can states’ rights save us from a second civil war?

From the Archive

Got it! Thanks for signing up!