American literature Archives

American literature

Campaign Literature

From a certain angle, Donald Trump’s presidency may not have moved the United States in entirely the wrong direction. One of the few areas to benefit from his stewardship, the…

Christopher Beha on Arts and Entertainments

by Jesse Barron,

Christopher Beha discusses sex tapes as literary vehicle, the celebrity impulse, and the problematic absence of religion in American literature

American Scolder

by John Stuart Mill,

From annotations written by John Stuart Mill on his personal copies of the first editions of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Essays, which were published in two volumes, in 1841 and 1844.…

The decline of gossip

by Joseph Epstein,

Death by icicle

by Patrick Dacey,

Wow, Fiction Works!

by Colson Whitehead,

By Colson Whitehead, from “James Root on How to Read,” part of a talk delivered last July at the Tin House Writers Workshop, in Portland, Oregon. Sag Harbor, Whitehead’s fourth…