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Greek Tragedy

From stories submitted anonymously to the website hazedandconfused.com, describing the tasks reportedly carried out by undergraduates in pledging prospective fraternities or sororities. Visitors to the site are encouraged to vote…

Damage Control

by Ben Lerner,

The modern art world’s tyranny of price

If Memory Swerves

by Thomas Frank,

September 15 will mark five years since the beginning of the economic slump that defines the world we live in. Disaster was in the air already by that day in…

A Different Kind of Father

by Jonathan Franzen,

By Jonathan Franzen, from a footnote to his translation of “Nestroy and Posterity,” a 1912 essay by the Austrian satirist, playwright, poet, aphorist, and critic Karl Kraus (1874–1936). In the…

In the Republic

by Anonymous,

Photographs from Iran

Regarding the Fame of Others

by Jonathan Cott, Susan Sontag,

From previously unpublished excerpts of a 1978 interview with Susan Sontag by Jonathan Cott. An edited version of the interview appeared in the October 4, 1979, issue of Rolling Stone.…

Notes From Underground

Translated by Alan Yuhas,

From a May 23 expert-witness statement submitted as evidence in the trial of three members of the Russian activist collective Pussy Riot, who were sentenced in August to two years…

Ceci n’est pas une poop

From the 2011 testimony of Ira Isaacs, who was found guilty of obscenity in April, on charges relating to four videos he distributed through his company Stolen Car Films. Michael…

Piggy Bank

by William Styron,

From a June 8, 1972, letter by William Styron to Frederick Exley, the author of A Fan’s Notes, who was a guest lecturer at the University of Iowa that year.…

Just Us League

From recent emails sent to Roman Daniels, also known as Red Voltage, a leader of the Black Monday Society, a crime-fighting group that has been patrolling Salt Lake City in…

Ignorance of Things Past

by Lewis H. Lapham,

Who wins and who loses when we forget American history