Public Books unites the best of the university with the openness of the internet. The digital magazine was founded in 2012 by Sharon Marcus, a literature professor, and Caitlin Zaloom, an anthropologist. Their mission was simple: to publish writing that is erudite without being esoteric and brings scholarly depth to discussions of contemporary ideas, culture, and politics.
Public Books began with these precepts: that experts who devote their lives to mastering their subjects need to be heard. That it is desirable for academics to speak to a broader audience, and exciting for readers outside of the academy to debate what scholars have to say. Most importantly, that boundaries between disciplines and ways of knowing deserve to be bridged—and that barriers between the academy and the public deserve to be broken.
At Public Books, academics join with other public scholars, critics, and activists to make the life of the mind a public good.
Supporters
Since its inception in 2012, Public Books has been supported by Columbia University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Columbia University’s Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities, New York University’s Office of the Provost, New York University’s Institute for Public Knowledge, and Northwestern University’s Chabraja Center for Historical Studies.
Masthead
Founding Editors
Editors in Chief
Publisher and Managing Editor
Editorial Director
Associate Editor
Assistant Editor
Editors at Large
Web Developer
Lin Chen
Editorial Board
Geraldo Cadava
Nicholas Dames
Matthew Engelke
Frank Guridy
Eleanor Johnson
Sharon Marcus
Kelley Deane McKinney
Caitlin Zaloom
Advisory Board
Arianne Chernock
John Mulliken
Eric Rayman
Caitlin Zaloom (chair)
Section Editors
Anthropology & Religion
Antiquities
Art
Borderlands
Geraldo Cadava
A. Naomi Paik
Catherine S. Ramírez
Digital Humanities
Disability
Film
Global Black History
Marlene L. Daut
Tao Leigh Goffe
Higher Education
Literary Fiction
Literature in Translation
Poetry
Eleanor Johnson
Geoffrey G. O’Brien
Rowan Ricardo Phillips
Politics
Ivan Ascher
Joanne Randa Nucho
Print/Screen
Sociology
Sports
Frank Andre Guridy
Bécquer Seguín
Systems & Futures
Gretchen Bakke
Matthew Wolf-Meyer
Technology
TV
Urbanism
Past Editors
Art
Capitalism
Children’s & YA Literature
Comics
Food
Global Black History
Keisha N. Blain
Annette Joseph-Gabriel
Higher Education
literature in translation
Lives & Histories
Poetry
Public Streets
Ellis Avery (1972–2019)
Romance Novels
Sex
TV
Urbanism
Videogames
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From Our Readers
Public Books is witty, amazing, and brilliantly edited.
—Catharine Stimpson
Public Books opens up the space of online reviewing to new voices and forms. It reminds us that great cultural criticism does not require an army of agents, flacks, and insiders.
—Arjun Appadurai
It is a rare and precious thing to discover such a compelling space for the written word and the thinking reader.
—Judith Butler
Public Books has the pulse of literary and intellectual culture. It also has a cool website.
—Louis Menand
Public Books has quickly made itself indispensable and international. The reviews are spirited, unpredictable, and opinionated in all the right ways.
—Rob Nixon
Public Books takes the ancient craft of book reviewing and gives it a long overdue makeover: bright, ruminative, and accessible.
—Peter Mandler
Scholars talk so often about the need for a vibrant forum for intellectual debate on the future of the arts and humanities: Public Books is it.