All Articles
Re-embodying Palestinian Memory
A recent flourishing of Palestinian literature reckons with complications in historical memory caused by settler colonialism.
Solidarity Is a Process: Talking with Kelly Lytle Hernandez, Josh Kun, and Destin Jenkins
Public Thinker: Hua Hsu on Reading until You See Double
When Black Humanity Is Denied
Critiquing the Enlightenment is essential, because there the asylum, prison, and science itself unveil their violent foundations.
What Can Latin American Journalism Teach the U.S.?
Stop Reading like a Critic
Think about your favorite book. Now ask yourself: Would you admit this to others? Most would share—but literature professors are not most people.
Anticipating Extinction in the Tales of Two Fish
Deciding to not order the tuna or eel at a restaurant won’t save those dying species. But imagining a new kind of “multispecies thriving” might.
Who Killed Nordic Noir?
Scandinavian crime novels once showed how society failed its citizens. Today, the genre innovates differently—by depicting more violence.
Users of the World, Unite?
Critical examinations of the internet too often focus on the successes and failures of corporate leaders, rather than on the real constituents of online communities.
Dirty Essays, Clean Essays
Recently translated essay collections underscore how sanitized ethical language has become in the last 60 to 70 years.
Think like a Virus
Rather than accepting that a virus will come, we can learn how viruses live and thrive—and work to suppress them before they take off.
The Black Rebel Athlete: Spectacle and Protest
As more and more protests make clear, the bodies of Black people playing sports are not outside history. Indeed, they never have been.
Leïla Slimani’s Taboos
Franco-Moroccan writer Leïla Slimani reveals the dirty underside of bourgeois domesticity. Is her taboo breaking worthy of praise?
Public Thinker: Shobita Parthasarathy on Why We Need to Diversify Expertise
“Somewhere in This Brain”: Memories of Segregation, Soul Music & “Macbeth” with Al Bell
The Dark Matter of Digital Health
Digital health is solidifying the divide between those whose health is valued and those whose health is ignored.
Counterhistories of the Sport Stadium
As large spaces where different sectors of the city converge, stadiums are sites of social and political struggle.
Pandemic Syllabus
Disease has never been merely a biological phenomenon. Instead, all illnesses—including COVID-19—are social problems for humans to solve.
Merit Must Fall
What does “merit” mean in a context—like India—where caste pervades public life?
