A behind-the-scenes look at what Public Books editors and staff have been reading this month.
All Articles
What Folklore Erases: Under Columbus, Georgia
The current owner of the Lion House is happy to let rumors about his property’s basement passageway simmer.
Love and Other Liberties
Libertie presents a revolutionary vision of what life could be like for Black women in the 19th century.
The Manifest Destiny of Computing
Today is overwhelmingly defined by white-supremacist violence and the whiteness of AI technology. Can seeing them together help defeat them both?
What Does Erotica Reveal about Society? Talking with Pernilla Myrne
Heritage Studies after Said
The Middle East must no longer be defined through the lens of decolonization and the agendas of perpetrators.
Like a Viking
According to Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, the Vikings aren’t like the stereotypes you’ve heard. Nonetheless, the game lets you play as those stereotypes. Why?
“Reality Entails Risks That Fiction Doesn’t Know”: Talking with Everardo González
Hilton Head Island—Haunted by Its Own History
Thoreau in Good Faith
The writer went to Walden to reorient his world, so that the woods, rather than the town, centered his spiritual map.
Open Letters, Open Secrets: Laurence Ralph on Police Torture in Chicago
The Ten Thousand Things
“I am supposed to be writing this essay, ostensibly on technology, but not for the first time, I believe I am unable to write; and not writing, doubt that I will I ever write again.”
Criminalized Borders and US Health-Care Profits
The pandemic took the health inequalities generated by US imperialism, and made them worse.
A Collapse No One Story Can Tell
Ten years since the 2011 Syrian uprising, there has been a veritable literary boom of fiction writing from Syria. What does it reveal?
How to Dream beyond Oil
Energy sources shape, rather than simply serve, our social and cultural imaginaries. Recognizing this poses a different set of challenges for how we might contend with our current planetary emergency.
Let Families and Communities Seek Asylum Together
Refuge: Denied. Asylum: Pending
The United States originates in settler colonialism, slavery, empire, and a long history of giving refuge to some while refusing refuge to others.
Borders Don’t Stop Violence—They Create It
The “border” is not a line on the ground, but a tool to enable violence and surveillance.
Abolish Migrant Prisons: A Manifesto
So long as the state can criminalize movement and eliminate groups deemed undesirable, no one is free.
From “Crisis” to Futurity
Introducing a new series to push forward our thinking and action about immigration and borders.