Despite its massive commercialization, the world of football has never been about making a profit.
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Subaquatic Homesick Blues
A Taiwanese scifi novel—set under the sea, after the surface becomes unlivable—reveals the remarkable burst of cultural freedom in 1990s Taiwan.
When the Vibe Is Off
Which matters more, intent or interpretation? What if a juxtaposition of images in literature or art is just that—a chance encounter?
Public Thinker: Chawne Kimber on Constructing Quilts and Speaking History
"You cannot talk about race without talking about cotton. The materials that I use are desperately important as a layer of meaning in the work that I make."
Face Surveillance Was Always Flawed
The mugshot was invented in the 1880s. A century later, face surveillance has gone digital but remains as flawed as ever.
“Between the Experiment and the Essence”: Emma Ramadan Talks Translation
“For those of us who can feel unsettled in terms of identity, translation can feel like home.”
Brilliant Together: On Feminist Memoirs
Collective feminist narratives can acknowledge, to differing degrees, the stories that are missing from them.
This Land Is My Land
Many landowners view themselves as environmental stewards. But can the environment ever be protected within the frame of private property?
A Dad Cartoonist Travels into Factory Life
The artist comes as a class outsider to the factory, marveling at the complexity of its machinery and the dexterity and dangers of manual labor.
“Nomadland” Swerves from the Manly Road Movie
Repeatedly, the film shows this venturesome woman alone at all hours—yet never do we see her fearing or fending off assault.
Public Thinker: Merve Emre Throws a Party for Different Readers
“One way to think about the act of annotating is that you are that meddlesome party gossip, telling the reader how to draw connections between the different parts of the text.”
The Borderland between Language and Genre
Within western poetry, women writers of color—and their lived experiences—are not nearly as recognized nor represented as their white peers.
Mapping Utopia in the Dark: Matt Tierney on Literature and Technology
“This is not lowered expectations. It’s a wish for a mass normalization of resistance to deadly ways of looking at the world.”
Mission Impossible
The university has been changing, to be sure. But has the proportion of students who want to devote themselves to acts of humanistic creativity?
Freedom’s Stakes
Postwar culture was divided between “freedom” and “totalitarianism.” Or was it?
B-Sides: Janet Frame’s “Living in the Maniototo”
Few novels are so crammed with invention. Yet the interlocking richness of her ideas does not derail your reading.
Imagination or Regulation? Challenging the Incorporation of Antiracism as a Response to Crisis
The way we talk about racial justice matters. In fact, corporation’s embrace of antiracist slogans can actually advance racism.
To Teach Shakespeare for Survival: Talking with David Sterling Brown and Arthur L. Little Jr.
“Nostalgia is not what Shakespeare represents for me; I don’t want to make Shakespeare great again. He doesn’t need that, and neither do we.”
Quilting: An Archive of Hand, Eye, and Soul
Once, Black women employed textile arts both as a mutual aid network, and as a safe space to envision a Southern Black liberated life.
Antiracist Praxis
Antiracism challenges us to wholly reimagine what it means to study human and inhuman conditions in their various forms.